Three of us went bird watching last Thursday. It was one of those days when we didn't quite know where to go, so I looked on ebird.org to see what birding hotspots there were in the Ipswich area. As the walk organiser, I suggested that we go to Sparrowe's Nest Farm, and we had a beautiful afternoon in the sun watching around thirty Skylarks who seemed to be singing with joy. I don't know what you know about Skylarks but as they sing; they travel vertically upwards 50 to 100 meters. For a little bird that seems to involve spending a lot of energy. We saw quite a few other birds on our trip. After a while, we were joking and saying that it was really weird that we had never visited this place before.
It turned out that one of our friends John, who wasn't with us on Thursday, had been to this location so frequently and recorded his sightings, that ebird.org then had created it as a Hotspot purely because he had visited so many times. We felt that John had never really mentioned that he had ever been there. Of course, it might be that we haven't been paying attention to what he's been saying to us. Either way, his consistency in visiting the spot and recording bird-life has brought results. People who don't know the area can find a beautiful spot to watch Birds. While at the same time ebird.org can compile scientific data.
Today I was thinking about this experience. I think ther is a parallel with the spiritual life. We can turn our prayer places into spiritual hotspots by turning up regularly, observing or listening, paying attention - recording what we find in our journal.
To be honest, if we do nothing, nothing will happen. Yet when we start to pray and listen to God regularly, good stuff just starts to happen. I believe it is true to say that if we make ourselves present to God he will be present to us. St. James talks about this when he says "draw near to God and he will draw near to you."
We can choose to approach God at any time. He is a God that allows himself to be discovered. If we set our hearts to expectant, pray and listen we will start to change.
On Thursday we could have decided to stay at home, the weather was changeable; I was tired. But the walk and the effort was worthwhile and we had an experience that we would have never had had if we hadn't taken action.
I will leave that thought there for the moment. I want to tell you a bit about why Debs and I have started writing again after a pause. We are married but through circumstances and Covid-19 we are living on the opposite side of the world to each other. We have decided to reinvent the Ipswich Watchman blog as "A Song for Two Voices." And write about things that are happening to us.
It turned out that one of our friends John, who wasn't with us on Thursday, had been to this location so frequently and recorded his sightings, that ebird.org then had created it as a Hotspot purely because he had visited so many times. We felt that John had never really mentioned that he had ever been there. Of course, it might be that we haven't been paying attention to what he's been saying to us. Either way, his consistency in visiting the spot and recording bird-life has brought results. People who don't know the area can find a beautiful spot to watch Birds. While at the same time ebird.org can compile scientific data.
Today I was thinking about this experience. I think ther is a parallel with the spiritual life. We can turn our prayer places into spiritual hotspots by turning up regularly, observing or listening, paying attention - recording what we find in our journal.
To be honest, if we do nothing, nothing will happen. Yet when we start to pray and listen to God regularly, good stuff just starts to happen. I believe it is true to say that if we make ourselves present to God he will be present to us. St. James talks about this when he says "draw near to God and he will draw near to you."
We can choose to approach God at any time. He is a God that allows himself to be discovered. If we set our hearts to expectant, pray and listen we will start to change.
On Thursday we could have decided to stay at home, the weather was changeable; I was tired. But the walk and the effort was worthwhile and we had an experience that we would have never had had if we hadn't taken action.
I will leave that thought there for the moment. I want to tell you a bit about why Debs and I have started writing again after a pause. We are married but through circumstances and Covid-19 we are living on the opposite side of the world to each other. We have decided to reinvent the Ipswich Watchman blog as "A Song for Two Voices." And write about things that are happening to us.
No comments:
Post a Comment