by Sr. Noeleen Mooney, MMM    Ireland     07. 01.2022

“The world began this morning, God-dreamt and full of birds.”
So, Patrick Kavanagh tells us – and he was a poet – with his own special way with words.  God-dreamt and full of birds.  How beautiful and true.  In so many ways mornings would not be half so joyful or inspiring without the birds, if not exactly to awaken us, more to reassure us that there is a brand-new day beginning, which is well worth singing about, however hoarse the voice.

Too bad that so many of us miss the dawn chorus, either by sleeping through it, or because the rumble of commuter traffic drowns out any other kind of music for us.  Or perhaps we have to surface gradually to the sound of the radio (as perhaps you are doing just now).  What a shame our work-day is limited so often to a nine to five shift; that making the nine o’clock deadline becomes such a mad scramble.  There is no time to listen to the birds.

Another poet, Kahil Gibran, once said “To wake at dawn with a winged heart, and give thanks for another day of loving.”  I do not think he could have felt that way if he had not at least once woken with the birds.  Have you ever tried it?  It might make those first moments of the day easier, and might sometimes make us thankful that we can listen, and rise to face the new day, with a new heart.