I wrote this two summers ago, but the bluebirds are back so I’m thinking about it again and wanted to share!
My life was consumed this summer by a 12”X6”X6” wooden box. There had been many challenges going on in my personal life which had been pulling for my attention, but I kept looking forward to the early evenings when I ate dinner on my porch and watched my box.
It was a bird box. My dad made it a few years ago and it’s been attached to a fence near my porch since then. There was a little bluebird family the first year, but then two years of no activity. I cleaned out the box last winter, wondering if that would make a difference. The cleaning paid off because, this year, there was another bluebird nest.
Any time I opened the front door while they were building the nest or sitting on the eggs, the birds darted out of their box and sat on a nearby powerline, frowning down until I left.
However, by the time the babies hatched, if I kept still and quiet, the parents would come feed their babies while I was on the porch. Or at least Papa Bird would.
He would fly straight to the box and perch on the lip of the hole. Then he’d look over his shoulder at me as if to say, “I know you’re there. Don’t try anything.” Then as the babies cheeped, he would duck his head in to feed them and even clean up the nest before departing (I’ll let you research that on our own if you haven’t observed it before).
If Mama Bird came while I was on the porch, she would not fly directly to the box. She would instead land on the post right beside it and face me. She’d tilt her head a little bit and give low, worried cooing sounds. Sometimes she would swallow the little morsel she had brought before flying away. She never seemed comfortable enough to turn her back to me.
But the babies themselves were the main attraction. For a week or so, I could only hear their cheeping. Later, if I sat quietly, I could hear the flutter of wings from inside the box. They were getting bigger, practicing, and tussling around. One day, I saw a little beak come into view. The baby bird must have been stretching as far as its little body could, perhaps standing on a sibling. The little head was looking out of the 2” diameter hole from the secure home it had known the entirety of its brief life. It was silent, not calling for food or its parents, just curious, neck craned, looking at the wide, wide world of my porch, the nearby utility pole, a sliver of wooded area, and the neighbors’ back yards. It looked at me.
That’s when I fell in love. I increased my time on the porch even when the weather was less pleasant or it was getting dark. I’d wait for another glimpse of the skinny neck craning up quietly, full of an artist’s curiosity. Once it even stuck its head and fluffy shoulders out, appearing bigger than its parents with all its speckled down. But it still retreated inside, not quite ready to fly yet.
I found myself asking, “Lord, please let me be here when they fledge!” Then I thought about my friends, halfway around the globe, praying for an emergency medical evacuation for their newborn baby. Honestly, I felt a little guilty. I quieted my prayers for the baby birds and prayed for my friends again.
But then I was reminded of Matthew 10. The Father knows when each sparrow falls. The point of the passage is His care for us, but I wholeheartedly believe His care for birds is genuine, not metaphorical. It’s really no wonder that birds are used in Scripture to show God’s depth of care and feeling. If you care about birds, you’re going to be sad often. Sad when a snake gets into the nest, sad when you see one crushed on the road, sad and mad when the confused things run into windows and break their necks. You can’t love anything vulnerable without risking heart ache.
Of all of the “omni”s of God, I don’t think I have heard Him described as omnisentient, all feeling. But could anyone other than our God fully feel the world (both the joys and the sorrows) and not collapse under the weight of it? Our God who knows and cares when even a little bird falls and when a lost lamb is found? Most people cannot handle this range of emotions. We either become calloused or overwhelmed. For me, the bird box was an opportunity to relieve my mind and heart from the heavier personal struggles which threaten to swallow me up. Yet, my care for the birds was genuine.
I was not present when the babies fledged. A few weeks after the box had gone silent, I cleared the old nest out. I was thrilled when the same bluebird couple investigated it again, but I was a little nervous that their dialogue ran something like this.
“Who threw out all our furniture?”
“I don’t know, dear! I left everything right where we had it.”
But I found some research that advised cleaning between broods to encourage return nesting, so the dialogue probably ran more like this,
“Would you look at that?! Someone cleaned up the trash after us. What do you think, dear? Want to try this spot again?”
“Why not? Better to put up with the woman on the porch than a strange bird box we don’t know.”
I also had a few minutes of euphoria when not only the two mates were inspecting the house, but all three of their fledglings followed them over to look, this time from the outside.
I enjoyed the whole cycle of a second brood of baby birds. I was at home and discreetly watching through my window as they each took their first flight. God cares fully for the birds and fully for me. He doesn’t have to distract Himself from one being’s pain by focusing on another’s joy. He alone can fully experience it all.
Photo by Joshua J. Cotten on Unsplash
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