As Summer and I took our Tuesday morning constitutional, I heard a familiar but unexpected chattering tweet from above. Sure enough, it was a red-winged blackbird perched on a power line calling down to me. I’m used to that blackbird song being an harbinger of spring, not October chill.
‘What are you still doing here, buddy?” I called back. “Did your friends fly south without you? Are you an elderly beast who decided to live out your last days here in God’s country? Or have I misunderstood your lifestyle all along, and you and your friends are always around and I never noticed before?”
Whatever the case, it was comforting to have a reminder of springtime as we begin the annual slog toward winter.
“Spring waits at the end of this road,” God and the blackbird promise. “Just hang in there for a while.”
It’s so easy to fall into the trap. I saw another absurd political meme and was already composing a response to the absurdity in my mind, but just in time I reminded myself I do not wake up in the morning to argue about politics, nor did I log into Facebook to spend the day tilting against absurd windmills.
But here I am spending a significant amount of time scrolling through nonsense that adds nothing to my day. I sometimes wonder if I am psychologically able to keep my “smart” phone in my pocket for a full day.
We engage with the screen instead of with the world around us. The world is silently shouting “Pay attention! See the world! Interact!” while we scroll through what? Do you remember half of what the screen showed you this morning? or 5 minutes ago? That wise saying you laughed at or nodded in agreement — what was it again? Why did you laugh? Wake up, Warren! There’s a life to be led, tasks to accomplish, needs to fill, weight to shed, dogs to steward — see to your life, work for your purpose, seize the day.
The high-tech tools created to teach us and draw us together are being abused to tear us apart and drive us into ignorance and misunderstanding.
Do I have the guts to stand up and cry, “No! I will love my neighbors! I will treat my supposed enemies with kindness!”?
Some will say, “How can you turn your eyes and speak of love when so much wrong is happening hither and yon?” That is precisely when we need not to just speak of love but to engage with the world in a spirit of love.
And so I resisted the urge and scrolled past the absurd meme after lingering over it for a few moments, but more and more I understand that the real solution is not to scroll past the absurdities but to stop scrolling altogether.
You can taste the fresh apple cider in the air and hear the coming crunch of leaves underfoot even as they hold fast to the trees. The autumn equinox is 8:05 p.m. today, after sunset, so technically this will be the real last day of summer even though it is billed as the first day of fall. It’s a futile distinction; autumn is upon us.
As if to compound the tragedy, I woke up from a Monday afternoon nap to the cries of Canada geese passing overhead on their way to wherever they go after summering in Green Bay. It is a beautiful sound and a lovely sight, the majestic V’s forming across the sky, but you can feel the great birds carrying the summer warmth away with them.
The brightest colors of the year are in October. The views can be breathtaking on the days when sun shines on the reds and yellows and oranges. Still, I prefer the boring and dependable solid greens of spring and summer to the vivid variety of fall. I have nothing against autumn except for its inexorable march toward winter.
