Bird Watching

by Bob Setzer, Jr
My home study is on the second floor of our house. The window by my desk looks out into some trees. The one nearest the window is a holly tree that has pushed skyward across the years. Its lush, green leaves are speckled with bright, red berries. The birds love that tree and so do I.

In fact, often as I gaze out that window, a robin hops along the branches of the holly. He walks the slender branches in the upper reaches of the tree as they bend and quiver beneath his delicate dance. After looking over the delectable berries, the robin picks one, snatches it with a quick strike of his beak, and then flutters away, satisfied.

But sometimes, the robin notices me staring at him through the window pane that separates my world from his. He stops his hopping, peers back, and edges toward the window to take a closer look. Often, he cocks his head--first to one side and then the other--as if he’s trying to figure out what a normally earthbound creature human like me is doing up high, where he lives. With rapt attention, we size either other up, if not in mutual understanding, then certainly in mutual respect. Usually, the robin tires of the staring match before I do and gets backs to work, snatches a berry, and is gone. I am left with only the sound of the chirping that tells me others like him yet hide in the green wonderland that is his world.

A lot can be learned by visiting a world one doesn’t normally inhabit: snorkeling in the crystal blue waters of the Caribbean; floating above cotton candy clouds in an airliner; peering into the night sky at teasing, twinkling stars; sitting all alone in a quiet place, listening to the silence. One of the great losses from childhood is losing our sense of exploration and adventure: we quit climbing trees.

But sometimes, God surprises us with a heavenly moment, slab-dap in the midst of our down-to-earth world. Sometimes Jesus’ prayer, “Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven,” is answered. Sometimes, even on terra firma, the robins and the angels sing: times when we notice someone we ignored before, listen to someone we dismissed before, and welcome someone we excluded before. In those moments, the divide between heaven and earth is breached, God’s Spirit breathes new life into our feeble attempts to be the church, and we discover the wonder a world where everyone speaks the same language: the language of a radical, reckless Christlike love.

Such moments are the gift of Pentecost. And Sunday is the day the Spirit-wind blows, the dove and the fire take wing, and the church is born anew.