Liltingly it drifts on the gentle breeze.

The spring song of the birds.

In hedgerows, from treetops, under bushes tipped palely green. They sing trill whistle call chirp, tiny feathers ruffled in the air. The symphony crescendos, wafts away on the wind, floats back.

Happiness sounds in each note.

I stand still the better to hear it. Something in me responding, lifted by this music.

These birds sing because they have songs in them to release. Notes to utter. It is the best thing that they can do, to sing right now. To sing because.

And their music is balm, soothingly uplifting. Deafening in its persistence.

And so I too sing. Trill and chirp and tweet within my soul. And the song becomes MY song, the attitude of my heart. Inexpressible, uplifting, known only unto God. So it changes me.

I have listened.

I have sung.

I will remember.

Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, “I find no pleasure in them”— before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars grow dark,….. when people rise up at the sound of birds, but all their songs grow faint. Ecclesiastes 12:1,2,4

THE SONG OF THE BIRD

The disciples were full of questions about God.

Said the Master, “God is Unknown, the Unknowable. Every statement about Him, every answer to your questions, is a distortion of the Truth.”

The disciples were bewildered. “Then why do you speak about Him at all?”

“Why does the bird sing?” said the Master. 

Not because he has a statement, but because he has a song.

The words of the Scholar are to be understood. The words of the Master are not to be understood. They are to be listened to as one listens to the wind in the trees and the sound of the river and the song of the bird.

They will awaken something within the heart that is beyond all knowledge.

- Anthony de Mello S. J.