Praise: the act of expressing approval or admiration; commendation; laudation; the offering of grateful homage in words or song, as an act of worship:a hymn of praise to God

One of the sweetest songs of praise comes from the chickadee. Chickadees remind me of my dad, who couldn’t keep from joining in with a “chick-a-dee-dee-dee” when one crossed his path.

Welcome to Day 33 of the Wonders of Worship (WOW) series. Today we ponder the Canticle of Praise.

In response to seeing this image of chickadees, a dear friend sent a note after she had done little research on the chickadee call and song. I am deeply grateful for what she shared: she imagined the “Hey, Sweetie” call to be a greeting from my dad. If you listen to the call and song linked a few words back, you might hear, too, a father-daughter duet of praise.

chick-a-dee-dee-dee

Praise the happy memory!

“Hey, Sweetie!” . . . “Hey, Dad!”

To download the black and white image for personal use: on a computer, click and drag the image to your desktop; on a phone, press on the picture until it gives you the option to save it to your photos. The image is formatted to fit on an 8.5″x11″ piece of paper, but feel free to print it whatever size you’d like.

Background: I created a series of forty 5″x7″ watercolor paintings inspired by the elements of worship. It was work commissioned by a project with Nourishing Vocation with Children at St. Olaf College, a program funded through Lilly Endowment’s Nurturing Children Through Worship and Prayer Initiative.

As the paintings are shared, you may notice a pattern:

• Music = Songbird
• Prayer = Seed and/or Fruit
• Word = Leaf
• Order of Service = Element of Nature
• Season = Insect with a Flower

One final creative invitation for this project remains for me: to paint a Tree of Life holding all forty elements. I plan to share its progress here.

For this series, I am grateful to have used handmade paper from White Dragon Paper and watercolor paints from Natural Earth Paint.