After the storm

It's been two weeks now. This morning the sun is shining, the temperatures are close to 70º (around 20ºC), and the birds are singing. Out of journalistic honesty, I have a couple of things to say about the above picture: l) it wasn't taken here; and 2) it wasn't taken by me.

Our son, Jeff, who lives in Dallas, sent this picture of a cedar waxwing that showed up at the house to eat holly berries. As a way of saying "thank you", he sat still so Jeff could snap his picture. This does not mean the birds are not singing here, however. They don't happen to be as bold as this waxwing, so photos are harder to come by. AND...the bird we hear most often around our house sings in the middle of the night!

More often than I like, I find myself sitting at the computer translating into the wee hours of the morning and beyond, when the morning hours are not so wee, until well after daybreak. It's not uncommon to hear the melodic song of a blackbird at 2:30 or 4:00 in the morning. He was at it again this morning at 5:00 when I woke up during the night. Sitting in the dark among the branches of a nearby tree, he sings for all he's worth, and many times the wind is blowing and the rain is coming down. (I am not sure of the exact species of the bird, but I call him a blackbird, because that's what he is: a black bird.)

When the sun is shining and the air is warm and the breeze is refreshing, it may even be hard for us to keep from singing. But I think of our blackbird and wonder how many of us would sing just as loudly and cheerfully in the dark, on a bleak and stormy night, or in a prison cell, like Paul and Silas.