American Robin and Cedar Waxwing, Roger’s Pond Park, Kennebunk Maine

“If your eye is generous, your whole being is full of light!” Jesus

I went looking for Eagles at Roger’s Pond Park in Kennebunk Maine yesterday, New Year’s Eve. I saw one there last New Year’s, and, since we had had heavy snow the night before, I had high hopes. Of course, all I found were American Robins and Cedar Waxwings…plenty of both…feeding in the many berry bushes along the edge of the parking lot. Since they were after the same berries, it made for some close encounters. 🙂 Perhaps because there are still plenty of berries to go around, though the species are about as different as different allows, there was no conflict. They were just busy feeding, close together.

So I begin the new year and this Sunday morning with a reflection on “just all getting along”. If Robins and Cedar Waxwings can do it…certainly we humans can, don’t you think? I know, that is pretty simplistic and we are a much more complicated species, but still, the principle is sound. And in the end, as the birds know, it takes a lot more energy to fight, than it does to feed…and while you are fighting no feeding is getting done. First things first. As long as there is plenty to go around, good bird sense says we just get along.

And there’s the rub. Birds do not have the capacity (we think) to imagine a future where there is not enough to go around. They are supremely confident, each day they find food, that tomorrow there will be food as well…or actually, they probably don’t think in terms of today and tomorrow…they live in the now. Anyway, it is our lack of faith that there is, and will be, enough to go around that drives us to conflict…not, certainly, the actual shortage, but the fear. There are so many stories that testify that when there is actually not enough to go around, very often our better nature kicks in, and we share what little there is. No, it is the fear of not having enough tomorrow that drives most conflict, not hunger but the fear of being hungry. In other words, the lack of faith. I shared recently Jesus’s example of the birds of the air, and how we should be like them, and not doubt that God will take care of us. And, again, the birds can teach us…this time to just get along. And it is based on the same faith. If I know that God will take care of me tomorrow and forever, then there is no need to covet what my neighbor has…there is no need for conflict. We can just all get along.

Yes, that is simplistic, and I might have another attitude if I were actually hungry (though I can hope I would not), but it is a place to start. Have faith. Trust in a good and loving God above all. Like the birds feeding in berry bushes, lets make it our business this new year to just get along.

Happy Sunday!