Reading the Signs of the Times

Birds fill the trees

I was coming out of LLBeans when the air filled with birds!  Thought I to myself--"get an umbrella--f-a-s-t!  I watched as they filled the trees then took off and returning to them--a spreading blanket enfolding three maple trees.  A massive flock moving as one!  I wondered how they could communicate to move in such a coordinated fashion--what kept them together? This was not the perfect "V" shape geese with the leader honking the way--this was a moving cloud of birds on remote control lifting off and flying--then returning to roost with a loud noise saying what I could not understand- I am told that flocks of blackbirds, grackles, cowbirds and the like form these migratory flocks and get ready to head South--they saying quite clearly:   

fall is flying on the wing!

How did they coordinate so well?  Who was the leader of that band of birds?  Surely, despite our expectation for us to follow us--we have to communicate carefully and with intention for others to get where we are going.  The single most regrettable phrase???  Oh, I am sorry, I assumed....  Sometimes we have to move at the pace of the heart, which grasps more than content, but emotion.  Sometimes the cyber world turns us into an extension of them rather than the other way around.  It just requires a slow down step by step approach which confirms what has been heard. 

How do we follow Jesus?  Where do our assumptions come into play?  Read the signs of the times, Jesus said, and then step by step talk to Jesus in prayer.  We do that, said CSLewis, not to make upo God's mind but to change ours.  The Spirit is always on the wing--calling us out, to be at one with God.  Listen, watch, as the Spirit fills the trees.