also...bluegrass, bicycles and being home.
Part 1
One of my favorite features of my little house in the woods is the wrap-around porch. From the wicker chairs on the south-facing side of the house, you look across the horse pasture at a grove of aspens, behind which are ponderosa pines and blue spruce covering a hill that rises to where the ridge meets the blue sky. It's pure Black Hills beauty at it's best. When I first moved into the house, I couldn't wait to sit on the porch in the mornings - drinking coffee, smelling the pines, watching the ridge change color with the rising sun, and listening to the birds...oh! It would be divine!
However, I quickly discovered that, though the porch is attached to my house, it is not mine. Nope. It belongs exclusively to a small black and white swallow who set up camp in the birdhouse directly above the wicker chairs. And she is violently opposed to my watching the ridge change color with the sunrise while sitting anywhere near her home. I tried on several occasions to be diplomatic about the situation...explained to her (while she repeatedly dive-bombed my head) that I meant no harm, that it was a big porch, that we could peacefully co-habitate the space. But she would have none of it. So I gave in and settled for the east-facing side of the porch. Fine. She can have the view of the pasture. I'll take the view of the...shed.
Well, after spending most of the month of June away from home, I thought maybe I would try again. With the exception of coming and going, I had not spent any time on my porch in several weeks and thought maybe that was adequate time for little Miss Birdie to reconsider her hostilities. So this morning I grabbed my cup of coffee and ever-so-stealthily slipped out the screen door and into the wicker chair. I maybe had three minutes of peace and quiet and the aroma of pines when all of a sudden, from across the pasture, came the angry bird...chirping and swooping for me to leave. Then I heard it: the tiniest little baby chirps coming from inside the birdhouse. Aha. She was not just an angry bird. She was an angry momma bird...just doing her job. Mmmm. Warm fuzzies. As I was getting up to vacate the premises, I spotted a little ball of gray fluff on the deck below the bird house. It was one of the baby birds who had fallen from the nest, and not survived.
Now, I know that in the grand scheme of things, this is only a minor tragedy, if that. But I felt this strange pang of sorrow over the situation. I suddenly felt like I was six years old...that I should scoop up the baby bird and go running to my mom. And then I felt annoyed. At God. In Matthew 10:29, Jesus said that not even a sparrow falls to the ground apart from the knowledge of the Father. So, my question is, why do they fall in the first place? If he knows all about it, then why can't he keep them from falling? Maybe it shouldn't matter to me so much, but it obviously matters to the momma bird, who was violently, instinctively protective of her babies.
And if he cares about baby birds, then what about Luke and Mary's baby Josh? If God sees baby birds fall, then I know that he sees the mysterious anemia that continues to plague Josh's little body. I know that he hears the fervent prayers of Luke and Mary, of myself, of friends and family across the country. I know he hears. But I don't know why he doesn't heal him.
I know he sees Riss and Jade...two little girls that he knit tightly into my heart. I know he sees them and their precarious circumstances...being tossed about like little leaves in the wind...never knowing where they will land next. I know he sees them. But I don't know why he doesn't rescue them.
I know some things, but there are many more I don't understand.
I apologize to the momma swallow for being a perceived threat to her precious babies. I apologize for the loss of her little one. And I take my coffee to the east porch.
1 comment:
This is a difficult and perplexing topic - my term for it is "divine calculus". I dubbed it that after the tsunamis that ruined so many lives in Asia a few years ago. There are just so many things we don't know. All the side effects and long term ramifications for all involved are so wide-sweeping and unfathomable. I think Job is but a primer for the topic - how something so seemingly unjust can have such a real and right explanation, but one we may never understand in this life. It pales in comparison, but I've used my many inexplicable health complications as a good example. They plague me daily. I can't so much as go camping without spending weeks waiting for the wounds from the allergies to heal even though I love the outdoors. I lose countless hours of sleep to them, and yet these are small things compared to what Mary's baby is going through. There's no justification that I can see... but then, I can't even see through a simple calculus equation without hours of thought and trial-and-error. God can solve that simple problem in an instant.
Somewhere, somehow, there is an answer that we would see if we knew the whole story. I know not because of random scriptures ("God is light, and in Him there is no darkness"), but because of the character God has shown me over the years. I don't know the answers, and neither did Job, but as his life was falling apart he questioned God many times, but didn't fault him. Our answer doesn't lie in making sense of things, but in how our heart reacts in the most inexplicable of circumstances. It's a true test.
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