As I went about my errands late this afternoon on this hot summer day, I happened to look down at the black asphalt in a parking lot and noticed this tiny dead bird.
Immediately I paused to stare at it.
While some might want to look away from such a sight, I thought about this little fallen bird in terms of the words of Jesus to us, while in the store. And when I returned to my vehicle, I snapped a photo.
I also looked up above at the roof of the building it lay next to, but its design did not readily appear to be one that might host a bird nest unless the nest was on top of the square flat roof, hidden from my sight.
I thought about this little fledgling bird meeting its end on hot, unnatural asphault, rather than if the same mishap had happened in the cool, soft grass of my back pasture.
I thought about the well-known words of Jesus telling us that not a sparrow falls to the ground without the Father’s knowledge, and that we are worth more than many sparrows.
I thought about Jesus first saying how little value a sold sparrow holds. And I wondered, why in those times would someone even buy a sparrow? And then, I wondered if the Greek word translated sparrow was literally a sparrow, or whether it was unclear.
I thought about a recent conversation with a friend about potential perils of homeless people. She had brought up the subject somehow and I mentioned that recently an older homeless man had drowned, alone, in the Susquehanna, having lived in the woods near my son’s property and was known to the neighbors. He was a 63-year-old man with a story that my son and neighbors knew, somewhat…who my son described as a kind soul who wandered the fields along the river cleaning up trash, and was found dead under questionable circumstances.
I thought about her saying that no one cares if a homeless person dies. There is no big investigation, since it wasn’t someone important or worthwhile or worth the time of the police…but just some homeless person.
I thought about how cheap human life is in today’s world in such a widespread way, though historically, human life has been treated as cheap, too.
I thought about the poem I love, Wild Geese, and birds and other creatures humans identify with sometimes – solitary creatures – but how geese at least seem bigger and travel in groups and are more powerful than tiny sparrows, even though geese fall, too. It would seem the life of a sparrow is especially solitary and perhaps that is why Jesus chose this small bird to communicate a deep truth about our Father God.
I thought about the hymn, Does Jesus Care? and His Eye is on the Sparrow.
I thought about how tired I was today and the past few days and when I’m so tired, or discouraged in various ways, I feel disconnected from God and others.
In my fatigue today, my thoughts about this sparrow seemed more intellectual, in a sense.
Unlike several months ago when I found a dead bird in my yard and wrote about it – I recall feeling more connected to God in that moment, on that day.
I thought about why Jesus would use such a metaphor. Why didn’t He just say something direct and literal and highly rational? Such as, “Humans really aren’t worth much, they are a dime a dozen. The earth is highly populated with humans, and they are continually being born and dying. Whenever one falls down and dies, God adds the data into His spreadsheet.”
I then wondered, could I write a post called, “God is Irrational.”
Meaning, God could communicate to us in very sterile, rational ways, but instead, He strangely chooses to encourage anthropomorphizing and imagination. Plus, especially in the Old Testament, God can seem kind of emotional. And, He puts things out there that might make US a little emotional. Maybe even a LOT emotional, on some days. At a certain moment.
Why would God do that?
Does God actually want us to feel things? And to be fully human?
Why is the shortest verse in the Bible, “Jesus wept?”
Why?
Why would God talk to us about anything using metaphors and parables about common experiences?
Might God actually approve of our imagining? The mere suggestion by Jesus that our Father God is aware of every sparrow that falls didn’t end my thoughts with that.
I didn’t just see this dead bird and tell myself, God saw that.
Instead, I imagined that I might be like that bird. I looked at the little bird and its features. I took note of its placement and other things about it.
I was noting this little bird’s fall like Jesus said God notices us. And simultaneously, I was imagining what it might have been like to be that little bird.
When Jesus said what He said, didn’t He foresee that the listeners might walk away with those words and the next time they find a dead sparrow laying on the ground, especially if it happens at a moment where they feel fallen, unseen, uncared for, worthless and more, that this person might remember these words of Jesus and then imagine that they were like this little fallen bird?
They might look upon its smallness, its plight, its helplessness, and its predicament…and imagine that God sees their smallness, their plight, their helplessness and then feel (or at least think about) the balm of God’s presence and their own worth in this huge universe?
I am not saying that today I felt those things – but at times, I have.
Today, I simply felt exhausted. Weighed down by many cares.
I did wonder, where was this little bird flying to? I did identify with and ponder…how I keep flying and flying trying to get to some destination, and some days, it is just so exhausting.
As I thought about the unnaturalness of this parking lot and asphault, I thought about our world and the problems and exhaustions that we must trade for aspects of our lives and technology, and more. Maybe if this little bird hadn’t been flying over asphault, it might have fallen to some soft, cool grass and found cover or water or something…or hopped somewhere and tried again…
I’m just imagining…and pondering the role of imagination and non-rational emotion in the process of finding connection with God…do we give ourselves this freedom, or do we fear and constrain our own imaginings and our own potentially non-rational emotions and thoughts? God just seems to be encouraging our utilization of imagination in Scripture itself…imagine us imagining we might not only be noticed like a sparrow but we might mount up with wings like eagles, running and not growing weary…there really is a lot of imagination that the biblical metaphors compel us into…if we are to follow them beyond their rational or literal translation…
I don’t know much about bird habits, per se.
I don’t even know if this was a sparrow.
It was just a little tiny, dead bird.
That I noticed.
__________
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting –
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.
Mary Oliver
Wild Geese
Thank You For Reading
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