Nadia-i love your writings, they are helping me recover some faith that I have misplaced. This writing of paying attention to the present, especially so. We have hummingbirds at our feeders, and their flapping wings are miraculously loud, when I listen.
HI Nadia and everyone! I am eager to share my enthusiasm for the app Merlin. It has greatly enhanced my mornings. I am able to sit outside and pull up the appn for sound ID and it identifies the birds around me! It's like discovering a free symphony every day. By highlighting each 'song' it picks up with the name and picture of the bird, it teaches me to listen, and learn. I'm sure there are others, this is the one I use and it is truly a gift. More serious birders can add photo ID and share sightings, which is part of the focus to support efforts to conserve and track these precious creatures. Enjoy!
Reading this, my wife, Leslie and I live in small town America, Dawson, Tx if you know where Waco is, go east about 40 miles or so. Our as I call it Big D , not Dallas has about 815 people here. Our mornings are quiet, I do hear birds, as well as our neighbors 8 roosters, announcing to one and all at 5:00 am it’s time to get up! My wife Leslie Howard, is a breast cancer survivor, and a published author, any way just stopping and listening enjoying the here and now moments are key to life! Thanks Pastor! Thanks so much
your words help me understand the importance of trusting in the now-moment.
“So I like to think that Jesus’ thing about not worrying and then inviting us to consider birds and notice lilies ….is both permission to let go, and an invitation to joy and even pleasure.”
Well, I'm glad I'm not the only one who is self obsessed lol. We fight so hard for a sense of belonging that anything that makes us feel separated scares us, and sometimes that separation is created in our own minds. I create reasons as to why people don't answer my emails or texts, and those reasons don't serve me. I think it's so true that fear-bases assumptions have never empowered us.
Anyways, on one of Brene Brown's videos, she mentions Maya Angelou and how Maya had said freedom is when you realize that you belong everywhere and nowhere (I don't remember the exact quote), and when asked about that concept of belonging nowhere, Maya answered, "I belong to Maya". I love that. When we dwell in the present, we can feel a sense of belonging with nature and we can get attuned to our deeper selves.
Yep, I can hear birds here. The seagulls definitely make themselves heard. My husband and I stayed at a cabin for a weekend getaway. Seagulls were nesting there and every time we went to the sauna or outhouse, they'd circle and squack and let us know their disapproval. They eventually calmed down. We got to see 2 nests of baby seagulls, swans, and geese with their goslings.
I'm years long into a deep bird-listening habit! Today I got up out of my chair when I heard my little goldfinch friend outside. I think my journal writing habit cultivated my present-moment sensory-observation capacities (and I also consider handwriting on paper to be a grounding sensory pleasure itself). Journal writing can go either way: ruminating on self/past/future or, being present in the moment. Sometimes it's a magical convergence of both wherein something new is born (that's the good stuff)
“why someone isn’t returning my text and that it’s probably because they just don’t love me anymore after I said that irretrievably stupid thing last week.” OMG! Can you actually like see into my head or something? 😉🤣
“The Corners” really hit home with me today. Because many people are posting about the extremely hot weather coming this week, praying that their air conditioner won’t die, I have allowed myself to ignore the pair of mockingbirds faithfully tending to their nest in a tree just outside my window. I can see beautiful hydrangeas in our side yard without leaving my recliner. Jesus’ words bring us back from human worries. Thank you, Nadia, for reminding us that worrying gets us nowhere!
I think about the parable about the sower and where the seeds fell. One is among thistles and thorns which is our lives being choked by all the problems in life. We can become addicted to problems that aren’t even ours or trying to fix problems. I am such a person. So now I try to ask is that my problem? I don’t want my life to be choked by daily problems that aren’t even mine in the first place. Time to get out of my head.
Thank you, Nadia. As always, your writing showed up just when I needed it, as I am sitting here in the middle of yet another power outage. Now I can take the time to slow down to hear the birds and really see the flowers in my garden.
Allowing ourselves to experience pleasure, teaching ourselves to notice pleasure, simply elevating our experience in any way we can shifts our way of being. It’s from this place we can create a difference in our daily life including those around us.
Thank you for this wonderful message! Keep shouting it from the rooftops❤️
Spot on! It is so very easy to get "in your head" and sink into everything that follows. I'm trying to live more in the moment and soak in the beauty around me and give thanks for so many blessings. Thanks Nadia!
The birds are easier to hear in the early morning, just before dawn, probably because the world is still asleep. When I was a small child and would crawl into bed with my mother because I was frightened of some shadow or bad dream, she would carry me back to my own bed just before dawn. And she would tell me to listen to the birds, because when you can hear the birds, it's almost morning. It was her way of comforting me, telling me that the light will be there any moment. Now that I am grown and retired, and my mother is gone, I still wake up just before dawn and hear the birds, and hear my mother say, "It's almost morning."
Thanks - for the 'being in the moment' reminder AND the connection to Jesus' words - another reason to cultivate the attitude. It not only is good for us - like spinach :) - but it's part of the way we are directed to live our lives. I wonder why we (me) haven't heard much of this in sermons?! (ha)
If anyone gets a chance, watch the documentary “the year the earth changed” on Apple TV. It shows how plant and animal life improved during quarantine. And quickly! Birds didn’t get any louder, but for a while there, there may have been *more* birds.
Mental image: woolly mammoth tiptoeing up to a neanderthal ruminating about whether Zog, one cave over, is mad at him.
Made my day!
