banjo and a purple finch

There is a beautiful place in my house that shines in morning sunlight. The windows look into the front juniper where I placed a bird feeder a few weeks ago. The birds love the sheltered branches and opened spaces in that juniper.

So I sit on my big brown couch practicing backwards rolls on my banjo; watch the chickadees, nuthatches and purple finches flashing in the morning sunlight as they come for seeds in the juniper.

Do not worry about your life,
what you will eat or drink
or about your body, what you will wear...
look at the birds of the air;
they do not sow or reap or store away in barns,
and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. 
(...also, I help!)
In a world inundated with news about disasters and people not having enough food or drink or shelter, these words may seem cavalier ... but they are also part of an assurance that we are seen.  That a heavenly Father is working behind the scenes, or in the scenes, and that we are a part of his work.

My Saskatchewan bird book describes purple finches as not really purple, but birds that look like sparrows dipped in raspberry juice.  Well.  For so many reasons, that is now the bird I look for
in the morning sunlight.

One parked himself on the feeder for a while before hopping onto a bare sunlit lilac branch
where he sat and watched me practicing my backward rolls on the banjo, tilting his head to the side, listening to these strange sounds... and I looked right back at him and kept playing.
After a few minutes I put my banjo down and he flew away.