Weekly Reflection: Consider the Birds of the Air

By Fr. Mike Boutin

Since I'm still on vacation while I'm writing this, I have time to dawdle...and watch birds... My mother actually got me hooked. She recently moved from the family home to a smaller condo where she and the neighbors spend a good deal of time watching and feeding our fine-feathered friend

So I thought while I was on vacation that I'd buy some bird seed and fill the feeder close to the cabin I am staying in and just....watch.....

The feeder has been attracting a few little brown sparrows and a couple of dark-eyed juncos (thank God for Google...otherwise, I would have said a few little brown birds and some gray birds with pretty white feathers!). What a life they lead: they sing all day, and in between they eat and sleep!  They actually seem to be responding to my choices in music, too: they really sing along well to Frederica von Stade sings Brubeck: Across Your Dreams. 

And it seems that the more they are convinced that my only intention is to watch them eating and singing, and that I'm not planning on stuffing them or turning them into wall ornaments any time soon, they eat and sing all the more, grateful apparently that I have provided them rather easily with their next few meals....

"Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they?" (Matthew 6:26)

I've been thinking a lot about how I spend my days and nights. Do I sing enough of my love for God?  Is my song the song of one who has been redeemed and loved as I am?  "Taste and see the goodness of the Lord" the Psalmist writes in Psalm 34.  In the midst of the busyness and struggles of my life, do I really taste and see God's goodness to me?  Do I appreciate how much the Father feeds me with His love and mercy and compassion?  Is my song the eternal song of the beloved? 

Or do I spend too much time chirping about what's wrong or what I don't have?

Enough chirping, already...it's time to sing along with Frederica across my dreams...and into the arms of the Father's love....

Now pray....