I would have missed it

This morning I got to the drug store early and was waiting for it to open and sat in the car with a warm summer breeze coming through the windows.
I was listening to NPR and looked up...
There in the sign DRUGSTORE I saw a birds nest perched in the top part of the R.
There was nesting material coming out. I would have missed seeing that if I'd gotten there on time.
I thought of how many times we miss something interesting if we aren't paying attention. I'm sure I do. We would miss finding joy in the simplest of pleasures and observations.
Later I thought that tucked there in the R was probably a pretty safe place for a nest. If you weren't the 'owners' of the nest you probably couldn't land there safely or even know it was there.
And I thought of all the people who aren't tucked in safely overnight. In places where houses are bulldozed down over night, even if it is a cardboard shanty, where there are not enough homes for refugees, where wind or weather or quaking earth has displaced them, where it is cold even in their summertime and they have no bed or blanket, or where it is very hot,and they have not way to be cool.
So, I gues what I'm coming to is perhaps today we should thank our Creator for the homes that shelter us, protecting us from the storm, keeping us the comfortable temperature, all those things we oft take for granted.
And we feel safe...like a nest..tucked in an R...on the front of a store.

God abides
Bobbie Giltz McGarey
@2006