The Song of the Voles
A cheerful heart is good medicine. Proverbs 17:22 (NIV)
In my lifetime, I’m sure I’ve seen a few of these but thought they were just mice. They are rather cute, aren’t they? Their purpose…they are an excellent food source for owls, hawks, foxes, and snakes but they also spread nutrients and aerate soil as they dig tunnels underground. Louis Lotz (All God’s Creatures) shares a wonderful message and song about voles.
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I knew the boy had been sick, with hospitalizations, blood transfusions, and doctor visits one after another. That’s a lot of weight for four-year-old-shoulders. He called to me across the fence: “I caught something!” He pounced on the little critter, trapping it beneath an upside-down bucket. I lifted the bucket and found myself staring at a tiny, brownish rodent. Small ears, small eyes, a short hairy tail. It was a vole.
“What do voles do?” he asked. I said that, so far as I knew, they spent most of their time digging tunnels. The boy said that he dug tunnels in his sandbox and that he liked to sing as he worked away. Then he got a thoughtful look on his little face, and he asked, “Do you think voles sing when they dig?”
I spent the evening writing the lyrics to the “Song of the Voles.” The next morning, I announced to the boy that I’d put my ears to the ground and heard the sound of tunneling and singing. And the song went like this:
Tunneling, chunneling, up hills and knolls,
Out of our way! We are the voles!
No stones, no boulders, no rigmaroles,
Will stand in our way. We are the voles!
No rocks can stop us, no animals top us,
No storms can dampen these bold, hearty souls.
We thunk on the chipmunks, we roll o’er the moles,
We roust all the rabbits from their rabbit holes.
Out of the way! We are the voles!
The “Song of the Voles” isn’t going to make anyone forget Rogers and Hammerstein or Stephen Sondheim, but the boy liked it, and he threw back his head and laughed out loud. And any day you can make a child laugh is a good day.
Loving Lord, thank You for laughter. As You have filled me with gladness, oh God, let me share my gladness with others. AMEN.