Naturalist Loren Eiseley was an ardent observer of nature. He once told he story of being awakened by a great ruckus in a forest where he was napping. A black raven had captured a small nestling and was preparing to make a meal of his squirming prey. The hawks watched in silence and fear.
But before the little nestling died, one hawk and then another and another, began singing. The clear notes carried across the woods until a symphony of song shifted their attention from imminent death to the beauty of life. No longer were they focused on death. They were singers of life.
Christians claim a God who brings life out of death. We all know loss, fear, and vulnerability. We all experience disappointment and the darkness that is part of life. And so we sing.
We sing because God is here among us, in each other, in the sorrows and joys of life, in the broken places and in the darkness of death. We sing because death doesn’t have the last word. We sing because the Light of Christ is a Singer of Life.
This message was adapted from “Singers of Life” written by Julie K. Aageson that first appeared in the July/August 2011 issue of Lutheran Woman Today (now Gather) magazine.
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