Beautiful Thought

"Listen to that bird!" I said to my husband as we were sitting on the front porch today.  "I think it's a cardinal," I concluded, because I had noted that sound and watched a crested red bird opening its beak as it warbled high in a tree once. The birdsong grew closer and closer, but we were unable to spot it from our vantage point.

Although I'm not an expert on our fine feathered friends, I do love to watch birds and tentatively identify them sometimes.  I think my fascination with the beautiful creatures began when I was about 10 years old, and our kindly neighbor gave us children a John J. Audubon book on birds in an effort to get my brothers to stop shooting them with BB guns.  They didn't pay much attention to the book, but I remember studying the pictures intently.

I think that's why I picked up a handsome coffee table book on birds of North America at an estate sale the other day. I find myself poring over it with the same enthusiasm I had as a child, and no wonder.  Birds are some of the most beautiful creatures in wildlife, gracing our lives with their colors, music, and effortless flight.

The other night at a Saturday Night Sing, my ears perked up when I heard a plaintive, haunting melody being strummed as a lady got up to sing.  The music struck a familiar chord somewhere deep in my subconscious, and I realized it was a song I used to hear my dad sing when I was a child, The Great Speckled Bird.  I never realized what the symbolism was, but I visualized it as the Bible, with its pages fluttering like wings, speckled with the words of scripture, flying up toward Heaven.

Tonight I looked up  the song on the internet, and found it had many verses, but only a couple that were familiar to me.  I also found out it  is supposed to represent the true church, and the believers being carried up to heaven on its wings.  It is based on Jeremiah 12:9, which says, "Mine heritage is unto me as a speckled bird, the birds round about are against her; come ye, assemble all the beasts of the field, come to devour."

Whether the application is accurate, I'm not sure.  The song was written many years ago and made popular by country artists like Roy Acuff, Johnny Cash and others.  But the imagery of a speckled bird as God's people being pursued by enemies is a strong one.  One verse says something about "I'm glad that my name is on her book."  That is the main thing.  That our name is written in the Lamb's Book of Life, waiting for us when, like a bird, we will fly away.