Today, it’s bluejays, wrens, and a couple of cardinals. Yesterday, woodpeckers titmice, grackles and juncos. Squirrels, every day. With flurries in the air and a wind chill below zero, some of my neighbors in need are feathered or furred. So I trudged through the snow a couple of hours ago to make sure they would eat today.

I’m not a good or stealthy enough photographer to get a really good picture, so the majority of the birds are in the tree branches just out of sight. But they are all around, just out of the frame. What I capture on camera is so much smaller than what is here. In much the same way, my words are too poor to capture this life, this beauty of feathers and flight. The best I can hope for is that such words and images create a doorway into something larger. Evocative, not encompassing.

There are wonders just out of frame. All I have to do is walk through that frame and look…

[I think our holy scriptures, our rites, and our sacred images are meant to do the same – create a doorway through which the Spirit draws us into a much larger reality. Through them, we fall more deeply into God’s love and we are planted more firmly next to our neighbors – feathered or otherwise.]