Early morning bike ride

I have two very happy memories of being on a bike as a child. In the first, I was about 4 years old, sitting on my tricycle on the front sidewalk. It had streamers. (The bike, not the sidewalk…) I wore a blue corduroy coat with a quarter in the pocket that I’d just earned helping rake leaves at Mrs Taylor’s house across the street, and I looked off across the river valley to the mist against the hills and felt supremely happy. In the second memory, I was about 11 and had been commissioned to ride down to Dandee Donuts for milk. Once again it was early morning. Once again I felt the joy of being out early, with all the promise of the day before me, and with a sense of special freedom and privilege. I zig-zagged down the middle of Main Street because it was too early for cars. Only the paperboys were out.

Little wonder that I still enjoy an early morning bike ride now and then.

This morning I admired the river as I headed for a country road with little traffic and few hills. I had grabbed my camera on the way out and captured a few of the picturesque sights along the way.

There have been some strong storms in our area recently, and though much of it had been cleaned up the road still bore signs of the damage.

As I turned around, I heard a pileated woodpecker in the woods along the river. It’s an unmistakable sound — kind of a hooty, mirthless laugh. “How I would love to see that!” I thought. A pileated woodpecker, a hawk sitting in a tree, a Baltimore oriole unobscured by leaves, and a good look at the tiny wrens I see flitting around my house are a few of the sights I’d consider prize pictures for my personal bird book.

I rode a little further and saw signs of where the woodpecker apparently dined on occasion.

Then over my head came the quiet flap of a large-bodied, dark bird. I knew it was my pileated. And I confess praying that I’d catch a glimpse.”I know it’s an unimportant thing,” I admitted to the Lord. “But I would so love to see that bird. And I would love to get a picture.”

I crept around the base of the tree, craning my neck and hearing it drum away, but I never did see it. Then I heard it call again a little further down the road, so I mounted up and rode on.

Then I saw it.

I rode home with gratitude in my heart.

Why do I care so much? The answer is simple: I have absolutely no idea.

On one hand, a bird picture is a ridiculous thing to have prayed for. But God apparently didn’t think so. I think he’s proud of his creation, and quite glad when it brings us pleasure. I have almost a sense of him chuckling: “That’s pretty amazing, isn’t it? Let me give you a better look. And let me show you something even better: I care about you.”

Just for good measure, he threw in the wren, too. As I was writing this post, my daughter spotted it and snapped a picture for me.

So they look like pictures of a birds. But they’re really pictures of something far greater.