Morning Comes Eventually

Some birds have built a nest on our enclosed back patio.

My son and I first noticed it about a week ago. A couple of sparrows were hanging out on one of our windows, accumulating a few sticks on the sill. It didn’t look like much for a few days. But when I checked in on it this morning, it had become a full-fledged nest. I didn’t pay much attention for a day or two, and the birds had been hard at work in the meantime.

I’ve always welcomed the arrival of birdsong in the spring. To me it’s one of the clearest signs of the season’s arrival. As the warmth returns, so do the animals: building, nesting, populating, filling the air with their voices. It’s the season of new life, and the little aviary forming on my patio symbolizes that.

Waking up to those sounds on Easter morning is my favorite moment of all. It’s the perfect interweaving of the liturgical calendar with the seasonal one. They’re not singing “Because He Lives” but they could be, as night gives way to the sun’s rays, a new day of promise finally arriving.

I’ve already written that Lent has been weird for me lately. It’s been more difficult for me to tune in to its practices. It’s been night for a while, and the dawn has been taking longer and longer each year to appear.

But on that third morning, when the air fills with the sounds of spring life and the nest on my patio is a little closer to filling with life of its own, I can remember that the rising will happen again, and sooner than I think.