This spring, while on a visit to Virginia, my sister showed me the smartphone app Merlin, a clever little ear and eye into the world of bird watching (and listening). I knew about the app, but being somewhat rigid about adding even one more time-consuming feature to my phone, I had declined to add it.

On a morning drive, we stopped by a local nature preserve. Getting out of the car, my sister took out her phone and turned it to the listen position. In the few short minutes that we were at the preserve, Merlin “heard” about 15 varieties of birds. Some, it claimed, were rare to the area by time of year, or by their presence outside of their normal yearlong range.

The forest was filled with bird song that morning. The sound was lovely, soothing and consoling, and evidence that nature carries on – even in tumultuous times. During the pandemic, when I was living outside of Washington, D.C., walking through a nearby city park with its bubbling brook and serene bird calls on my morning walks from one pod of safety to another in order to see my grandchildren, was a lifesaver.

Now, back in Maine, we seem to be entering a new phase of pandemic-like times. We know the virus still circulates among us, and we’re hearing more and more about family and friends getting sick with it. Beyond this, there is the day-to-day clamor of the news headlines of assassination attempts and polling numbers, resignations, increasing numbers of children slain in senseless wars, and threats to the core governance of our societies here and abroad.

Unfortunately, we live in an era of disinformation, “alternative facts,” deepfakes and conspiracy theories that spring forth on social media. The world around us surrounds us with noise that we at once find toxic and disturbing. Some folks have taken to tuning out on the news just to make it through their day. Others attend to the news but are selective in the voices that they listen to. I wonder if, taking these approaches, we will ever find a community ethos, be it in Maine or beyond our borders?

Like the songs of birds that hide in plain sight in our forests and woodlands, there are still voices out there that are eternal and truthful, bearing witness to the power of nature to awe and inspire us. These voices help to shape our shared beliefs about political participation, equality and freedom form the basis for democratic institutions and processes. Some examples I think of include Dr. King’s letter from the Birmingham jail. Or two poems spoken a half-century apart at inaugurations: Robert Frost’s poem “The Gift Outright” and Amanda Gorman’s “The Hill We Climb.”

I wonder what it would take to launch an effort to find some kind of guide like the Merlin app that would helps us to identify and listen to the unseen and unheard voices. To pause amid the clamor of the news. To pause amid the efforts of a stubborn virus. To pause in resistance to forces that threaten the governance of the societies in which we reside.

We need to find those unheard voices that are out there waiting to be identified. By babbling brooks or in the midst of city noise, in quiet meadows or by the side of busy interstates. They are there. We just have to stop and listen.