Circle of Life

There is a time for everything,

    and a season for every activity under the heavens:

a time to be born and a time to die,

a time to plant and a time to uproot,

 

a time to kill and a time to heal,

a time to tear down and a time to build,

a time to weep and a time to laugh,

a time to mourn and a time to dance,

 

a time to scatter stones and a time to gather them,

a time to embrace and a time to refrain from embracing,

 

a time to search and a time to give up,

a time to keep and a time to throw away,

 

a time to tear and a time to mend,

a time to be silent and a time to speak,

 

a time to love and a time to hate,

a time for war and a time for peace.

--Ecclesiastes 3:1-8

(Want the audio version? Here it is! To Everything There Is a Season)

Sometimes I get so busy, so caught up in life, that I stop really seeing what is going on around me. But over the past month, I have had the pleasure of watching a family of robins go from couple to family to empty nest, in the course of a few weeks. And I have been amazed.

Back in early May, when it was still quite chilly, especially at night, I was gone one day and when I came home in the evening, there it was on my front porch, high under the peak: a beautiful robin's nest, woven, sturdily constructed and decorated with a sprig from a money plant. I was so excited!

And the next morning, under the back awning, another surprise: a finch's nest. Not nearly the work of art the robins built, this nest looked more like a handful of grass and twigs thrown up with a prayer that it would stick and stay together. But a house is a house when it's built on love.

One Sunday when the kids were over, we were saddened to find a broken robin egg on the porch. The nest was too high to see if there were more, so we waited.

Pretty soon Mama began spending more and more time in that nest so perfectly tailored to her shape.

And on the back porch? I would peek out the door and see a red little head atop the disheveled pile of grass. Every time I would open the door to go out, she would fly away. But she always came back, and she, too, spent a lot of time on the nest. Waiting.

Soon the robins hatched: One, two, three-- four? I began to see wobbly heads perched atop spindly necks, wide open mouths silently asking for more. I remembered Jack Kent's great line in Round Robin. 

"Most of him was head, and the rest of him was hungry!" 

Man, oh man, were they ever! Mama made endless flights, pulled dozens of worms from my lawn, fed her babies all day long, it seemed-- and then hopped into that nest and sat right down on top of them. From inside the house, my cats and I enjoyed watching her teach and train those babies.

And meanwhile, out back-- still waiting.

The baby robins began looking less like aliens and more like birds. They began to stretch their wings a bit, and the peeping! So much noise from such tiny little heads. Soon I realized I was only seeing three heads. Somebody didn't make it. My heart caught a little.

Two Sundays ago I went out the back door and Papa Finch was visiting Mama Finch on the nest. As I came out, he flew, but she stayed put. My heart grew hopeful. 

But that was the last time I saw any finch on that nest. Apparently it was not their time.

Oh, but those robins! The kept growing, practically right before my eyes! Their feeble peeps became robust cheeps. Their wings spread and flapped at the air, and once, while I was watching, Mama hopped in the nest and gave one of her babies a firm nudge-- and suddenly he found himself out of the nest and perched wobbling on the porch beam. (That was the first time I had any robin poop on my porch, too. . . . lol)

Then it happened.

I got up Sunday morning, opened the front door-- and the nest was empty. I looked down to see a fuzzy little guy flapping and hopping like crazy, and Mama standing nearby keeping watch. The nest was strangely quiet. And so it goes. . . .

* * * * *

For a time, I am now blessed with a houseguest, a young lady beginning to make her own way in the world. As her parents dropped her off in the evening, I watched as yet another nest began to empty. Even as perhaps they couldn't name it yet, there would be quiet where there had been singing, a bed no longer rumpled with sleep. I could see this was harder on Mom and Dad than it was on their beautiful daughter.

Life goes on. In the face of loss, new life appears. This, friends, is what the Resurrection is all about. Yes, it's about a risen Lord-- but it's also about the renewal of life, not just at life's end, but every single season. Weeping and mourning may last for the night, but joy-- and peeping and stretching one's wings for flight-- will come in the morning. 

(Need another one? Circle of Life)