The Spiritual Blessing of Birds

I found myself thinking about that this morning as I reflected on the weekend activities. 

 I met with a young couple whose marriage I will officiate this fall.  The bride’s father had died two years ago and his nickname was ducky.  She shared about how many “Duck sightings” she had over the last year that gave her a sense of peace.  It reminded me so much of our beloved Lisa Baluk and what the swans have meant to her during her illness and to all of us who loved her since her death.

Saturday morning I had spent some time in my living room in prayer, meditation and spiritual reading.  I was  aware t Chuck  was still in bed as he had been all week.  He had the flu and it really hit him hard.  And so my mind went to – not only concern about him in the present – but a sense of anxiety about the future.

 His 80^th birthday was so much fun but aging brings aches and pains and an uncertain future.  That phrase “we’re not getting any younger” contains a word of foreboding.  These thoughts started to take what I would call a downward spiral.  So I sat and prayed and wrote in my journal for a while and finally looked up.

There in the nectarine tree in the front yard were sparrows.  And my mind went to the words of Jesus: 

"For this reason I say to you, do not be worried about your life, as to what you will eat or what you will drink; nor for your body, as to what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life?

And so I literally laughed aloud and remembered again – “there is a God and it is not me.”  And that I can trust God’s love and power to get me through whatever is ours in the future.

None of this is a new thought for any believing person.  But the physical reminded of a bird in a tree can bring me back to remembering that God is real and here.  

And so – ducks, swans, sparrows – our feathered friends can truly be messengers of the holy one.