Free me again today

‘Twee twee twee twa twer twee. Twee twee twee twa twer twee. Twee twee twee twa twer twee.’ Outside my window, out of the moist, grey-blue pre-dawn twilight, repeatedly, unvarying, patiently and with a count of one-two between each iteration, the sweet bird speech alights on my just awakened ears, reminding me of the constant, quiet, unheard by mankind utterances of the devout heart, ‘Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me, the sinner.’

Just when I think there will be no other sound at all in this lonely but unlonesome, almost silent world, no other arrangement of the bird’s monotony, he changes his tune, ever so slightly, skipping a twee, now crying with regular rhythm, ‘Twee twee twa twer twee,’ again and again, until, just as I was getting used to the change, he returns to his original thought, ‘Twee twee twee twa twer twee.’ For a moment I have been the privileged overhearer of what he twispered to his Lord this pre-dawn.

I move away from my east-facing lavatory window and return to my futon room with its west-facing eyes still closed to songs I can just barely make out through the glass panes, and I throw up the sash. What are they singingly saying in the garden from their tree-tops? A few, far-away irregular chirps to the west, actual conversations with each other, perhaps. The voice of the praying bird to the east, solitary and calm, is inaudible to me over my roof top, only these other distant chatterers.

Will the sun come up today? The cloud cover seems impierceable, yet the sky keeps brightening, and through the dense foliage of the trees I can make out to westward variations, shallow horizontal bands in the heavens where the sun went down last evening, unseen through the Oregon mist. Time to return, to pause, to prepare, to pray. Not unlike the birds whose cares are provided for by their Lord, the same is the necessity of my human heart, that regularly beats with unvaried rhythm, His praise.

Lam’natzeach, al mut labben, mizmor l’David.
Odeh Adonay b’khol libbi, asapp’rah kol nifl’oteikha.
Esm’chah v’e‘eltzah vakh, azam’rah shimkha Elyon.

For the choirmaster, for oboe and harp, psalm of David.
א, I thank You, Yahweh, with all my heart;
I recite Your marvels one by one,
I rejoice and exult in You, I sing praise to Your name, Most High.

(Psalms for the 2nd Day: Mizmor Tet, Psalm 9)

Like Your birds, Lord and Morning Star, I sing praise to Your name, Most High, I rejoice and exult in You, though my heart be weighed down by the plight of this world, You leave me untouched by calamity, though others die, I live. By Your grace, Lord, by Your grace, all by Your grace. Let me see Your will fulfilled, let me see mercy fall on Your children, on this poor world, laboring for it knows not what nor why, suffering morning by morning instead of rejoicing in Your love, instead of receiving You.

Like Your birds, Lord, like Your birds who toil not nor gather into barns, though I still with the world am forced to earn my bread, turning my back on the Bread freely offered by Your heavenly hand, let me return, let me pause, prepare, pray to You the Father of all, the loving, the waiting, the patient Lord, in the name of Your only-begotten who only-born of all men reveals to us the Man by whom all worlds were made, let me receive that Spirit holy whom my daily unfaithfulness grieves, have mercy.

I thank You, Lord, with all my heart. Let me recite Your marvels one by one. For You are faithful, and true. Let my prayer be as the birds, simple, constant, unfettered. Let me return to You, Lord.
Free me again today.