Feed the birds, tuppence a bag

Wednesday, May 22, 2024

(click here to listen to or read today’s scriptures)

Feed the birds, tuppence a bag

You have no idea what your life will be like tomorrow.

Last week I moved two effective squirrel-proof bird feeders from a closet to a box heading back to Illinois. For months we filled them and placed them in a tree outside. Squirrels couldn’t get the food, however they invaded one of the apartments in our building, so we were asked to remove the feeders.

But now, I see these cute little birds with long beaks hopping around our patio, and I think I should pull out one of those bird feeders one more time, and offer them something to eat! Then there are also the mourning doves, who make me think I’m hearing owls, but who sound their calls at noon, or 3 pm, or 6, while the owls are sleeping. Like a call to prayer. I cross myself and say a benediction. Those doves would appreciate some food as well, I think.

Not far up the road, an aquarium invites us in to touch and sometimes even feed the fish, and the sting rays, and the snakes, even. We haven’t been there in awhile, but I would like to go. It’s expensive unless you get an annual pass. Might be a good idea.

I’ve spent years of my life with Holsteins, milking them, cleaning up after them, and calling them in to the barn for supper. Dogs, several named Bear, made good companions. Cats have been friends, rubbing up against my leg, purring as they doze in my lap. Every day I get an email with today’s “Mutts” comic strip. Earl and Mooch long ago captured my heart.

You are a puff of smoke that appears briefly and then disappears.

The space between animals and humans includes physical and spiritual differences, but similarities too. And one thing it must not include is an arrogance that humans adopt almost without realizing it sometimes. Here’s a poem from another daily post in my email box, a poem that gets at this:

So smart

When I start to think I’m so damn smart

I go out into the woods and sit

 

till I become as dumb as trees,

no wiser than the enduring grass,

 

no smarter than the sparrows and their nests,

the fox hiding where I cannot see,

 

as ignorant as the great migrating bird

who knows her way,

 

and the white-tailed deer that knows nothing,

nothing of cruelty or greed.

 

I become as simple as the clouds,

losing themselves continually.

 

Then I am ready to re-enter the human dance,

watching, learning, for the first time. – Steve Garnaas-Holmes

It was Jesus’ father who felt compassion for the animals of Nineveh in Jonah, chapter 4. It was Jesus who called the little children to come to him, perhaps because they had yet to be made arrogant about their own selves. They loved, rather than judged.

And what about my rebirth, the tongue of fire on my own head, the Holy Spirit who walks alongside me all the time? “… to say nothing of the cattle,” God said to Jonah. Every moment with an animal gives me one more opportunity to love, rather than judge.

But then, oh surprise, o joy! Putting in those reps with the dogs and cats makes it much easier to do the same thing with people when I’m cut off in traffic, or someone looks at me with disdain or ignores my greeting, turning away back into their own worried world. Can I just love them, too?

Hear this, all you peoples, of lowly birth or high degree, rich and poor alike: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of heaven.

(James 4, Psalm 49, John 14, Mark 9)

(posted at www.davesandel.net)

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