It is soul cleansing, relaxing, exhilarating, wonderful. I discovered this quite by accident.

One day I visited with a friend who lived up in the hills of St. Andrew in my island home of Jamaica. I remained outside in her front yard as I waited for her to conclude her affairs, As the cooling winds from the sea brushed my cheeks and lifted my hair, I noticed that her tree filled yard had lots of birds that cooed, warbled and sang to each other. Rather idly it popped into my mind to join their very loud “conversation” – just to see if I could fool them into thinking I was a bird too.

I began to whistle in a monotonous warble that rose a little above the loudest of the birds. To my delight, a bird began to respond. Thinking that I was imagining this, I repeated this action until we began to “communicate”. I warbled the same note and the bird answered with its raucous call.

“Got you, you noisy bird. You think I am one of you”, I thought rather flippantly and kept this up for a few minutes until my hostess arrived.

Now I have always taken note of birdsong, remarking how they pleasure us mostly unappreciative humans with their lovely melodies and rhapsodies, and how we (rightly) take their songs for granted. I still continued in this vein after leaving those birds I had so easily tricked back on the island of Jamaica, so many years ago.

After living in the US for a while, I resorted to my usual habit of taking the birds’ songs for granted. However, one particular morning I sat in my bird filled backyard, deliberately intending to take pleasure in their serenades. All the birds in the neighborhood seemed to have congregated there and were singing at once.

The thought popped into my mind, why not sing to them and see if they would respond to me like their relatives did in Jamaica?  If nothing else, it would prove that my “communication” had been real and not just a pleasant coincident or an idle but memorable accident occurring on a glorious afternoon under the tropical sun. So, I decided to join them to see if I could repeat this experiment.

I began to sing. I had read in Psalms 66:4, 148, 150:6 about all creation praising and singing to the Lord and wanted to test if this was true. I burst into a magnificent rendition (if I may say so myself) of the old hymn: “in the garden”. All the birds stopped chirping and listened. They made no sound as I ran through the stanzas of this moving, timeless classic.

“good”, I told my little daughter exultantly and partially credulously, “notice that the birds are listening”.

Notwithstanding this show of confidence, I was not fully convinced that they were queuing in to my singing. Perhaps it was another coincidence and they just happened to go silent for a while. However, the thrill I experienced was too much to resist, birds creating an audience for my song? The possibilities this presented and the temptation to experiment were too exciting, I had to make sure.

after the birds started to chorus again, I burst into a less melodious pop song. They all ignored me this time. They chirped, cooed and tweeted to each other as if I weren’t there.

Fascinated by this phenomenon, I hypothesized to my daughter that the birds may have indeed been praising the Lord and perhaps the melody and content of the song were important. My offering of “Another one Bites the Dust” by Queen just was not cutting it with them.

Being as curious as I am, I just had to try this experiment once more. So, I warbled out what I was convinced was a sweet and melodious serenade for the birds and my daughter this time. As I served up the performance of my life and belted out “bless the Lord, O My Soul” from “1000 Reasons “by Matte Redman, the birds became hushed and began to listen again.

The sudden rush of joy and exhilaration that coursed through my veins was astounding. I ran through all the verses of this very beautiful song, (secretly hoping that I wasn’t disturbing my neighbors and have them call the police on me) and the birds listened. I released all the stress I was feeling that Saturday morning and let the music and the absolute attention I was receiving from God’s creatures sweep through my soul. It ended in a beautiful climax and the birds listened quietly for a few moments longer after my performance trailed off into silence. I remained quietly attentive as one little peep emerged after a while and then they all began to chirp, sing and call to each other again. I resumed a loud conversation and noticed that they continued to ignore our presence.

The profound sense of wonder and joy I felt was indescribable. I rushed into the house and started to report this experience to everyone I could find. I researched this phenomenon online and discovered that some ornithologists believe that birds do listen to humans and repeat the melodies they hear. There was some scientific basis for this phenomenon after all. It wasn’t just the “magnificence” of my singing, but the creatures mimicking human notes as they incorporated them into their language.

I still cannot explain why they ignored me when I switched to the pop song and have concluded that the Biblical description was correct after all. All creation does indeed praise the Lord, including the birds (Ps. 148:10, 150:6).

Perhaps God was using the tune and words of the songs to capture their attention. I am certainly no songbird. Despite my over inflated sense of my own genius, I am simply tolerable, so that no one runs shrieking for the hills with their fingers in their ears when I sing.

Suffice it to say that no-one called the police on me that day; and the pleasure and joy I gained from that experience was immeasurable. The sense of abundant satisfaction I felt with those little birds revived me and taught me the true meaning of God’s word that tells us how He loves and interacts with His creation (Job 38:4 – 41 :14, Ps. 104:10 – 30).

Birds are sometimes seen metaphorically as symbolic of Satanic activities (Luke 8:5 – 12, Mark 4:3 – 15). However, it is undeniable that God communicates with them and that they respond to Him (1 Kings 17:2-6). This connection is so deep that even ravens or other unclean birds (Lev. 11:13 – 16) carry out God’s instructions to bring food to Elijah. This communication indicates that God has an unmistakable bond with the creation that He so lovingly spoke into being (Gen 1, 2) and constantly interacts with them. He watches and cares for them as Scriptural references demonstrate (Ps. 147:9, Matt. 6:26, 10:29 – 30, Luke 12:6, 24) and He continuously let them know His will for them.

Imagine being a part of this amazing circle of love, wonder, and adoration. That was just a little of what I felt when those birds hushed their singing to listen to my performance. Abundant Joy, peace and deep satisfaction were mine as I sat for those 45 minutes and joined the birds in this fantastic manifestation of God’s nature and workmanship.

Spring has gone and the birds have left for warmer climes, but I still continue to enjoy the deep pleasure and sense of belonging as my audience quietened down in appreciation of my performance. Even if I never get to thrill a human crowd with my masterpieces, I know that the birds and I joined the eternal chorus and praised our God. Perhaps next spring I will repeat this experiment when the birds return. In the meantime, I strongly recommend to you my friends that if ever you feel unloved, underappreciated, stressed or just worn out by life’s many challenges, let yourself embrace the abundant life that Christ has brought to us (John 10:10). Be brave, bundle up all those negative emotions, put a little time aside, dare to step out into nature somewhere, and with wild abandon just sing to the birds.

References

Miles, C. Austin. 1913. In the Garden.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/In_the_Garden_(1912_song)

Redman, Matt (2011) 10,000 Reasons. “10,000Reasons” (Bless the Lord) Capital Christian Music Group. USA.

Queen (1980) Another one Bites the Dust. Mute.  UK

Learn more about birdsongs from:

Boswall, Jeffery “how Birds Get their Song” British Library.

https://www.bl.uk/the-language-of-birds/articles/how-birds-learn-their-songs

Davies, Gareth Huw, The Life of Birds

https://www.pbs.org/lifeofbirds/songs/index.html

Mayntz, Melissa (2017) Understanding Why Birds Sing.

https://www.thespruce.com/why-birds-sing-386221

Learn More about Spiritual growth and maturity from:

Sproul, Wendy. 2017. March to Maturity: Grounded and Built. North Charleston, South Carolina. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform