words to live by

i awoke at 5:30 this morning.  it's a bit aggravating that i can seldom sleep more than 5 hours a night especially at this point in time when there's little reason to be awake at that hour.  but here i am.

by 6:30 i caught the sound of birds chattering outside my kitchen window.  i thought it funny how nothing has changed in their world while ours seems a bit surreal.  the birds go on greeting the day as always, doing what birds do every day of their lives.  squirrels scurry across the yard, frolicking from tree to tree with no concern, doing the same.  the small, wild things, (as my grandaddy used to call them), carry on undisturbed by the concerns of man.

i am not a religious person nor do i adhere to any specific dogma.  yet this morning while thinking about the birds and squirrels and battling my own insecurities, i could not help but consider a quote from the bible's book of matthew:
  
“therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them. are you not of more value than they? and which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. ..."

now i don't know if we're of more value than the birds of if god is even paying attention.  actually i don't know for sure what god is any more than anyone else, despite claims.  but there is relevance to the thought that our being anxious serves no purpose and that we could take a lesson from nature at this time of uncertainty.

as i focused on thoughts like this, in serendipity, a friend shared the following poem by john o'donohue today on facebook.  we all need a little reminder of faith and hope in the face of adversity and it is so often the words of others that inspire our own fortitude.  

This is the time to be slow,
Lie low to the wall
Until the bitter weather passes.

Try, as best you can, not to let
The wire brush of doubt
Scrape from your heart
All sense of yourself
And your hesitant light.

If you remain generous,
Time will come good;
And you will find your feet
Again on fresh pastures of promise,
Where the air will be kind
And blushed with beginning.