From Forward Day by Day
Psalm 40:3 [God] put a new song in my mouth, a song of praise to our God.
Reflecting on the 100-year anniversary of the extinction of the passenger pigeon, I wrote a song inviting my own transformation. My hope is that as a witness to one bird’s extinction, I might be life-giving for God’s good creation.
Another bird in my song is the pelican. I never saw pelicans at the beach where I grew up vacationing with my family in the 1980s. I thought we just didn’t have them on the Texas coast. Then the chemical insecticide DDT was outlawed, and I witnessed a resurrection. As I understand it, the widespread use of DDT weakened the pelican eggs so that the baby birds could not develop. Once DDT was taken out of the equation, the birds made a remarkable comeback from death—a resurrection.
Now, I watch the majestic grace of those expert fishers as they glide low between waves in long lines, and I lose count as they fly out over the dunes toward their favorite fishing places. The new song is one of hope.
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