The Bungee Cord. 11-4-24

Hello,

Autumn has arrived. The daytime is shorter, the nighttime is longer. The warm temperatures are gone. The leaves are gone. The flowers are gone. The cornfields are gone. And out here in the country one notices one more thing that is gone: the songbirds.

Gone is the chatter of tweets. Gone is the melodic reply of two birds searching for each other. Gone is the greeting from the feathered neighbors as one drinks a cup of morning coffee on the porch. Gone is the flutter and chirp of hummingbirds gathering nectar from the geraniums in the flowerboxes. All the songbirds have left us, and all we have flying around us now are crows and buzzards. The silence, although peaceful, is also full of emptiness. The songbirds are gone.

There is also an emptiness to the silence of autumns in our souls. Those times when the songbirds have left our lives. Times when one day just slips into another and another and another. Times when daily routines feel as if one is simply going through the motions. Times when light is diminished, and darkness is encroaching. Times when cackling crows and garbage collecting buzzards are the only people who filles one’s skies. Times when there is a ho-hum-ness to waking up, and an oh-well-ness is the fuel for the day. Autumn is part of our lives, too.

When those times come, and it is my perception that they come to all of us, I hear a reoccurring word from Jesus, “Keep awake.” Like the bridesmaids of old who were caught in the silence of waiting for the wedding, Jesus says keep awake. Not as a warning of doom or punishment for sleep, but as ones who are not engulfed in those autumn times of life: their ears to the ground, their eyes canvassing the horizon, their hearts beating rapidly to discover the wonder of what God is stirring up behind the silence.

A new day! That is what God is stirring up. A day when the load of emptiness is dumped out and an outpouring of Christ’s dying love is poured in. A day when the trees that have reached out their branches as if boney fleshless fingers will find leaves like jewelry adorning their life-full wave. A day when the crows and the buzzards are drowned out by twittering joy. A new day when autumn has descended on our lives, and a new day when our lives come to an end. God is stirring up a new day!

“Keep awake,” says Jesus when autumn times come. Because if you do, your eyes will be open to see the rare bright red cardinal that is a visual proof that God is still here. Because if you do, you will be overwhelmed in hope when the first bud appears on the tree. Because if you do you will hear the first chirp of the robin telling you that the damn of the doldrums is beginning to break. Jesus says to us who find ourselves in the autumn of our days, “Keep awake,” because if you do you will feel the surge of hope and joy in your soul as you find yourself about to experience the mighty chorus of songbirds when the stirring of God explodes into your life with divine grace. “Keep awake!”

Have a great week.

God’s grace and peace, (ggap)

Pastor Jerry Nuernberger

(A photo of the autumn in my back yard.)

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