"Hear the bird of the Lord" in Lent

  “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing?  

Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?  And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life?

Matthew 6:25-27

Courtney Ellis is a pastor and writer in California, a woman who appears to be "young" from my geezerly perspective. Yet she was the one to make a "Dad Joke" invitation for Lent recently, one I really like. 

She suggests that during Lent, which begins with Ash Wednesday, today, that we "hear the bird of the Lord". 

Lent begins Wednesday. This year, instead of fasting from something, I’m going to add in a simple, 10-minute daily exercise of stillness, awareness, and expectation.

Bird watching. Anyone want to join me in waiting for a daily “bird from the Lord”?

Well, I love this notion. We have an abundance of bird feeders visible through our family room windows and there have been times through the gloom of Winter when these creatures lift our spirits immeasurably through their tenacity -- if they can do it, so can we. Lent is a time for intention and attention, so this is a spiritual practice which resonates with me. And having heard on Monday through the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report that the planet is in greater peril than we had previously imagined I need the encouragement of the "birds of the air" even more. 

I would suggest that answering this invitation would actually involve a form of fasting if we choose to put aside our phones and other distractions. And who doesn't need that? 

May we all be "bird nerd" Groundlings for the Creator through the weeks of Lent. 

“But ask the animals, and they will teach you;
    the birds of the air, and they will tell you;
8 ask the plants of the earth,and they will teach you;
    and the fish of the sea will declare to you.
9 Who among all these does not know
    that the hand of the Lord has done this?
10 In his hand is the life of every living thing
    and the breath of every human being.

                         Job 12: 7-10