Cardinal call

I've been hearing the cardinal again in my neighborhood, though I've heard him far more often than I've seen him. This is probably my fault--he and his mate and their extended family are probably hanging out in backyards with well-stocked bird feeders and sunflower seeds. Nutritional pickings are slim in the tangle of forsythia bushes and grapevines around my house. But that cardinal call is welcome, loud and insistent from the bare trees, up where the blue sky of late-winter sunshiny days offers clear and bracing relief from February's fog.

I went back and re-read some Perverse Lutheran blog posts this morning. I do this from time to time, honestly to assure myself that I can indeed write something that I don't cringe at later.

I often fault my writing for reverting to the "up-twist at the end," as a way to get out of the mess I've written myself into, a way to back away from the computer keyboard that is my shield and my defense. I don't often feel that those "up-twists" are indeed true. ("Is this most certainly true?" remains the guiding question of this pervy Lutheran.)

The odd thing this morning is that I found my blog posts from last summer and fall comforting, even uplifting--to me--after a long stretch of grey February days and things to do that fell well short of being fun. A big part of that was all the recollections of Kris that I read, which came with reminders to pay attention to people and relationships, to strive to do better and to keep moving toward goals, even the ones that stay well in front of you as you reach for them.

That cardinal I'm hearing in the trees these days--was it the one watching the fledgling on the ground last July? Did that little bird, not quite ready to fly up into the mulberry tree by the back fence, much less the tree tops--did he (or she) make it?

"I'll fly away," says the old hymn. "When I die, hallelujah by and by, I'll fly away." There's freedom in those tree tops, up near the blue of sky, above this weary world. There's freedom and grace in leaving this world, but there's also freedom and grace when you stay behind.

That cardinal I'm hearing every morning is not about to leave the neighborhood. The call seeks his mate--the same dull-brown hard-working nest-building female of last summer. The pair will be at it again in the months ahead, doing the good work of this earth.