Lessons from Nature. Song of the Wood Thrush: Part One

“Have you ever heard the song of a wood thrush?” a friend asked me the other day. This was a question I had never considered. I had to admit I simply didn’t know. Had I heard that bird song?  What did a wood thrush sound like compared to a robin, a blackbird, a wren?Perhaps I had taken bird songs too lightly, letting their beauty fade into the background noises of the clanging world around me.  For sure, I hadn’t stop long enough to wait for a particular bird song.  I tended NOT to quiet my inner self and truly listen. But this friend challenged me to try to hear, really hear,  the wood thrush.  So into the woods we went.  Different birds were letting loose their variety of songs. We listened.  We crunched through the new undergrowth of the moist spring forest, snapping branches under foot, pushing between moss covered trees, and around lush green leaves, the moist freshness dampening my blue jeans.  We could smell the peat under the ferns and the distant scent of honeysuckle.When a toppled tree trunk, twice the size of my thigh, offered us a bench, we sat on its rough sodden bark in silence and listened.  Each time the trill of the wood thrush arose, my bird-loving friend would nod, confirming that call was the specific  melody of the wood thrush.  With practice, I learned to pick the unique song out whenever the wood thrush made her presence known among the other birds.The practice of listening for the wood thrush settled my noisy soul. The woods cocooned me, and my attention shifted from the birds in general to the one unique song of the thrush.  An hour later I also started listening for the voice of God.  What would I hear when and if the Almighty spoke to me in this woodland quietness? 

To learn that, you must wait. 

What has been your experience in waiting and hearing the Lord? How do you silence your heart to hear his Almighty voice?