Return of the Mourning Doves

The mourning doves that nested outside our window last year have returned. At first, I only heard the melody of their announcement from high up in the trees: Cooa cooa. We’re home. Now, the female is sitting in the same nest outside our window that they used to bring forth their offspring, repeatedly, in the previous year. In my heart, I have renamed them The Lenten Doves, because they have come home to us during Lent, carrying with them the Lenten theme, return, return.

Photo by Joshua Cotten

There are many beloved scriptural passages that carry with them the theme of “returning home.” The prodigal son comes immediately to mind. Yet recently I have engaged with The Good Samaritan, with a reminder from Pope Benedict XVI - found in his book Jesus of Nazareth – that, ultimately, Jesus is the Good Samaritan. We are the wounded people laying on the side of the road that need to come home to His love. We are the people Jesus comforts, carries, provides for, and heals, when it seems no one else cares.

With Jesus as the Good Samaritan, we can experience Jesus in an intimate and beautiful light. In this case, Jesus doesn’t wait for our wounded, stubborn, despairing hearts, to reach out to him. He crosses the road and comes to us because he can’t bear to see us suffering.  The depth of God’s mercy is like nothing we will ever experience on this earth.

Do you know this Jesus you pray to? Do you really know him? Would you recognize His face when He crosses the road, coming to you in your moment of greatest need? Can you trust the words from Jan Richardson’s blessing?

And in our aching, you are breathing,

And in our weeping you are here

Within the hands that bear your blessing

Enfolding us within your love.

As with anyone we love, there is only one way to get to know Jesus: spend time with Him, in both structured and unstructured prayer, in song or poem, at work or play, and in moments of contemplating sacred art.

Recently, our pastor presented us with a blessed Lenten challenge. He said there are only 40 pages in all four gospels. If we take one page a day, we can have all four Gospels read by the end of Lent. Why is this important? Because you can’t love someone you don’t know.

Location: Rose Cottage

The mourning doves have returned to our home because, it seems, they know us. They know we are respectful of their space. They know their babies will be safe. Yet do they know how delighted I feel upon their return? I can only tell you it has been thrilling to hear the cooing of their homecoming. 

Does God feel the same thrill when we return to Him? When we return and repent, determined to begin again? When we pray for a few moments, or an hour, returning to Him with all our hearts?  Is He delighted when we imitate Him, becoming the Good Samaritans, crossing the road to tend to the wounded hearts of others? Yes, indeed, but multiplied exponentially!

Here is the Good News: this extraordinary relationship is for everyone. Don’t wait for Jesus to cross the road. Rather, run - just as Cody Carnes encourages us in his song, Run to the Father.

I run to the Father, I fall into grace,

I’m done with the hiding, no reason to wait,

My heart needs a surgeon, my soul needs a friend,

So, I’ll run to the Father, again and again and again.

Spend time with Jesus in scripture this Lent. Scripture is an inexhaustible text. It offers us something new each time we read the same words that we have heard before, because we, and our circumstances, are new. Each day, return to God with all your heart, again and again and again.

For, you can’t love someone you don’t know.