Lessons from Rockin Robin and Friends

Every morning, depending on my route after I drop Drew off at school, I drive under an umbrella of trees where a multitude of birds reside. The sound is simply quite heavenly. All the chirping, singing and chattering with a bit of squawking is a harmonious staccato of loud and soft, high and low, strong and weak. One of the fascinating things is that it doesn't matter if it is raining or if the sky is clear, the birds are there making their sweet sounds.

This morning as I was driving and the sound was incredibly loud I got to thinking about the birds that live there. I thought about the verse in Matthew 6:26 about how God takes care of the birds as a confirmation that God will take care of us because we have more important things to do, like being about the business of God. I think for some that verse has been quoted as an excuse for laziness. On the other hand Jesus is basically forbidding those who follow him from making these needs the object of anxious care and, in effect, becoming their slave. So, as invited to do in this verse, I looked at the birds. They don't worry about where they will live or what they will eat but every day they go out and gather their food. They build their homes and make sure they are suitable for the need that home is designed to fill. And they do it without the means to reason or think. Amazing.

I am a proponent of social services. I believe we should provide help and assistance to people whose lives are affected by something that prevents them from having the ability to gather the necessary provisions. BUT we should not make it more attractive for people to continue to receive the aid than it would be for them to provide their own. This is not a political essay so I'll stop there.

Every day the birds know what to do and they do it because that is what they were created to do. Have we allowed cares and anxiety to distract and divide us. Is our vision blurred and our conscience repressed so much that we do not see and can not do what we are pre-wired to do? Have we let cares flood our lives to where worry is the looking glass we peer through first thing in the morning? And if worry is what greets us each day, how does that change how we carry on the business of living for that day? Do we greet people differently? Do we tell ourselves stories in preparation for the people or events that we have coming up. How many of those stories are false? And if they aren't false are they limiting? Drop the story telling. Look at each situation with anticipation. Greet each person, whether you have been privileged to know or meeting for the first time, with eagerness to know who that person is at that moment and what they have to offer. Usher in each day with the understanding that we all are constantly changing.

I would love to be privy to the bird chirp communication I hear coming from the tree tops. I probably would hear the latest scuttlebutt about the injustice on Jaybird Street. They seem to be Rockin with Robin...tweet tweetly-tweet.