Ecclesiastes 3

The WGH appears to have absconded with the portable CD player, so the only music I had to walk to this morning was the birds. And no, I'm not talking about Turn, Turn, Turn.

It's overcast today, with the threat of rain, but they're still out there, singing their greetings to the morning. I don't recognize most of their songs, not like the Best Friend, who can tell you exactly what is warbling in the weeds just by the tune it twitters. The cardinals' tyew-tyew-tyew is a fairly easy one to pick out - I saw a pair of them today, the male sitting on a phone wire while the female hid in a nearby tree. Oh, and the caw, caw of the crow that sits right outside my study window is pretty hard to miss. All the rest is just chirping to me, but at least it's a positive sound - a happy sound - most of the time. Sort of a reminder that life should be simple and serene. Like the birds.

As some of you may or may not know, the lyrics to the aforementioned song come straight from the third chapter of the book of Ecclesiastes. It so happens that we're doing a study of Ecclesiastes in our Sunday school class. Not a very uplifting topic - the whole "life is meaningless" thing - but the lesson is more about how everything happens for a reason, that God is in control of all of it. I strongly believe that.

Now, I'm not here to give a Sunday school lesson. That honor is reserved for those called by God and bestowed with the spiritual gifts necessary to do so. I am not one of those people. I am, however, blessed in myriad ways, not the least of which is being a part of this community - i.e. the publishing industry in general - a group of fantastic people I've had the great privilege to meet and get to know over the years. People who support each other, and share experiences and laughs and cries and ideas and successes and failures. People you can email after a month and say, remember me? We met at [insert name of conference here] and you said [insert random, possibly wine-induced promise], and they say, yeah, sure, of course, bring it on. These are good people, and I'm proud and honored to be among them.

Tomorrow is going to be a very special day here in the Lunch Room. I sincerely hope you'll join me for it.

In the meantime, you know what to do ...

=) JB