June 2018 SPECIAL EDITION December 2016 Issue | Page 4

December 2016 The Cardinal of VOL By Christie Bourg In the past 12 years since I’ve been at VOL, I’ve seen quite a few animals on campus. Dogs and cats are a given, so I’m not counting them. There’s been a couple of possums, a raccoon, some ducks, and an armadillo. Every once in a blue moon we get a visit from a bird. I’m not talking about the crows who fight over acorns, or the mocking birds who like to swoop down and take a peck or two at an innocent cat, I mean the beautiful birds that come to show off their plumage and flaunt their colors. We’ve had some rare sightings of the beautiful white egret, but recently we’ve had a visitor who we rarely get to see up close – a cardinal. This isn’t just any cardinal, he’s special. He has been appearing at my office window every day since mid-October. He also visits some of my other co-workers, and, believe it or not, makes regular appearances at church windows during Mass (yes, he goes to Mass – he’s a Catholic Cardinal!) I see him so much, I named him Frank, (in honor of Pope Francis, who was, at one point, a cardinal himself.) Frank makes his presence known when he comes to visit. He taps so hard on our windows, he’s impossible to ignore. It’s almost as though he is Page 4 trying to get our attention to show us something. Every time he visits, no matter what I’m doing, my head turns to his direction to watch him. His visits bring me joy. Seeing such a beautiful animal up close is a treasure to me, especially since I can take close up photos of him! (I’m a shutterbug, and love to take pictures of nature. Opportunities to photograph beauty in motion are few and far between.) During one of his visits recently, I had a profound thought. I wonder if God feels the same way when we go to visit him. He always welcomes our visits, and no matter what he’s doing, he turns toward us. We bring him great joy when we visit! We are a treasure to him. Unfortunately, opportunities we give him to chat with us are often few and far between. I know the joy this little bird brings me, but I can’t imagine what we bring to God! Perhaps we can take a lesson from Frank. He visits us every day, several times a day. Imagine if we did the same for God. Imagine the joy we would bring him. Visiting with God regularly isn’t hard. I think that if Frank can visit me every day, I can certainly visit God more often.