Birds of the air
The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer! My God is my strength in whom I will trust and my high tower. I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies. The Lord liveth, and blessed be the rock! Let the God of my salvation be exalted.
– From Psalm 18
For two nights I’ve watched in high definition flocks of starlings settle into evening. Millions of them, and watching I remembered the sound of starling wings, as they crowded together on summer evenings in our farmstead trees and frustrated my dad to no end.
On the screen huge flocks of starlings mesmerized their attackers. This is no small thing for those little birds. They repelled the attack of a peregrine falcon. They sort into groups of seven, one following the other and then one group following the next. Their response is ten times faster than that of fighter pilots.
First they avoided the falcon, their sheer numbers preventing her from settling on any single prey. And then, and then! They turned on the falcon, those tiny birds, and drove her away. Only then could they settle and sleep.
The falcon left frustrated, perhaps, but with no grudge. And she would be back the next night. She is always hungry. Birds search for food all day, sometimes find it, and then they sleep. Eat and sleep, eat and sleep.
Twice a year most birds migrate, often thousands of miles. On their way to breeding grounds they find the same places every year to feed, often working with other animals. Gannets and dolphins, for example, work together to turn their common food, sardines, toward each other. They search, they find, they share.
I am caught up in their flight, their synchrony, and their songs. Jesus knew the birds and loved them. It’s said that St. Francis preached to them. When I feed them in our backyard I don’t think they are storing food up for tomorrow. They eat and sleep, eat and sleep.
Jesus’ words about the birds cushion my head against the matters of today: “Look at the birds of the air,” he says. “They do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Do not worry about tomorrow.”
But there is so much trouble. Many of us don’t know where we’ll eat tomorrow. So many families are under attack by armies or disease or dysfunction. This is not a mystery to any of us; as Jesuit leader Pedro Arrupe said about us, “We know more now.” I cannot reconcile any privilege I might have with so many others’ lack. I am guilty, and I am afraid.
And of course I worry. The poor you will always have with you. There is no one righteous, not even one. It is hard to remember Jesus’ words about the birds.
A Christian lawyer named William Stringfellow, a man who had earned the right to be heard, once said to a social justice action group, “We do not have to triumph over the forces of death by our own inspiration, efforts, and strategy. We do not have to defeat death all over again.”
He DID remember Jesus’ words, and he said them again in his own way. Mr. Stringfellow continued, “ Hope and belief in the power of the resurrection is not a feeling or a mood, it is a necessary choice for survival.”
In the absence of fear there is joy. In the absence of worry there is peace. In the absence of resentment there is love. All these things are provided for us in abundance by our heavenly father, and we are called to open our mouths just like those baby birds, and say, “Yes.”
I love you, O Lord, my strength, my rock, my fortress, my deliverer. I want to spend time with you and listen to you, and share my stories with you in the morning’s dawn and evening dusk. Let me be with you, please, to drink your water of life and then settle in some tree to sleep and dream, and dream and sleep.
http://www.davesandel.net/category/lent-easter-devotions-2018/
http://www.christiancounselingservice.com/archived_devotions.php?article_id=1691
