Good morning.

Fresh, cool air pours in through the open patio doors. Birds warble and sing, and my half-naked budgie bobs his head and listens, then chirps back. The budgie, who we've never named, even though he is old and his feather's are missing from the waist down, tells us when it's time to cover him or replenish the seeds in his plastic trough.

The red carnations my husband gave me for Mother's Day are still fresh though the water in the vase is cloudy. The flowers, today's newspaper, my Bible and my lukewarm tea are spread around me on a red and green paisely table cloth.

Was thinking about how, when I went for a walk the other day, stopping to glance at a red cardinal singing from the very top branch of a spruce tree, sitting there like a star atop a Christmas tree, that this cardinal was gazing back at me.

Then, a mourning dove in a flower bed, scratching the moist earth, cocked its little eye me. Existential moment. I exist because the bird saw me. The dove flew across the road as I drew closer, its wings making that whoop, whoop sound.

Here are the readings that will be part of the Eucharist today at my little cathedral.

The Epistle

James 1: 22

Be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doers, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass. For he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was. But whoso looketh into the perfect law of liberty, and continueth therein, he being not a forgetful hearer, but a doer of the work, this man shall be blessed in his deed. If any man among you seem to be religious, and bridleth not his tongue, but deceiveth his own heart, this man's religion is vain. Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

Gospel

John 16:23

Jesus said unto his disciples, Verily, verily I say unto you, Whatsoever ye shall ask the Father in my name, he will give it you. Hitherto have ye asked nothing in my name: ask, and ye shall receive, that your joy may be full. These things have I spoken unto you in parables: the time cometh when I shall no more speak unto you in parables, but I shall show you plainly of the Father. At that day, ye shall ask in my name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you; for the Father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God. I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again, I leave the world, and go to the Father. His disciples said unto him, Lo, now speakest thou plainly, and speakest no parable. Now are we sure that thou knowest all things, ande needest not that any man should ask the: by this we believe that thou camest forst from God. Jesus answered them, Do ye now believe? Behold, the hour cometh, yeah is now come, that ye shall be scattered every man to his own, and shall leave me alone: and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with me. These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.