Faith in a Time of Pandemic – The Osprey are Back!

XIII.
THE OSPREY ARE BACK!
God’s mercies are new every morning; great is God’s faithfulness. (Lamentations 3:22)

This morning as I was walking along Covell’s Beach, one of the usual – early morning – suspects noted from a safe physical distance, “the osprey are back!” And then added, “You may not be able to see the Osprey couple here at Covell’s but they’re here, getting their nests ready for another generation.”

Oblivious to our human responses to the Coronavirus, the osprey are returning home, as they do each year, to lay eggs, birth chicks and raise them. Year after year, generations of osprey return to the Cape, marking the coming of Spring, and the joy of new life regardless of what’s going on in the human world.

I haven’t seen any osprey yet. But I trust that they are here and will be my beach companions until summer’s end. Seedtime and harvest, great is God’s faithfulness, as the hymn goes. We can’t see the end of the Coronavirus right now, and we are confused by the contrast between the words of scientists and the spin of politicians. We can still trust that sometime in the future, it too will pass.

Hopefully, we will learn some important things in the process – that we need one another, we can be kind in challenging times, crisis calls us to becoming more caring about our neighbors, and we need to think globally not just locally and nationally. Hopefully, we will prepare our nests, birth a new way of life, and get on with the living. A way of life, motivated by community, earth care, and the balance of national sovereignty and planetary loyalty.

The osprey are back! Nature in all its wondrous diversity emerges as seasons change. God’s life goes on in amazing ways in us and around us. Great is God’s faithfulness.
Thanks be for osprey and springtime. For new life despite challenge. For growth and change, and God’s faithfulness in all life’s seasons. Let us be faithful as God’s companions in all the seasons of life. Amen.
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Bruce Epperly is a Cape Cod Pastor, professor, and author of over 50 books including FAITH IN A TIME OF PANDEMIC, FINDING GOD IN SUFFERING: A JOURNEY WITH JOB, THE MYSTIC IN YOU: DISCOVERING A GOD-FILLED WORLD, and BECOME FIRE: GUIDEPOSTS FOR INTERSPIRITUAL PILGRIMS