Red Breasted Robins

I will be adding a few posts that I wrote recently. I hope you enjoy them.--JLH

It is April, and it is cold. The sky is painted with a murky gray and it appears that it could rain or snow at any moment. There are patches of green grass and of course the pines are flashy this time of year as they stand forward against the pallor of the stripped down locusts and maples and cherry’s. Outside it is still and barren. I want to believe that even days like this have a beauty of their own, but that is far-fetched. It is a far cry from the picture given to us of another time that will be: “On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the trees are for the healing of the nations. No longer will there be any curse.” Yes indeed, a far cry from that.

I see no leaves for the healing of the nations on the trees that stand silently against the sky. Yes I know in a month or two the leaves will be stretching out and applauding in the spring breezes, but today the trees are languid, and remind me more of Flanders than they do of Paradise. Today, unlike then, there is a curse and we must endure the seasons when green is like a rainbow and the red breast of the robin like the jewel encrusted breastplate of Aaron. Truly, we see only dimly, faintly.

I am weary. I wish the birds would sing, but all I hear is the monotonous drone of machine engines and the incessant pounding of their warning signals—they blare an obnoxious ‘beeping’ sound when in reverse. What strangeness it is that we have to announce to the world when we are going in reverse as a warning, but to announce when we are going forward is considered arrogant, boastful. I wish the birds would sing and the machines would break. I am weary of all such dilapidated imbalances. I wish I could live in a place where the machines are silent as death; a place where I could hear the heartbeats of my children; a place where the rush of life slowed to the pace of a lazy river. But that’s just me.