Serve by Design

At the senior living facility where I serve as a chaplain, I have recently heard some mysterious sounds like birds chirping each time I have visited. I thought at first that the sound might have come from one of the safety alarms on the ceiling. The longer this strange phenomenon went on the more I became confused. Credit: shutterstock.com When I asked one of my “go-to guys” where that whistling chirping sound was coming from and if he could hear it, he said, “Oh yes, but I don’t always pay attention to it. That sound comes from Angel, one of our CNA’s, who’s here today for her shift!” I exclaimed, “How does she do that? It sounds so realistic!” My friend gave me his best deadpan response, “It’s a gift, I guess!” This week I got to see and hear this gifted and popular caregiver in action and up close. While Angel whistled her delightful chirping like a professional, I looked up from the table where I was chatting with three resident friends. Angel was leaning over the stair banister ...

I had a delightful experience this week standing at my front door and looking at the pots of petunias that I had planted back in the spring. They were doing fairly well even after the stresses of this summer's dry spells. While enjoying the vibrancy of their assorted colors, I looked more closely at the dozens of blooms and immediately noticed a hummingbird busily working to harvest the abundance of nectar. It was an amazing lesson in productivity! Image Credit: unspash.com Did you know that there are over three hundred and sixty species of hummingbirds in North America? These ambitious little creatures are known for their intelligence, spatial memory, geographic predictability, and even social interactions with humans. With skill and dexterity, they hover over and alongside the trumpet and tubular-shaped flowers of our neighborhoods while using their elongated beaks to draw out nectar and small insects as a food source. In addition to resourcing the flowers for food, they are also...