COVID19: March 20, 2020 - Flowers and Birds

It was another short night for my racing brain. When I got out of bed and headed to the kitchen to microwave my steel-cut oatmeal, I caught the window out of the corner of my eye and couldn’t believe what I saw. Was someone coming to dig in my yard? Today!? Why else would they have placed those little yellow flags in my lawn? I was absolutely incredulous. For about three seconds.

I looked closer through the half-opened blinds. No flags there. I was seeing daffodils. Same color, different meaning. Daffodils, which have filled my flower beds for the past couple of weeks. Get a grip, Nancy. No warning flags, just daffodils. 

As I opened my patio door so my cat could take his morning stroll on the deck, I heard a chorus of birds serenading me. Is this the same song they would sing on any other day, or is this a variation, modified for a troubled world? Have they even noticed the hush of humans huddled inside their homes? Or are they as unaware of our world as we are of theirs?

I understand that there are no birds in Chinese cities, because there are no trees. Friends who have visited China have told me about it. I can’t imagine opening my windows in the morning and hearing no birds. I’m sure that if the birds stopped greeting me in the morning, I would miss them. But I wonder… If I stopped opening my windows to hear them, would they miss me? 

Yes, my mind is taking me to dark places. I’m wondering if I will live through this pandemic, and if the people I love will live through it. I try to avoid this kind of wondering by keeping myself busy during the day.

Eventually, the busy-ness gets the best of me, and at night I have no other choice than to surrender to a shut-down. Yet while my body stills, my brain kicks into overdrive, and a different kind of busy-ness works to stave off the wondering. Hence the ever-shortening nights.

This morning, I ended last night’s battle with wondering weary from running a marathon that has barely begun. And I was greeted with daffodils and birds. Their presentation was not lost on me.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear. For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing. Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds! And can any of you by worrying add a single hour to your span of life? If you are not able to do so small a thing as that, why do you worry about the rest? Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these."

Easier said than done, Jesus. But I hear ya.