Artist Kelley McManus added the crow after creating this image for a children's curriculum
In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him.
And a voice came from heaven, "You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased."
And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness.He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.
Mark 1:9-13 NRSVue
The six weeks of the Christian liturgical season of Lent often takes from Winter into Spring, as the days lengthen or "lencten" (the Old English source of the word Lent.) Because Easter is a moveable feast, related to the moon of the Spring equinox, Ash Wednesday may be more wintry on one year than another.
Our Lenten journey has many aspects, including our Sunday readings and encouragement to take on disciplines or to abstain from certain things through the season. There is also an invitation to pay attention to what we experience along the way, through all our senses.
This year, 2024, the Great Backyard Bird Count gets underway today and continues through what is the Family Day long weekend in Ontario. To that end there is a seminar at our local library this afternoon on attracting birds to our yards and our feeders for observation. As with many old-timers, we have a number of feeders that are visible from our family room. We experience the variety of birds seen in the needlework piece given to me by a parishioner years ago, and more -- there was a red-bellied woodpecker at a peanut feeder recently. We noticed that they were all more active before the snow began to fall yesterday.
Vicki Stephens needlework
After our trip to Israel last April I had a greater appreciation of Jesus' wilderness experience and the birds he might have seen during those forty days -- birds are "wild beasts" aren't they?
Okay, this wasn't exactly his backyard -- it was rugged terrain -- but he couldn't have helped but notice the surprising variety of birds we saw when we were roaming around in the Negev desert and in the hills along the Dead Sea. I imagine there were a few vultures soaring above, checking out whether he was still moving. And yes, we visited what might have been Jesus' place of baptism in the Jordan River, although we didn't spot any doves.
We can "consider the birds of the air" with our eyes and our ears through Lent, and even take the time to identify them.
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