January 20--blistering cold. Snow falling. Trying to keep ahead of it. The driveway scrapes under the blade of the snow shovel. The whishing of the snow blowing off the shovel, back into my face. The scratching was accompanied by the background noise of interstate traffic a mile away. Scratching, whishing, humming--scratching, whishing, humming.

I stopped to breathe. Leaning on the shovel, I heard it. Music--singing over the drum beat of scratching, whishing, humming. A robin--a lone singer who forgot to head south. Singing its call, hoping for a reply. And then in a tree near-by, an answer. Another snow-bird enduring an Indiana winter.

I thought, “The dead of winter can be such a hard time. The absence of green, the sun hiding for days, the snow carpeting the brown grass for days and weeks on end. And we can be so driven to keep ahead of the overwhelming gray-white days of despair that we fail to stop and listen--deeply and quietly, to the song that whispers in our soul--the song that reminds us that life has beauty and loveliness.”

I am grateful for shovels on which to lean and breath to breathe in and ears to hear a robin’s song--and for my own song that sings my own soul forward.