The Bird Who Winked
a story about the "comforts" of life
As the bird flew by, I swear, she winked, for she knew the secret of the universe, and her song reflected the Love of God that is at the heart of everything.
But before this, long before this, the bird was an egg, and it’s mother was an egg, and it’s mother was an egg, and on and on it goes back fifty-three years to the day I was born.
As I reflect upon my time on earth, I can clearly see the Spirit of God moving in every aspect of my life. It seems as if the only explanation for why things are the way they are and how things have happened the way they have happened is because of the Wind that blows from the Presence of the Divine.
Even in the loss of my mother and my wife, I find something to gain, not that their deaths were painless or their absence not felt, but that the compassion and love shown towards me by my community seemed to scream, “God is here. Love is real. There is more than this.”
And it’s this assurance, or perhaps this hope, summed up in the word love that keeps me going to this day.
My ancestors settled on this land, just as the young bird’s ancestors settled upon the trees of the forests that were here long before this land was called land by any biped. And so we are connected, she and I. Our lives are a confluence of wilderness, songs, conversations, and nests.
We dance together as I exit the house causing her to abandon the bird feeder, only to return once I’m at a safe distance on my walk towards the mailbox or the forest trails. We dance together as her song wakes me in the morning to remind me to put out more seed, or perhaps she is singing just to sing because what else do you do when you wake up every morning in the brightness of the Son.
And so she winks.
She sees me putting my bills into the mailbox. She watches the appraisers pass year after year to estimate the value of her property upon which I live so that they can know how much to charge me for land I paid off ten years ago. She watches as I update the little sticker on my license plate so that I can drive to purchase provisions at the supermarket since the general store went out of business after the interstate was built. She watches as I drive to church on Sunday since the small country church closed down after losing its members to the megachurch in the city (the preacher always talks about the need to attend and give to a “local church”).
She winks because she knows how fully she lives without all of our so-called freedoms and conveniences of modern life. She winks because the sunrise and sunset are much better entertainment than what we watch on our screens. She winks because, as one of the first followers of Christ, she actually believes what Jesus said when he told his disciples to not worry about what they would wear or what they would eat because God takes care of the creation.
She sings her song daily, perhaps not to let me know to give her feed, but to say, “Wake up! Not from your sleep, but from the deeper sleep in which your entire race is entrapped. Wake up from materialism and consumerism. Wake up from your so-called freedoms and be truly free. Trust in God, and trust in the earth perfectly designed by the Creator to take care of both of our needs.”
And though I hear her song, and truly believe, a different song has been taught to me in my fifty-three years: a song of machines, a song of war, a song of peace through might, a song of domination, a song of competition, a song of wastefulness, a song of debt, a song of wanting more and more and more.
But now I’m awake. Her wink has convinced me. I’m a new man. I renounce our modern ways of living. I’ll replant the gardens of my ancestors. I’ll replant the old country church that actually is local. I’ll buy, trade, and sale locally. I’ll join that bird in singing the good news of true freedom: complete trust in the Love of God.
The telephone rings.
“Hey Mr. Sampson, this is your accountant, Bill Stevens. I just wanted to schedule an appointment with you now that tax season is around the corner. If you could, please collect the usual documents and come to my office next Tuesday at 10:15.”
The bird returns to her nest and prepares to sing her song another day.