It Wasn’t Supposed To Be There

There are always a number of ways to look at some event, especially when we are searching for meanings and reasons why.

I intended to write this piece shortly after the event, which was a Saturday evening back in December. In fact, it was around 4:30 the evening of December 3. I can easily determine that date by looking back at a text with someone.

I had finished up my Open Studio wreath-making party that day, and was planning to run errands which included driving to this person’s home to cut lots of fresh holly (for continued wreath-making). I had noticed the ad on FB Marketplace, and had been messaging regarding her kind offer to generously share (and, her holly trees were huge–the biggest I’ve ever seen–and a number of others had already come and there was still much left!).

As I was preparing to leave I went to lock up the basement of the building, and as sometimes happens, there was a little bird that had flown inside. It was a warm day, and as I often do, I had the regular back door open as well as half of the double-set-glass-paned doors open.

Now, I seem to really be attuned to little birds that come my way. The bible has a number of very rich references and spiritual themes/signs attached to birds. In particular, Jesus told us that not a sparrow falls to the ground apart from the eye of the Father and that we are worth more than many sparrows.

So while I sometimes observe or listen to birds from an inside window vantage point, I also pay attention to any fallen bird that I somehow cross paths with. And, sometimes, their feathers.

I’m not superstitious, and my interest in birds is firmly grounded within my faith in Christ and, the One True God of the Bible, yet of course, has its subjectivity. It’s not uncommon for humans to notice what they might consider a particular sign of God’s loving presence or protection, whether it might be a butterfly, a dove or a rainbow. God has set us within the natural world, and naturally all humans take note of things that seem to occur at certain moments of thoughts and cares, or other significant times.

So that afternoon I did what I usually do. I walk toward the bird, attempting to gradually re-direct its natural behavior of flying from me (within the basement room of the building, and once, there was one upstairs in my paint studio) until it finds the doorway out. I made several attempts at this, unsuccessfully, and decided to go upstairs for something else and then return in a bit.

When I came back down, the little bird was still inside, and specifically on a shelf near the back wall where my woodstove is. I slowly walked toward the little bird and then he flew straight toward the open door. For a split-second I was happy, and expected to see God’s little creature fly off into the outdoors, where he belonged, and be happily on his little way, living happily ever-after.

But that is not what I saw.

I watched the little bird on its quick-glide toward the open right side of the set of double doors. Then, I heard an abrupt sound of it hitting the glass of the closed, left door and watched it do a vertical-straight-down-fall to the floor.

I immediately walked over and saw the beautiful little bird laying there, dead. I had hoped perhaps he was just stunned, but he was in fact, immediately killed by the impact.

I picked him up in my hands.

He was warm, and soft, and I studied him carefully.

Immediately, since I was already in a general sense of cares and anxieties, I wondered before God, “what is the meaning of this freak accident?” It’s just the way my world works. Just minutes before I had been thinking about the little bird that was in my creative space, wondering with joy at the meaning, and taking in the warm weather.

I remember now. My Saturday had begun with a conversation with a friend about being seen–as God saw Hagar in the desert, with her son. I do believe in the brief moments I had spied the little bird, I had begun ruminating about God seeing the birds.

But then, splat.

I photographed him (as I often photograph fallen birds and have written other pieces here about birds) and then lay him on my sawhorse. I was stroking him, looking at him closely and wondering whether it was possible he was simply unconscious.

I texted the photo to a friend who is good at bird identification, and he told me it was a Carolina wren, one of his favorites.

I locked up the building, and hoped against hope I might return later to find he had come to and flown off into the night…

As I set out on my errands I kept thinking about him. What was the meaning (if any) that God had allowed me this experience. I do believe that God orders all things, yet, I equally believe in free will and some mystery of interaction. So, surely, since this felt significant to me, I strained to find some meaning.

The most obvious first line of thought was that bird didn’t belong in the building. It met with disaster because it was somewhere it did not belong.

Am I somewhere I don’t belong?

Am I somewhere outside of God’s will and plan for my life?

I mean, it can certainly feel that way at times on a number of levels. My internal and external post-twice-divorced landscape feels like a number of things I consider so natural and so very important are simply upside-down. And I, like that little bird, lack the ability in-and-of-myself to force them right-side-up.

So I thought these thoughts.

Well…does that sound like some message my Jesus would send me? (Sorry child, you should take note of the fate of this little bird who was not where it should be!)

And then, it suddenly came to me.

The little bird was only doing what little birds do. He was outside, exploring the natural world, and somehow found himself inside of a building. Things happen. Senseless things, in fact. Sometimes we just don’t know how things might have unfolded differently if only…

What if that little bird had first gone to a certain tree and rested 10 seconds before flying toward the building. Might he have perched on a gutter, instead?

Wait. Wait. That building. That building is the most unnatural thing in this entire story, in a sense.

Who put that building there, anyway!

That building was not supposed to be in the path of this little bird.