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Behold, the Chickadee · Backward Mutters Poetry Podcast

• 0:01
  SPEAKER_00: You are listening to the Backward Mutters Poetry Podcast.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_00: Please visit online at backwardmutters.substack.com.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_00: There you can subscribe via your favorite podcast player and read the newsletter.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: I'm your host, Randy Edwards.
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_00: Today's poem is one I wrote several years ago while preaching through the Book of Job.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_00: When the Lord cross-examines Job at the end of the book,
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: he shows Job the scope of his sovereignty over creation,
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: whether good or bad.
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: One of those bads is behemoth.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_00: I have my thoughts on who, or rather what, behemoth is, but the Lord's instruction is
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_00: to Job and about Behemoth is what caught me.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_00: Job 40.15 reads, Behold Behemoth, which I made as I made you.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: About that same time,
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_00: I was sitting on our back deck working and I got to thinking of these bad beasts
• 1:02
  SPEAKER_00: and the monsters of life.
• 1:05
  SPEAKER_00: While I was thinking, I noticed a chickadee busily flying back and forth to the feeder.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: I learned from my friends Michael and Hazel that chickadees are known for being curious,
• 1:16
  SPEAKER_00: that if you're walking through the woods,
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_00: a chickadee is likely the first bird you'll come across.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: They are tiny birds, but there is a largeness about them.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Several years ago,
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: Michael wrote a suite of piano instrumentals titled Bird Songs,
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_00: and at the debut of the music and the accompanying wildlife photography
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: photographed by his wife,
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_00: Hazel,
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: I learned how to recognize the chickadee's song,
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_00: which sounds like...
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: chickadee dee dee you can listen to michael's avian suite of piano solos and bird
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: songs on all the streaming platforms and there's an accompanying book of hazel's
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: bird photography available for purchase on amazon so to bring this all back
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: together when you're faced with the beasts of life and the monsters of this world
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: know that the lord has power over them
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: but also, if you're able, behold the chickadee.
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Behold the chickadee,
• 2:20
  SPEAKER_00: which God made as he made you and me,
• 2:24
  SPEAKER_00: the smallest of beasts,
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: but whose song is large among those creatures who sing,
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: whose voice in the morning rings from the tree,
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: tree,
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: tree.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: God's monochrome rover,
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  SPEAKER_00: he flits back and over,
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: flies back and over and over again between the limb where he sits,
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: between the feeder in me,
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_00: where I stop,
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_00: nod and smile at him as I sit in the sun,
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_00: sipping tea,
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: tea,
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: tea.
• 2:58
  SPEAKER_00: Capped in black winters for him, he does not flee the cold, but settles in with the others.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: Titmouse, Junko, Tohi.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_00: And here he welcomes, wakens my world to eternity with birdsong cries of holy, holy, holy.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: The Lord's curious cherub.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Chickadee, dee, dee.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_00: You've been listening to the Backward Mudders Poetry Podcast.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: I'm Randy Edwards.
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you for listening.