There is a cardinal singing outside.

Improbable and amazing, the splash of color and the insistence upon song on a morning when it is -15 and yet there it is.

I’m on renewal leave.  It is a time for letting the ground of my soul lie fallow.  I am taking this leave while the earth lies seemingly frozen and dead. 

And yet, cardinals sing.  Coffee is brewed.  Newspapers are leisured over.  The eyes and touches and sounds of beloveds are savored.  The silence experienced while not preaching or writing or teaching or leading or problem solving is dense with the song my soul has long ached to hear.  The song of being.

In the throat of the cardinal.  In the temple of my heart.

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