Hestitation

This little bird was in our back yard one evening in July chirping away.  It couldn’t fly and we doubted that it would make it through the night.  

But the second day it was precious to see momma and papa bird feeding it and darting around the yard protecting it from would be intruders.  They would fly away and return with a worm. They would flit to the bird bath and scoop water and drop it in the birdie’s mouth. They were flapping and coaching it to fly up one more level and over the fence and into a tree. They cared and carried on all afternoon. Diligent and tenacious.  Earnest.  And the bird did finally make it over the fence by evening.

I hesitate to tell the story because it didn’t have a happy ending. On the third day my husband saw a baby bird carcass out on the street.

Huge disappointment.  We know disappointment.

And the birds seemed to have a message.

Help when you can.
Give if you can.
Chirp when you need something.
Keep flapping.
Don’t hesitate to help and give and love like it matters – because it does – no matter what the outcome.

On the fourth day another tinier bird was in the same predicament in our back yard as the first fledgling had been.  Momma and papa hovering, flapping and feeding.  

This time the little feather ball made it.  

Don’t hesitate.

Dreary, Dusty Crap

Aiming to reconnect with my once-favourite hobby I was on the quest for a perfect photo and it was not to be seen.  All there was in March in Lethbridge was dreary, dusty crap. That’s how I was feeling to start with so I was thought I ought to take shots of rainbows and sunshine, or pictures of something profound, provocative or promising at least.  But nothing.

So I set out anyway to deliberately take a picture of dreary, dusty crap. And here is what I found.

This bird house sits in a dead tree in our back yard. To top it off it was a dumpster find. It was not quite in a dumpster when we found it in Victoria a couple summers ago, but just on the ground outside ready to be trashed or claimed. We claimed it along with a second cuter one. We gave the second one to our camping neighbours in the nearby RV Park.  The lady had been waiting on the results of a possible cancer diagnosis. We got to know each other a fair bit in our 24 hours parked side by side in the RV Park. She was thrilled to have the birdhouse.  We took this one home and Dan nailed it to the dead tree.  I think of Colleen often when I see the birdhouse and wonder and hope for her wellness. In our own dreariness, we have much to be grateful for.  Last summer a little, chirping family lived in the birdhouse.  Soon I imagine a new feathered flock will move in. Life and gratitude can thrive even among the dreary, dusty stuff in our lives.

If you drove by our house in mid-March you would have seen this dreary, scraggly bush, half dead, half scrabbling to grow out of the dirt. But after I took the photo of what I was certain was an example of dreary, dusty crap, I saw the colour. Never before had I noticed the vibrant red branches on this bush.  The external stems masked what at the core displayed bursting crimson.  It is true of ourselves – even if we feel dusty and dreary on the outside, we must know at our core we have beauty that always exists whether or not we feel it and whether or not others notice it.

We need to seek out the beautiful in ourselves and others even if and especially if we are immersed in what seems to be ugly, dusty crap. We all have the colour of human at our centre and can choose to love ourselves, forgive ourselves and celebrate ourselves - and then do the same for others, looking past the external to their coloured core that reaches down to their roots.

An author by the name of Robin Sharma has said "What you fill your mind with is what you get."
The objective being to fill our mind with the positive and the beautiful.
It reminds me of another writing from a couple thousand years ago: ". . .  whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy -- think about such things."