Clergy/Leaders' Mail-list No. 1-057

THE BEAUTY OF THE AUSTRALIAN FOREST

From 'Sunrise Sunset' (HarperCollins/Harper San Francisco), Rowland Croucher's book of daily meditations. Feel free to use or adapt it.

Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Matthew 6:26.

I have just been for a short walk into the Australian forest, a few kilometres from Wangaratta, in northeastern Victoria. It is a mild sunny March morning, and the birds entertained me - about ten different varieties.

A family of ducks which had been eating grass by a creek took off with whirring wings and loud 'honks'. When I entered a copse of trees some magpies warned everyone I was coming, but after I'd sat still for about ten minutes the birds were back. A pair of white- eared honeyeaters whistled happily and did their little pirrouettes above the branches. A couple of tree-climbers hopped up a tree- trunk as easily as other birds hop along the ground. A scissors- grinder flew from tree to tree, making his unusual sound. A couple of scrub wrens twitted joyfully as they busied themselves inside the small trees. Swallows flew their erratic course looking for flying insects. Two varieties of rosellas fed in a large patch of grass...

It was beautiful, and I received these visitors from my creator-God with gratitude. Each of them had a different message for me - of undiluted happiness, gambolling joy, delight in foraging, impish cheekiness (the scrub wrens); colours, sounds, movements, and, as they came closer, trust.

O Lord, my Lord, how excellent is your name in all the earth. Teach me how to magnify you more spontaneously, more trustingly, more colourfully, with more 'wonder, love and praise.' Amen.