Sandra Vincent Forward

A MORNING REFLECTION

My morrning started early, just as the sun pulled her covers back and arose to a new day.

I am normally not outside at this hour, but this morning I found myself sitting quietly in my black wrought iron rocker, wrapped in the cool hush that exists just before the world fully wakes. What I thought would be silence became one of the most beautiful orchestras I have ever encountered.

It started with two birds seemingly participating in call and response. One would sing, then another would answer from somewhere beyond the trees. I paused and listened more carefully. Then others began joining the chorus one by one until suddenly I was surrounded on every side by song.

I started to intentionally count the different parts I could hear within the melody.

The cardinals offered their smooth whistling hymns from the hedges. Carolina wrens burst forth with loud joyful declarations far greater than their tiny size should allow. Mockingbirds layered song upon song, as though they carried entire choirs within themselves. Mourning doves released their soft comforting coos from somewhere hidden among the pines. Blue jays interrupted boldly from time to time with sharp confident cries, while somewhere deeper in the distance a woodpecker tapped steadily against a tree like the metronome of the entire performance.

And even the crows, with their sharp “caw, caw,” were perfectly pitched and on beat.

What would normally sound harsh or abrasive somehow belonged in the symphony of the morning. Nothing was out of place. Every sound carried its own purpose. Every voice occupied its own space in the arrangement.

As I sat there listening, it struck me that creation does not require every voice to sound the same in order to create harmony.

Some songs are soft and beautiful. Others are loud, rough, and commanding. Yet together they formed something whole.

Perhaps life is much the same way.

Not every person carries a gentle melody. Some enter rooms with thunder, some with warnings, some with laughter, and some with wounds sharp enough to be heard before they are seen. Yet somehow, within the greater composition of life, every voice has a place.

The morning chorus did not resist the crow because it sounded different. The crow simply sang its part.

And maybe that is part of the wisdom creation quietly offers us each day: harmony is not sameness. Peace is not silence. Beauty is often the joining together of very different sounds moving in rhythm with something greater than themselves.

For a moment the entire world felt synchronized.

The breeze moved gently through the trees, the light stretched slowly across the earth, and every living thing seemed aware that morning had arrived. It made me wonder if peace has always been available to us, hidden beneath the noise of our rushing lives, waiting patiently in the early hours for anyone willing to sit still long enough to hear it.

This morning reminded me that God often speaks softly — not always through interruption or thunder, but through rhythm, beauty, order, and the quiet consistency of creation itself.

And perhaps that is the real miracle of morning:

that every single day, the world wakes up singing.

A REFLECTION ON THE NATIONAL DAY OF PRAYER

On this National Day of Prayer, I find myself returning to one word: discernment. Selah.

We are living in a time when manipulation has become ordinary. Voices compete for our attention, our trust, and our allegiance. Information moves faster than wisdom can catch it. People are being shaped, swaye d, and sometimes broken by forces they cannot see and were never taught to recognize. The harm is not always loud. Often it is quiet, gradual, and dressed in language that sounds like care.

So today I pray for discernment, and for all the gifts that travel with it. I pray for truth, that it would rise above the noise and find its way into homes, pulpits, classrooms, and council chambers. I pray for clarity, that the fog lifts long enough for people to see what is actually in front of them. I pray for wisdom, the kind that does not come from cleverness but from God, the kind that knows the difference between a friend and a flatterer, between a leader and a manipulator, between a movement and a trap.

I pray for an awakening, because too many of us have been lulled into accepting what should never be accepted. And I pray for sobriety of spirit, the steadiness to stand clear-eyed in a world working hard to intoxicate us.

Communities are hurting because they cannot name what is hurting them.

And so today, on this National Day of Prayer, I ask for discernment within our communities. May we develop the ability to see behind the curtain..