I was on the tractor recently, mowing the grass. I had let it get pretty high and unkempt – we’d had a lot of rain for a couple of weeks and I didn’t want to tear up the grass with big tractor tire marks. So it finally dried up enough on a day that I had a couple of hours available. It was a beautiful day, unseasonably cool for mid-August. I had already spent part of that Saturday morning drinking coffee on the porch watching the songbirds at the feeders while the Wonder Beagles chased each other around the yard. I was ready to get some work done.
The perimeter of the yard is where most of the obstacles are, so I usually start mowing there; once the trouble spots are done, I can go into autopilot, tracing back and forth across the open field. I get some of my best thinking done there.
I had just finished mowing around trees and little side areas, and was making my first few passes along the straightaways. I looked up and out of nowhere a bird was darting right at me. Another fly-by, then a third. Now there were two birds, then three – up to a half dozen little barn swallows had emerged from God-knows-where and were wheeling through the air around me. As images of Hitchcock’s The Birds flooded in, I quickly realized that mower was stirring up swarms of insects that had been lying in the overgrown grass. The swallows were not attacking me – they were seizing an opportunity for a feast. I made several more passes as the swallows swooped down, soared up, and wheeled around for another turn. Their aerobatic display played out within feet of me, seemingly coordinated among the several performers. After a couple of minutes I stopped the tractor. The antics of the birds seemed so borne of joy, such a manifestation of laughter, I had to pay full attention and take every bit of it in. I sat there on the tractor, smiling, and watched them for a bit. Then, just as suddenly as they appeared, they were gone. I have no clue where they went. Every time I’ve been out to mow in the weeks since then, I’ve hoped for them to return, but so far they’ve not obliged.
It’s important to notice these unusual appearances of joy, and I’ve learned to take time to appreciate them. These serendipitous natural encounters are good for the heart. We so easily fall into routine and our lives become grayscale – mow the grass, wait a week, mow the grass again. We need to allow for, or better – seek out, those moments for barn swallows to splash a little color back into our souls.
In Proverbs 4:23, Solomon advises us, “watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life.” One of the ways to watch over your heart is to be mindful of the beauty and joy surrounding us in God’s creation. Every once in a while we catch glimpses in nature of the Eden that God intended us to inhabit, the Eden that he promises to one day restore. My little swallows were just what I needed that day – to see the playful, joyous spirit of God’s world, and to be reminded of that life which springs from my heart.