One Note Birds

Today is a beautiful early January day. The temperature is in the low 40's and the sun is shining. Walking from our home to the church, I heard a bird with a distinctive song, a 'one-note song', singing for all it was worth: dee-dee, dee-dee, dee-dee. On the musical scale (and I checked it out on a keyboard that I keep in my office) the note is a B natural. Not a B flat, not a C, but a B natural. Dee-dee, dee-dee, dee-dee . . . over and over and over again. No variation in pitch, no variation in rhythm, and no variation in number of 'dee-dee's', just three times and a break, three times and a break. As pretty a song as it was, and it was a pretty song, light and lilty, I couldn't help but wonder if this particular bird just didn't learn the rest of the notes to the music! How many times can one bird sing one song consisting of one note?! The notion of it made me laugh out loud . . . and the laughter made me think of God's blessings.

What a blessed song this particular bird is singing, especially when that song is capable of making people laugh in wonder! What a majestic God of abundant imagination it is who creates such a bird whose song is capable of lifting the spirits of God's people who listen! And, what a blessing it is that the song is there, available for our ears to hear, ready for our souls to receive, eager for our hearts to lift.

I have been critical of one-note birds before, especially when they are in the church. You know, the one-note birds who keep beating the same issue over and over again, never letting up, never changing their song, never changing their pitch, always singing it in your ear whether you want to hear it or not, until you reach a point when you think you are just going to explode if you hear that song one more time! Whew! Sadly, many of the one-note birds in the church are more concerned about personal agendas and pet projects than with singing the song God has placed in their heart to share with the world. Many of those one-note birds are far less concerned with filling the world with the beauty and laughter of their God than with filling the world with the 'wisdom and insight' of their years. Those one-note birds have the unique capacity to transform God's creative imagination and abundant grace into the workings of institutional drudgery and dogmatic enslavement . . . and that is a song that need not be sung, at least in my ears.

Yet, this day's beautiful and amazing gift of the one-note bird, singing brightly on a sunny January morning, reminds me that we are all given a song to sing which reflects God's presence in our lives - and ours is the choice, whether or not we will sing God's song or transpose it into a composition of our own limited creativity. I am convinced that the world will be able to tell the difference in which song is being sung in what places, for where there is laughter, beauty and blessing, abundantly shining for all to share, there is God . . . and where you can't wait for the song to be over, well, I think you get the picture.

Here's to the song of your life being one that puts a smile, with laughter, in the hearts of God and your fellow sojourners on the path of faith!

Your servant in Christ,

Pastor Don