“Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.” So said Jesus, but it seems these days God has delegated the task to Kathy and me, with help from our grandson James when he’s around. The recent cold snaps have worried Kathy. She read somewhere just how much food birds need to survive a frigid night, and she is determined that no bird perish on her watch.
Word of the Clifton Road Avi-eatery, where birds of varied feathers flock together, apparently has spread within the winged Intown community and, via online reviews no doubt, to countless tourists flying through. If I could bring people to church the way our feeders bring birds to our backyard, we’d be putting chairs in the aisles. It has become pretty much a full-time job to keep up with the appetites of our growing clientele. But I must say the results have been beautiful.
It is a delight to look out on the birds, large and small and many-hued, as they gather over a meal of non-mess seeds and maybe pause for a refreshing sip from, or dip in, the public bath. They’re all around us all the time, of course, but when they settle together for a moment or two, their beauty is revelatory.
Maybe it’s the uniqueness of each bird that makes the whole so glorious, or maybe it’s the glory of the whole that makes the individual birds so striking. But, whatever the case, they are wonders of nature and works of art divine. Sure, sometimes they are selfish, and sometimes they hog the perch, but at their best they are heavenly, a glimpse of God’s kingdom in our midst (How does it go? “The house wren and the rose-breasted grosbeak shall eat together”?).
I suppose you expect me now to make some connection between the birds and us. And the preacher-point is certainly there for the taking—how beauty is found in diversity, how perches must be shared, how the wonder of a common meal can be a divine experience. Yes, I could talk about the church, but instead I think I’ll talk about worship.
One day Kathy called me to the window. Out at the feeders and birdbath sat a beautifully subtle and downright cute chickadee, a rather regal Eastern Bluebird, a cardinal straight from Vatican City, and even a yellow finch, all posed unknowingly against the green of lawn and trees. Through the glass you could just make out the notes of their singing.
It sure sounded like a doxology to me.
In Christ,
Mark