As I sit here at the dining room table and look out over the bird feeder while sipping my coffee ( really just sugar, creamer and a little caffeine) I watch a Downy woodpecker as it hops backwards down the tree to grab a seed. The Red Bellied woodpecker hangs upside down from the limb to take his share. The Black eyed Juncos scratch around at the base of the tree while the Nuthatches, Titmice and Chickadees dart in and out. The Cardinals form a line to patiently wait for their turn. Sure, an occasional Blue Jay bullies his way onto the feeder but generally there is a calm and orderly procedure that nature follows. So many varieties of birds all working together in natures harmony. They don’t care if Phil saw his shadow or not. They don’t care which party is in charge of the White House. All they care about is the free food.
Category: Short Stories
The difference between a husband and a wife…
A wife drops a sock on the floor…she bends down to pick it up and sees another sock under the bed and crawls under to retrieve it. She notices some dust has accumulated so she goes and gets the vacuum and broom to clean it up. While she has those out she cleans the rest of the floors.
A husband drops a sock on the floor and kicks it under the bed.
“He went out, not knowing where he was going.” Hebrews 11:8
If there’s one thing that I’ve learned from my many years on earth, it is that no one is really sure what awaits us around the bend. But that doesn’t mean we have to stop walking along the path. I see and read about all the world’s problems every day. Most of us are so worried about the million little ‘what-if’s that it has us so full of fear we can’t enjoy the things that are. Worrying about what the future will give us though, is a waste of time and a disrespect for the life God has given us. Because no matter what obstacles might be hiding around the corner, all the roads in life are going to lead each of us to the same gate.
Each morning we wake up, we get another chance to face the unknown. I know, that with the challenges of the past year littered across the path, it makes us a little leery of what lies ahead. But now, more than any time I can recall, it is important that we ‘go out’ though we don’t know where the path will lead us or what hurdles will face us. We must get up, put on our shoes, and go out to meet the day and not worry about where we’re going… just enjoy the adventure.
That in nothing I shall be ashamed…Philippians 1:20
I keep seeing all these posts that talk about us needing to act like humans again. I have to ask, when it was that we stopped acting like humans. Throughout our history, we have always been oppressors of the weak, war mongers, propagandist, liars, cheaters, and thieves. Even God, who created us in his own image, covered the Earth with water in an attempt to rid the world of us. So I say to you, let’s attempt to not be human at all… but to be something better. To be what God had intended for us all along. To live our lives in harmony and at the end of our time we can look back and not be ashamed of our actions.
Life in the Country, Ain’t it Grand
My wife and I have spent a good deal of our lives living between the city limit signs of one metropolis or another. As urban dwellers, we found the constant rumble of noises drifting in and out as life moves along quite comforting. But the older we got, the more we found ourselves longing for the quiet country life we remembered from our childhood days. So when we decided to retire, we wanted to move to a more peaceful setting. We searched the world over and chose this small house in the southern Missouri Ozarks and settled in for a quiet country way of life.
We were greeted on our first morning of blissful country life by the neighbor’s rooster telling us that 4 hours of sleep is enough. He was quickly joined by a chorus of dogs (at least one for every house within a five-mile radius) declaring their desire to have the rooster over for breakfast. Then it was time for every mufflerless vehicle in the county to rev up their engines in preparation for the parade down our country lane. ‘The Branson Belle’, a paddle boat on the lake ten miles away blared a horn to announce that it was time for another load of tourists. The whistle from a train crossing Hwy 248 mixed with a mooing of a hundred head of cattle, a couple dozen crows, and a few hundred other species of birds rounded out the orchestra.
But as I sit here in my rocking chair on the porch. I sip my coffee and watch the sun rise above the leafless oaks and maples. I raise my cup and give a smile. Because I know I’m home.
Jerry Brotherton 