Letting Nature Tend To My Soul

I’m in love with the sounds. The sounds from my new home in Texas.

Maybe nature wasn’t as abundant in my last home state. Maybe I just wasn’t listening as closely. But here, here, all the animals and insects seem to be happy and cheerful.

I sit on my back patio, and I can hear the doves cooing, the insects chirping, and the birds singing. And I take it all in.

It makes me happy and refreshed. For it’s how I imagine God intended it to be – with all the different animals frolicking about and speaking to one another here and there. Going about their business, living life. Loving who they were created to be. At least, that’s what they sound like to me. They don’t sound like they are unhappy, depressed, or mad about where they live or what they are. The squirrel bounces around and seems perfectly content that he’s a squirrel – and not a bird.

So, why aren’t we, as people, happy with who we are? God made us each differently. We can still interact and relate to one another – accepting who we are, and accepting who others are. We can be happy and cheerful – simply living our lives.

I wonder what our “people” sounds, sound like to the critters? Do we sound happy and joyful, or whiny, angry, and ungrateful? Maybe if we seemed more at peace, the animals would be more drawn to us, as we are to them.

I think that’s why nature is so recharging to a soul. It’s accepting. It’s inspiring and motivational, simply in observing, listening, and letting it attend to our hearts and souls.

It’s healing.

City smog, fast-paced traffic, noisy television sets, ipods, and computers. They can be exciting at times – but they are manufactured distractions. They can’t attend to a soul the way the outdoors can. The way that GOD can.

Maybe that’s the secret the wild animals carry with them.

Maybe we can learn something from them.