I Watch

I live in a little cedar cottage, nestled into the forest in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains. I am richly blessed.

In middle school, I devoured the "Billy Jack" movies. In one of them Billy Jack spoke to an Indian Elder, sitting beneath a desert mountain. The old man gestured to the mountain and told Billy to look carefully. After a brief while, he told him to look away and then look back. He asked if anything had changed and Billy replied that it had not. The elder resoponded that that was where Billy was wrong....things change all the time. "If you look carefully, you can see them ".

I have been watching ever since....perhaps before......

I get up long before the sun...God wakes me to start my day in conversation. You see, I am one of his beloved children. Sometimes He wakes me with His moonlight. I rise to watch her set over the big lake, to my right. Each morning, I watch Him paint the sky to my left, over a small lake. The forest in front of me gently murmers with the rush of a waterfall as the birds and peeps begin their daily song. I know most by their call and where many of them live. I know when the geese will leave and where they will go for the night. Soon they will head north for the summer, but I know they will be back next autumn. The towhees have already passed back through and the bluebirds have returned. The pterodactile-like herons make their daily round-trips across my home as they pass from lake to lake.

I watch.

In the evening, I watch the above scene. The herons make their return flight and spring peeps begin their evening song. I know when to watch for the beavers and what their routine is....

I am richly blessed and I watch.