It can't be easy to tiptoe with feet that big but, by gosh and by golly, that woolly mammoth is gonna try!
Nadia-i love your writings, they are helping me recover some faith that I have misplaced. This writing of paying attention to the present, especially so. We have hummingbirds at our feeders, and their flapping wings are miraculously loud, when I listen.
HI Nadia and everyone! I am eager to share my enthusiasm for the app Merlin. It has greatly enhanced my mornings. I am able to sit outside and pull up the appn for sound ID and it identifies the birds around me! It's like discovering a free symphony every day. By highlighting each 'song' it picks up with the name and picture of the bird, it teaches me to listen, and learn. I'm sure there are others, this is the one I use and it is truly a gift. More serious birders can add photo ID and share sightings, which is part of the focus to support efforts to conserve and track these precious creatures. Enjoy!
love that!!
Reading this, my wife, Leslie and I live in small town America, Dawson, Tx if you know where Waco is, go east about 40 miles or so. Our as I call it Big D , not Dallas has about 815 people here. Our mornings are quiet, I do hear birds, as well as our neighbors 8 roosters, announcing to one and all at 5:00 am it’s time to get up! My wife Leslie Howard, is a breast cancer survivor, and a published author, any way just stopping and listening enjoying the here and now moments are key to life! Thanks Pastor! Thanks so much
Nadia,
your words help me understand the importance of trusting in the now-moment.
“So I like to think that Jesus’ thing about not worrying and then inviting us to consider birds and notice lilies ….is both permission to let go, and an invitation to joy and even pleasure.”
So soothing...😌🕊️🕊️🕊️
Well, I'm glad I'm not the only one who is self obsessed lol. We fight so hard for a sense of belonging that anything that makes us feel separated scares us, and sometimes that separation is created in our own minds. I create reasons as to why people don't answer my emails or texts, and those reasons don't serve me. I think it's so true that fear-bases assumptions have never empowered us.
Anyways, on one of Brene Brown's videos, she mentions Maya Angelou and how Maya had said freedom is when you realize that you belong everywhere and nowhere (I don't remember the exact quote), and when asked about that concept of belonging nowhere, Maya answered, "I belong to Maya". I love that. When we dwell in the present, we can feel a sense of belonging with nature and we can get attuned to our deeper selves.
Yep, I can hear birds here. The seagulls definitely make themselves heard. My husband and I stayed at a cabin for a weekend getaway. Seagulls were nesting there and every time we went to the sauna or outhouse, they'd circle and squack and let us know their disapproval. They eventually calmed down. We got to see 2 nests of baby seagulls, swans, and geese with their goslings.
I'm years long into a deep bird-listening habit! Today I got up out of my chair when I heard my little goldfinch friend outside. I think my journal writing habit cultivated my present-moment sensory-observation capacities (and I also consider handwriting on paper to be a grounding sensory pleasure itself). Journal writing can go either way: ruminating on self/past/future or, being present in the moment. Sometimes it's a magical convergence of both wherein something new is born (that's the good stuff)
“why someone isn’t returning my text and that it’s probably because they just don’t love me anymore after I said that irretrievably stupid thing last week.” OMG! Can you actually like see into my head or something? 😉🤣
“The Corners” really hit home with me today. Because many people are posting about the extremely hot weather coming this week, praying that their air conditioner won’t die, I have allowed myself to ignore the pair of mockingbirds faithfully tending to their nest in a tree just outside my window. I can see beautiful hydrangeas in our side yard without leaving my recliner. Jesus’ words bring us back from human worries. Thank you, Nadia, for reminding us that worrying gets us nowhere!
I think about the parable about the sower and where the seeds fell. One is among thistles and thorns which is our lives being choked by all the problems in life. We can become addicted to problems that aren’t even ours or trying to fix problems. I am such a person. So now I try to ask is that my problem? I don’t want my life to be choked by daily problems that aren’t even mine in the first place. Time to get out of my head.
Yeah, just keep sowing.
Thank you, Nadia. As always, your writing showed up just when I needed it, as I am sitting here in the middle of yet another power outage. Now I can take the time to slow down to hear the birds and really see the flowers in my garden.
Allowing ourselves to experience pleasure, teaching ourselves to notice pleasure, simply elevating our experience in any way we can shifts our way of being. It’s from this place we can create a difference in our daily life including those around us.
Thank you for this wonderful message! Keep shouting it from the rooftops❤️
Spot on! It is so very easy to get "in your head" and sink into everything that follows. I'm trying to live more in the moment and soak in the beauty around me and give thanks for so many blessings. Thanks Nadia!
The birds are easier to hear in the early morning, just before dawn, probably because the world is still asleep. When I was a small child and would crawl into bed with my mother because I was frightened of some shadow or bad dream, she would carry me back to my own bed just before dawn. And she would tell me to listen to the birds, because when you can hear the birds, it's almost morning. It was her way of comforting me, telling me that the light will be there any moment. Now that I am grown and retired, and my mother is gone, I still wake up just before dawn and hear the birds, and hear my mother say, "It's almost morning."
Thanks - for the 'being in the moment' reminder AND the connection to Jesus' words - another reason to cultivate the attitude. It not only is good for us - like spinach :) - but it's part of the way we are directed to live our lives. I wonder why we (me) haven't heard much of this in sermons?! (ha)
If anyone gets a chance, watch the documentary “the year the earth changed” on Apple TV. It shows how plant and animal life improved during quarantine. And quickly! Birds didn’t get any louder, but for a while there, there may have been *more* birds.