When the shadows lengthen, and the evening falls, and the busy world is hushed;

when the gaps between the tree boughs outside my window sing out God’s praise in technicolor;

when the birdsong gathers into conspiratorial whispers deep within the hedgerow;

whilst the chipmunks steel themselves silently against the stones and burls,

and the cicadas thrum their heartbeat from deep within 100 year old sycamores;

An ancient refrain reverberates within me:

what am I that You made me?

What kind of justice, to live and move and have our being here, now?

To share such space, shot through with glory as it is?

Do the catbirds ask such questions?

Or do they worry themselves in the twilight hours over the problem of “the hominids”

and the daily tribulations we wreak upon God’s green earth?

Do they wonder whether we might learn a thing or two

by turning to the world outside our window,

crammed to overflowing with every blessed idea that every came to the Creator’s mind

all of them working out what it means to live together, to share space,

to make the music of their hearts with the gifts they have been given?

All of this I ponder in my heart as the stars begin to blink from within the limpid sky

and I strain my ears to catch the feral humming of creation at rest.