Filling the Feeder
I am the same age my father was when he died. I don’t dwell on it, but I can’t escape the shadow of my own mortality, knowing that we have lived the same number of years. Did he know that this was his final year? I doubt it. Any more than I do, should that again be the case.
I think of this at odd times. When I wake in the middle of the night and the house is still, or, while I wait for the coffee to brew. I suddenly find myself listening. For what? I’m not sure.
During the Arctic blast we’ve had the past few weeks in PA, I made sure to keep the bird feeder filled. Knowing the sparrows will come lighter than air and fierce with the will to survive. What frees them to fly in the vast sky, cares nothing for their individual survival, in the end. Life is fleeting. It is the natural order of things. `
Which is why I fill the feeder, I suppose. It is my act of defiance against the natural order of things. I may not be free to shed these “surly bonds” like the fierce little sparrows, but I am free to care for them and act on their behalf. Life is the choices we make in the end.
Today, we are facing a crisis of epic national proportions. Not a day goes by without a legal expert warning of a constitutional crisis looming. Not a week goes by without a grocery shopper experiencing a personal economic crisis. Millions have had their health care priced beyond their reach and wonder what they’re going to do now?
On top of that, the proliferation of outright lies by our elected leaders creates a crisis of trust in our values, in our institutions, and ultimately, in our sense of “who we are.” We must choose.
Are we a people who tolerates taking preschool children and sending them to detention camps? Willing to separate families? Will we condone the cruel disregard of our shared humanity in the naked pursuit of wealth and power?
We are told not to believe the horrible things we clearly see on video. We are told that our own eyes can’t be trusted and we need to be protected from ourselves. Which is the most profound identity crisis of all and places the starkest choice before us.
I wonder though, is kindness truly subversive of the natural order? Or, is caring for others necessary, for the natural order to finally become what it was meant to be?
I’ve gone back and forth on that over the years. I think my father did too. I know full well that the flocking sparrows means the hawk will come eventually. Should I stop feeding them? What would be gained and what would be lost, if I did?
Like everything else, this too is a choice. A human life is lived to its fullest when we intentionally choose goodness and compassion. This is a foundational teaching of our faith.
To be fully human is to maintain a fierce belief in the power of love with no guarantees save this…now, my filling the feeder with seed in the frigid predawn must be “factored in” to the “natural order” because I am part of that order too. We all are.
Didn’t Jesus teach that we are called out of the world and then sent back? What power we hold to change the world!
Maybe the natural order is actually just shorthand for how we interact with our world and with each other. The care, or the lack of care, we extend in those interactions. Do we demonize others or we will we honor them? Do we welcome others or turn them away? Do we recognize the common threads that bind us one to another, or will we exploit the vulnerable and act as though ours is the only life that matters?
If that’s true, then the natural order is the product of our sense of what it means to be human. Everything else proceeds from that. Including the crises we are facing now. Will we succumb to the brazen cruelty our political leaders foist upon us, or will we fill the feeder with seed?
The Chinese character for ‘crisis’ is really a combination of two characters: ‘danger’ and ‘opportunity’. Both are present in a crisis.
So I went back to the warm kitchen and sat by the window in the lamp light to savor my coffee and wait for the sparrows to awaken in the arborvitae that line the yard. Watching for the telltale cascade of snow that fell from the branches as they flew to the feeder one by one.
And I thought of my father at the end of his life. How many times had he sat exactly like this on a quiet morning watching the world unfold in all its heartbreaking wonder and beauty? What would he say to me now, I wonder?
Maybe I already know.