We Sing In The Dark

I was awakened from a sound sleep at 4:17 this morning.
I lay there listening, wondering why I was awake.
Softly, softly, I heard a tinkling sound, far away and indistinct.
It puzzled me.
What was it?
Maybe the wind chimes... Was it windy out?
I couldn't hear any wind.
But since it didn't stop, I got up and opened the door to the hall.
I listened, and it was still there, musical and mysterious.
I walked quietly down the stairs, trying to hear it above my footsteps.
I opened the door to the living room:
the cat looked curiously up at me from the couch.
Stopping and listening again, I recognized a chorus of birds,
singing to the unrisen sun.
It made me smile.
"Don't you know it's four seventeen?" I thought.

I thought about the birds, singing in the dark, while I fell asleep again.
About Jesus saying, '"But when these things begin to come to pass,
look up, and lift up your heads;
because your redemption draweth nigh."
And He spake to them a parable:
Behold the fig tree, and all the trees:
when they now shoot forth, ye see it
and know of your own selves that the summer is now nigh.
Even so ye also, when ye see these things coming to pass,
know ye that the kingdom of God is nigh."'
He said it to them in reference to terrors.
To things that made them want to faint in fear.

Like the birds, we sing in the dark.
We look forward to the Sonrise, the breaking of the Day.
And though we sing in the dark,
we sing of the return of the Light:
of summer; the budding of leaves;
the fruit on its way;
and the Kingdom of God.
Perhaps our singing will awaken a sleeper.