I get many e-mails from Merry Oakley regarding various things and events in the life of Community Church but the dreaded "Newsletter is due" one strikes fear in my life. Suddenly it is upon me and I have to get my material to her before Tuesday and here it is Monday morning with several other things on the calendar like a physical therapy session which will take at least a couple of hours: going through the other e mails and marking up-coming events on the calendar and then it finally gets back to Merry and the Tuesday deadline. It starts... "What am I going to write about this month?" ...Can't use that as I have already written about that. It is past the high and holy days of the Church year and the only thing in the coming weeks will be Pentecost and we are almost too close to write about that... Rack your brain, Rev.. Come on... you have only today to meet that Tuesday deadline, and so I sit and think.
Back to breakfast this morning; a couple of nice fresh eggs from the Nerones with a piece of toast and a cup of fresh coffee but as I sit and enjoy that, I look out at the humming bird feeder that sways gently in the morning winds. No one has visited it yet and I was wondering where they are and if they will remember my labors of love from last year as I kept the feeders clean and full of the nectar they so quickly consumed. I wonder where they are now. Too cold for them and they are someplace down south where it is warm and pleasant, so they say. "Don't hurry as it is still cold in New York." I wonder if they will remember the way to our feeders and is there a special date or day when they begin their journey northward to return to our yards and the feeders and flowers that await them. I wonder...but now I can no longer dilly-dally in the breakfast break as it is time to journey into the office to check the computer and there is the e-mail from Merry. Get it here by Tuesday!
My mind goes back to the feeder as it swings gently in the breeze.... It is my lesson in patience for the day.... be patient, don't hurry and don't worry, it will take care of itself. Consider the lilies of the field... God takes care of them...be patient... They will find their way back north and build nests and raise their young. They will fascinate me over and over as I sit and watch them come to the feeders and then bring their new born to teach them how to get to the nectar in that bright container just outside of our kitchen window... A friend of mine, Earl McClane often said that you should start getting feeders out for them when the forsythia is in bloom. Mine is there, waiting, and I need to learn the patience that does not anticipate but accepts how things will be and how they work out. I have done my part and the rest is up to them and the God who guides them and also guides me. Even as they rely upon His guidance and the instinct that He has placed in the humming bird, I must once again learn my patience and find the guidance that He gives to me as one of His children. He guides us all. He leads us. He works His will at His time and in His pace, and ours is to find patience to wait, watch and see His working... So I wait for the return of the humming birds and I know they will come, even if I am not as patient as I should be. Maybe, just maybe, they know more about when they should return than I do.... so I wait... I also wait for the return of Jenny wren, but that is a whole new story of different times and days and more patience. It is a virtue, one of the hardest we have to learn...wait!