Consider the Birds
Table Talk
Setting the Table
You are welcome here. Come just as you are, bringing whatever is on your heart today. Take a of couple deep breaths, grab yourself a cup of coffee, light a candle, do something that brings you comfort. Allow yourself to be present in this moment.
Consider how each bird has its own song – its own way of singing its gratitude wherever it is.
It doesn’t have to be the blue iris, it could be weeds in a vacant lot, or a few small stones; just pay attention, then patch a few words together and don’t try to make them elaborate, this isn’t a contest but the doorway into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak.
– Mary Oliver
Matthew 6, 25-26
“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?"
Food for Thought
In our family we sing the dinner prayer as often if not more than we say it. With rounds and verses and harmonies that weave in and out of our thanksgiving, our voices join in collective grace. This is sometimes followed by a spoken prayer – one that offers gratitude for food, for family, for friendship, for love in all its forms.
This combination of sung and written prayer did not begin with us – but at the very least with my grandparents – and likely was passed down generations before that even. I am grateful for this tradition for many reasons: I am thankful for the fun and joy it introduces to our meal times together; for the beauty of the music; I am thankful for the discipline of praying before each meal; and for the way it connects me to my family even when we aren’t together. These songs and my family were my earliest teachers of prayer.
In this way, prayer has been a part of my life since I can remember. And yet, prayer has not always come easily within my own spiritual life.
For many of us there is this idea that we must have everything just right before we can really pray. We think we must first have the right words, the right questions, the right attitude, the right motives. We think of prayer as a skill to master instead of a gift to enjoy.
In this season of warmer, beautiful weather, I’m reminded of the scripture where Jesus invites us to pause and to really take in the wonder of creation happening all around us. To pay attention on those walks through the neighborhood, to take notice of the blooming things, the flying things, the singing things all around. “Consider the birds,” he says. They do not worry or toil – they do not wear themselves out for perfection sake, and yet God loves them. “Consider the flowers.” They do not labor or work to earn their favor, and yet God cares so much for them. Birds and flowers simply do what they were made to do – they sing, and soar, and bend with the wind – and God takes joy in their being. How much, then, does God also delight simply in your being?
I find comfort and encouragement in this reassurance that God delights simply in our being. That God does not need us to be anything other than exactly who we are when we show up with God. God is big enough to handle all that makes us who we are at any given moment. There is no part of us that must first be checked at the door. But the God who created us, who loves us, who sustains us – the God who sees us resting in the nests or swaying in the fields of our everyday lives – takes great joy in us.
Our prayer life, then, should be an extension of this truth. As Mary Oliver reminds us, our prayers do not need to be elaborate or poetic, instead, they begin wherever we are – with patches of words, with exasperated breath, with moments of silence, with sobs of grief, with cries of desperation, with songs of gratitude.
Our prayers are the invitation to lay ourselves – our full selves – before God, to give ourselves to grace, and to allow ourselves to simply be in the presence of this one who knows and loves us. To know God in this way is a freedom and a gift we all need.
Consider the birds. Look to the wildflowers.
As we continue on our journey of prayer and of faith in the busyness of this summer season – one day at a time – perhaps we can assume the practice of prayer as an invitation to be with God wherever we are. In the days ahead, may we take daily opportunities to pause, to pay attention, and to offer whatever comes.
Go for an afternoon walk and pay particular attention to the birds and the flowers. What do you notice about them today? As words of prayer come to you, offer them without thinking about how they sound. If no words come, remember that silence is prayer, too.
Remember how every bird has a song? Try singing your prayer! Do not worry that it sounds good to you or to anyone else; simply let it be an offering to God who delights in all joyful noises.
For a printable version of today's reflection Click Here!
Blessing
God of Grace,
Meet us where we are in the midst of our days, in the longings of our hearts. Allow our prayers to be known to you, however they make themselves known, and mold them toward life-giving goodness for ourselves, for all we might encounter, and for our world.
Amen.
A little Table Talk for your table...
What does the act of prayer mean to you? Does it hold a central place in your life?
What are practices of prayer that you find meaningful?
In what ways do our practices of prayer help us better care for ourselves and others?
Try taking it to the Kids Table...
Ask your kiddos what they know about prayer. (What is it? Why do we pray? What are some ways people can pray?)
Go for a walk together and take time to notice the birds and the flowers. As you walk, encourage your child to say aloud things they are grateful for just as those thoughts come. Remind them this is prayer.
We can pray as an act of caring for one another. Ask your kiddos who they would like to pray for and why, and add those individuals to your prayer list.
Meet our Welcoming Voice!
Lin Story-Bunce is a North Carolina native and lovingly calls Greensboro, NC home. She earned a Masters of Divinity from Wake Forest University and has served a wonderful and thoughtful congregation at College Park Baptist Church since 2009, pastoring to families and their faith development. Most of all, Lin loves the moments she gets to connect with her family, snowboarding with her wife and keeping up with their four kiddos and two energetic pups. Lin is a teacher, preacher, dreamer, and procrastinator who, if you ask her youth group, has a knack for trying to do way too many things in far too little time.
To hear more from Lin throughout the week, follow along on our Instagram!
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