After an absence of over 40 years, I have been attending church regularly for nearly a year. The same church I had been raised in, with some of the same people who were there when I last attended regularly in my mid-teens.

My mother stopped driving in 2016, so her cousin and his wife kindly took her to and from church. When my mother’s mobility declined after three hospitalizations in the winter of 2023/24, I felt it unfair for these thoughtful older relatives to have the responsibility of looking after my mother, so I told her I would take her.

This past Sunday, the minister’s sermon was focused on the baptism of Jesus, which is part of Epiphany, the season that follows Advent. One of the scripture readings was from the third chapter of the Gospel of Luke:

When all the people were being baptized, Jesus was baptized too. And as he was praying, heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended on him in bodily form like a dove. And a voice came from heaven: “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.”

Luke 3: 21-22

The minister, a thoughtful and interesting speaker, asked the congregation if we had ever seen a dove descend from heaven, if we had ever heard God speak. There was silence, indicating that no one had, or nobody was prepared to talk about it if they had, and he went on to talk about what that might have been like to hear God (and he talked about Eric Clapton, too, which isn’t usual in the Presbyterian Church of Canada, but most welcome, at least by me).

I’ve never heard the booming bossy voice of the Christian God as described throughout the Bible. I’m pretty sure he’s not that well pleased with me, despite me taking my mother to church every week, so I’m just as happy to not hear what he has to say.

What I do hear is the voice of the eternal spirit, the beating heart of the cosmos, the kind and merciful universe. Where? In the rustle of the leaves in trees, easily one of my most favourite sounds in the entire world.

Today I was walking through a field near our house, a field surrounded by tall trees that have watched me move around this land for nearly 60 years. The sun had just come out briefly, a rare occurrence so far this year, and I heard a flock of finches in the forest, always calling to one another as they move through the trees.

Suddenly, I looked up and saw a solitary finch flying high over the field, and it had something big in its mouth. Just as I thought I’ve never seen a finch carrying something so big, it dropped its load, and as it fell I could see it was a spruce cone. The cone bounced on the snow and the bird continued on its way as if that had been the plan all along.

I hurried over to see it and it was indeed a spruce cone, complete with a couple of spruce needles stuck its base. I could smell the distinct odour of spruce sap, and realised the bird must have plucked this directly from a tree, a gift from high up in a tree, a place I could never visit.

I put the cone in my pocket and brought it home and put it in a little dish. The seeds are already dropping out of it. It still smells of sap.

With you I am well pleased.