Are not two sparrows sold for a penny?
Yet not one of them will fall to the ground
outside your Father’s care.
(Matthew 10:29)
Everyone once in awhile people will ask me what my favorite bird is. I have always been partial to crows. When young I wanted to have one for a pet, but of course that never happened. Then there is the Blue Jay, a bird that I find beautiful as well as strong and powerful. I admire these birds and am always delighted to find out how intelligent both blue jays and crows are. They are quite remarkable. So yes I have a fondness for aggressive and large birds. However there is another side of my love of certain kinds of birds.
After Sunday Chapter this morning, I was walking towards the retreat house going around our community ‘inner garden’. On the grass near the water fountain and gold fish pond, I spotted a lone sparrow hopping about the grass looking for breakfast I would assume. Sparrows are small birds, plain, and very numerous. Yet when I looked at this little, tiny, insignificant bird, I felt a level of joy that I don’t get from the larger more aggressive birds.
Yet we are told that not even sparrows are outside God’s care. Is anything outside of God’s care, probably not, since he is the creator of all. Yet sparrow’s get eaten, perhaps most of them do in the end, die of diseases and gets their necks broken when they fly into windows. Yet they are cared for by God.
I believe that animals are not here for us, as some humans seem to think, but here for their own journey through life. I would think that sparrows know of our existence, but we are not human beings to them, perhaps we are not seen as a danger, since we don’t eat them, so to them we are life forms on the periphery of their lives, just as they are in ours. I don’t go around thinking of birds, animals and plants, but when I come upon them, I find delight and then move on. Humans are special because of our type of self awareness, but are we anymore special in the eyes of God (?)…..to tell you the truth I don’t know. We may be the only species that can have a conscious relationship with God (maybe not) and in that we are special, yet the smallness of a sparrow, its plainness, is I believe in actuality parts of its beauty and specialness to God.
We are all part of creation and I believe that we are slowly learning to grow in respect for all life and hopefully learn to appreciate the lives that these other brothers and sisters have. Different, yes, but to the sparrow its life and survival is of utmost importance, while to us, it may simply be one of millions. Yet each consciousness, no matter what, must be truly sacred in the eyes of the Father.
It is easy to objective other life forms forgetting their complexity and beauty. Even those that we consider pest, still have their place even if we have to fight them, insects for example. Yet many (perhaps most are all) have been around millions of years before man…there is no such thing as a ‘thing’ in nature, though we may try to make it so.
We can go full circle and then look at our fellow human beings in a different light. We may learn to see beauty in ways that we may have not thought possible. Each human being has such a vast inner world, that they could be considered a universe all to themselves…..it is amazing that we can communicate at all. Yet it is our common humanity that allows the building of a bridge towards each other, and compassion when we realize like with all of creation we will feel joy, suffer pain and deep loss and then we lose ourselves in death. Faith gives hope and I believe that strength needed not to descend into despair or bitterness. We can choose to trust or not, many do not know that they have that freedom. Yet the death to self that is needed to be trusting towards God can be a long process, for we always trust to our full capacity, yet that inner freedom can grow and will grow each time we choose life over bitterness and death.
Love can supply for length of years.
Jesus, because He is Eternal,
regards not the time but only the love.
(Therese of Lisieux)
Br. Mark Dohle, OCSO
Holy Spirit Monastery
