Bird Songs in the Storm - March 18
Today’s Readings: AM Psalm 95 [for the Invitatory] 69:1-23(24-30)31-38; PM Psalm 73
Gen. 43:1-15; 1 Cor. 7:1-9; Mark 4:35-41
Today’s Reflection
As for me, I am afflicted and in pain; your help, O God, will lift me up on high.
I will praise the Name of God in song; I will proclaim his greatness with thanksgiving. —Psalm 69: 31-32
As I sit here in early morning hours at my kitchen counter to write this reflection, it is still dark outside. But I hear the beginnings of a thunderstorm brewing and as the rain is beginning to fall. The sound of the thunder, though it is still too dark to see the clouds in the sky, prompted me to check the weather app on my phone, revealing that we have a very tempestuous, rain-soaked day ahead. And yet, even with all these sounds and signs of a stormy day, I hear something else in the quiet of the morning: I hear birds singing perched amongst all the trees of my backyard.
Even as the thunder continues to rumble, these birds are continuing to sing—and not only that, but what sounded at first as a single bird or maybe two, when I opened my backdoor to hear them more clearly, I could tell that more and more birds were joining in. I wondered what birds I was hearing, singing and calling to one another in the darkness and the thunder before daybreak. I took out my Cornell bird app and held it out into the darkness to get a sampling of the sounds, and quickly I learned I was hearing Carolina Wrens, Northern Cardinals, Purple Finches, and American Robins. It’s a beautiful choir of bird voices being raised just outside my windows, even as the lightning is beginning to flash and the thunderstorms are moving in for the rest of the morning.
The Psalm we read for this morning is also about a day where waters are rising up to the psalmist’s neck, maybe a thunderstorm has brought with it a flood not unlike the one likely to overcome my flood-prone street this morning. For the first 13 verses of this 38-verse psalm, the psalmist is describing how overwhelmed and full of despair they are feeling as they look around at the circumstances they are facing. Here’s a sampling: “Save me, O God, for the waters have risen up to my neck. I am sinking in deep mire, and there is no firm ground for my feet. I have come into deep waters, and the torrent washes over me. I have grown weary with my crying; my throat is inflamed; my eyes have failed from looking for my God” (vv. 1-4).
But then in verse 14, the psalmist’s lament takes a turn into a different theme, moving from a description of how hard things are and into remembering that God is there and realizing that God can be turned to for help: “But as for me, this is my prayer to you, at the time you have set, O Lord: ‘In your great mercy, O God,
answer me with your unfailing help. Save me from the mire; do not let me sink; let me be rescued from those who hate me and out of the deep waters. Let not the torrent of waters wash over me, neither let the deep swallow me up; do not let the Pit shut its mouth upon me. Answer me, O Lord, for your love is kind; in your great compassion, turn to me’” (vv. 14-18). The psalmist then gets distracted by complaining to God about adversaries for a long stretch, in verses 19-30—even in ancient days people got under each other’s skin, distracting them from more important things (sounds familiar, yes?).
Eventually, once the psalmist gets those complaints out of their system, we return to a strong sense that God is there, holding out love and grace and acceptance to us, even as life’s storms make the waters rise up to our necks, threatening to knock us off our feet, and even as adversaries make us frustrated and annoyed and miserable at times. In the end, the psalmist takes heart and is reminded to trust in God, who is faithful and abounding in steadfast love for each one of us—especially when the rains are falling fast, and the floods are rising up all around us. I hope that just as the torrents are beginning to come down as I finish writing this reflection now, just after 7 o’clock this morning, that we can find a way to keep singing as the rain comes down and the thunder booms:
As for me, I am afflicted and in pain;
your help, O God, will lift me up on high.
I will praise the Name of God in song;
I will proclaim his greatness with thanksgiving. …
For the Lord listens to the needy,
and his prisoners he does not despise.
Let the heavens and the earth praise him,
the seas and all that moves in them. (vv. 31-32, 35-36)
Becky+
Questions for Self-Reflection
Just as we can hear birds singing even as the rain and thunder come, what signs of hope have you seen even in the midst of challenging times?
Daily Challenge
Pick one or two verses from Psalm 69 that seem most meaningful to you. Find a piece of paper on which you can copy it out in your own writing, and then keep coming back to the verse throughout the day or the week to begin to memorize it and make it your own.