I get lots of emails every day, a hundred or more. Most do not require a lot of thought or response.
“Can we meet this week?” “Will you make coffee for the third cousins of the Sons of Norway group meeting?” “Nice sermon.” “Bad sermon.” “I had no idea what that sermon was supposed to mean.”
The email response to the comments above would be: Yes! Yes! Thanks! Sorry. I am not sure what my point was either.
However, late last night Laura Canby sent me a poem that she had just composed. It spoke of singing birds and the beauty of God’s creation. It ended with the contemplation of a new day on the blue planet. “What is my song for this day?”
What a nice thought. What a nice way to start my morning. We have a choice to make each day. We get to choose what song we will sing. Sometimes the winds of grief give us little choice but to sing the blues. But most of the time, we can choose between songs of praise and happiness or songs of despair. We can choose to focus on abundance, or we can choose to focus on scarcity.
As we approach this weekend I would encourage you to take inventory of your life. Start by giving thanks—take some time and really consider the blessings that greet you each day. Thank God and then go out of your way to sing a song of thanks to everyone that God puts in your path that day.
Choose to sing songs of praise. Songs of praise bring out the sunshine. Songs of praise have a way of putting the blues back where they belong. By any measure we are blessed—but we are never blessed in isolation. Recognize your blessedness, and then be a blessing to others.
What is my song this day? You tell me.
This Sunday we have an amazingly beautiful and touching service planned. The morning will be marked by great music, life giving fellowship, Holy Communion and the recognition of our 2018 Graduates.
Worship at 8:00 and 10:00 am. Then send me an email and let me know what you think.
Love, Pastor Jim
The Dawn Chorus
Light, soft and growing,
enters through
my bedroom windows.
Outside, in tall cedars and firs
the dawn chorus begins.
Up-tilted, open throats
compete for
loudest song
or sweetest
or most insistent
to greet this fresh day.
A cacophonous choir
of birds sing for,
— for perhaps sheer surprise
at another day’s creation,
or just the sublime joy
of adding their own
signature song to the world.
And I, I struggle with
whether to stretch
and rise or
sink back and
pull the covers
up around my neck,
open-mouthed in yawn,
wondering,
–What is my song for this day?
LA Canby -2018
