From Rev. Pat Kriss: What the Birds Teach Us

(Posted March 4, 2018)

As I sit here this cloudy morning, we are all in anticipation of “The Great Nor’easter” that our local weather forecasters have been warning about these last few days, over and over again. All of us Connecticut Yankees know to take these prognostications with a grain of salt, but to check the provisions anyway. What I think I like most about these dire forecasts is, just for a day or two, we shift our focus away from our computer screens or from Netflix and Hulu, to the miracles taking place right outside our doors. 

It’s March 1, and like the old saying, “March comes in like a lion,” full of growling winds and the need to shelter from the lion’s snow and rain-drenched teeth, inside, safe. It seems as if nature has a way of insisting that we pay attention to its miracles, especially with the changing of the seasons.

That’s what this Sunday’s service and music are all about. Forget for a moment about the strife around us. Flip the Bible from the passages about suffering and death, and observe the presence of God, right outside our windows. I know I see the changes. In the last two weeks alone, male and female birds have started pair up together for the first time all winter. They have even been feeding one another, prepping their hearts to respond with compassion and caring to one another as a training exercise for the little chicks soon to come.

So this Sunday we will take a pause from strife, and hear from Jesus who looks at us anxious followers wondering who will feed us and, using nature and the birds of the air, points us to the way his Father absolutely promises to provide what all living creatures need in this life. There is no need for panic. These mornings when we step outside, we hear a different, sweeter voice from the birds of the air, who sing a song of approaching Spring, a song that heals us. Poet and writer Terry Tempest Williams shares her fantasy vision with us from her book, "When Women Were Birds:" 

Once upon a time,
When women were birds,
There was the simple understanding 
That to sing at dawn
And to sing at dusk
Was to heal the world through joy.
The birds still remember what we have forgotten, 
That the world is meant to be celebrated.

*(Art by Jennifer Lommers)