Whenever I Hear......

These past few mornings I have awakened to the most lovely song of a bird.  He trills out into the dark morning with (it would seem) no expectation of a response.  I imagine him singing his little heart out for the sheer joy of it.  It makes me "glad to be alive" - as my father used to say.

 

We had a mockingbird when we lived in our house on Tremaine.  He was an early riser too, and seemed to feel duty bound to go through his entire repertoire at least once or twice before quieting down.

There are several birds here whose songs are unfamiliar to me.  There is one that only sings 2 notes, not next to each other on the scale.  High, low, high, low....it seems rather monotonous after the beauty of my little early morning friend.  Then there is the raspy nasal caw of one of the lake birds.  I think of him as having a New York accent.  Yet they all are welcome sounds to me.  My dad used to talk about birds....usually as heralds

of good things to come, so I have always associated them with him and with hope.

 

I have been asked to give a talk in church Sunday...10 minutes.  I am struggling with a topic....I am struggling with knowing how much to speak in Danish, and I am struggling with knowing how to judge 10 minutes if I use a translator.  Anne would do that for me, and she stands beside me as I speak.  I say a sentence or two in English and then she repeats it in Danish.  I am unsure which would be faster...for me to stutter through a reading in Danish or for her to translate.  It is all very funny actually, because I believe there are fewer in the congregation that need translation for English than for Danish.

We watched a beautiful church film about the resurrection for Family Home Evening.  It is part of the series on Christ's life that the church has produced.  It was very touching and I need to go home and watch it again.  It was less than 15 minutes long.

We played a funny game where one person stood in front of their team (there were 2 teams) and listened to music on headphones and hummed along (mouth closed).  Their team had to guess what they were humming.  It was much harder than it sounds and the teams as usual were hilarious in their zeal to win.

We spent some time with one young man who is considering a career in medicine.  It will take 8 years from this point.  He has served a mission and served in the army and is now looking ahead to that.  At my age, I know how quickly time passes and I also know what an excellent career that would be for him.  But I can't imagine being that age and looking ahead to such a long haul before I felt like my life could really begin.

I don't think he feels that way though...he has more energy, hope and optimism.  He said that considering all things, it would be a great profession for a husband, father and religious man.  I think he is right.  One lovely thing about Denmark is that school is entirely paid for by the state, and there is even a sum of money paid to the students while they are studying....not enough to spend summers on the Riviera, but enough to eke out an existence while you are in school.  That helps to make the long view not seem quite so arduous.