The Music Box Dancer

Psalm 131:2 -- "Surely I have composed and quieted my soul; like a weaned child rests against his mother."

The sun tries to climb up over the horizon and the morning has that still feeling to it.  The wind isn't blowing, and the Starlings that mob my bird feeders haven't come out of the neighbor's tree yet.  Sitting in the wood rocker on the back porch, I take a deep breath.  I can smell the ocean.  I love that smell.  I love mornings like these.  The ones that start off quiet and still with the ocean dancing in on the air.

Female Downy Woodpecker

As I take a sip of coffee from my favorite cup I see my Downy Woodpecker female timidly approach the suet I hung in the little Magnolia tree next to the pond.  I smile.  I haven't seen her in a while because the Starlings [an introduced species, by the way] tend to run her off.

I have composed a quiet soul this morning.  I have to admit that it doesn't happen very often.

On this morning as I breath in the beach and witness the world begin wake up, The Music Box Dancer playes around in my head and I think of something the theologian, John Calvin said. "The stability of the world depends on this rejoicing of God in His works."

I hear the old, wooden legs of the rocker creek against the stone tiles on the porch.  I'm watching the wonders of God's works all around me.  The female wood pecker takes off, the Canadian geese [whom I have very cleverly dubbed Mr. & Mrs. Canada] come up to the porch door and honk for me to give them breakfast [yes, they have me well trained].  The rest of the house-hold is still asleep and I have time to be still. To be thankful.

I ponder a world without stability, a world with economies crashing in crumbled, crushed dreams, a world full of wars fought over power and land-hungry men, a world in which people get cancer and marriages fall apart.  A world that can very truly only be stable when rejoicing in God.

This morning, before the crazy starts and I get all caught up in it....I sit on the back porch with a quiet soul and marvel in the glory of God.  The stability of my day depends on this moment.  The stability of the whole world depends on each one of us rejoicing in God and His works.