"A bird doesn't sing because it has an answer. It sings because it has a song." Maya Angelou

I have had the privilege of spending the last several days in northern Wisconsin watching spring arrive. When we showed up on beautiful Papoose Lake, the temperatures were warm and the water was like glass. There was no sign of the boats that can dot this little lake in the middle of summer. Not long after arriving, my husband hung a bird feeder off the deck and filled it with seed. By the time we had unpacked clothes and the groceries had filled the refrigerator with the staples that would sustain us for the next several days, birds of all kinds had begun showing up. How did they know? How did they know there was a new food source in the neighborhood? Do birds have a signal, a certain call, that says 'soup's on!'?

The first to arrive were the gold finches. Like the best dressed girls at the prom, their brilliant yellow feathers created nearly the only dash of color in the still leafless landscape. They were soon followed by chickadees with their sweet little gray and black bodies, their tiny beaks pecking away at the feeder. A glance away to make a cup of coffee was followed by the appearance of house finches, their red and orangish feathers seeming more intense than when they are seen in midsummer. Not long after, the message must have arrived to the nuthatches, and they came to share in the discovered bounty.At one point I looked out and there was a different kind of bird on every perch of the feeder, all eating quietly, obviously right at home with the diversity at their dinner table. By day's end a few starlings had also shown up only to find it difficult, though not impossible to poke their large beaks into the feeding holes. They seemed content with eating the 'leftovers' the other birds had knocked to the ground below.

Watching this movable feast, I was reminded of the bumper sticker I see with great regularity as I make my way on Minnesota highways. Using the primary symbols of many faith traditions, the symbols are aligned to spell the word 'COEXIST'.It is a message of hope, tacked to the back of various cars. It carries the deep hope that the people of the world and our nation will find ways to see the common ways we can live together as people of faith. Though our words might be different, our emphases divergent, the ways we speak of the Holy diverse, the hope of being able to coexist with respect and an appreciation for those whose faith and life experience is different from our own is, I believe, a noble and important goal. As I watched these beautiful and fragile little creatures coexist at the same feeder, my heart was warmed by their willingness to feast from the same table and I sent a prayer that those of us without wings might learn to do the same. 

In four days, these lovely winged ones had gone through nearly two fillings of the feeder. As the days warmed and the sun became more intense, the birch trees began to show a glimmer of yellow green at their tops. The grass that is planted in places by those who want to mow while they are 'at the lake' had grown and turned a deep green. I even saw one homeowner out tackling his first mow of the year. From a human perspective, four days of recreation allowed for relaxed muscles, deep rest and some good reading time. I am sure that those who saw me today were unable to see the kind of marked difference in me that I witnessed in the changes of nature. Growth happened all around me. Newness came to the landscape. And the birds provided a powerful lesson.

And so today I will begin once again my endeavor to COEXIST after the example of my feathered friends.