migration

In early September, the weather cooled. I took the back roads to work one morning with the car windows cracked open, enjoying the fresh morning air. I tend to have blinders on when I drive, just ask those who wave and honk. I rarely see past the traffic before me. But that day, the chatter of birds broke through me reverie as I waited for the light to change. Hundreds of dark colored birds lined the telephone lines, perched on top of streetlights and business signs. A chorus of sound which drowned out all but the loudest traffic.

Several times in the next few weeks, I took the back roads to and from work. Often I would see a sparrows, grackles, geese or other flock of birds traveling southward to warmer climates, their fluid, amoebic groups in the sunny skies, moving—shifting—dancing an aviary ballet of sorts as they continued on their journey.

Lately, on the Palladia channel I’ve seen the coolest commercial. A flock of animated black birds in flight which then morph into details of birch trees and then the perspective shifts yet again into a forest birches and other trees as the ‘camera’ pulls back. It’s a commercial that stops me in my tracks, transfixing me through completion of the animation. The change in perspective, the change in subject is fascinating.

The images and activities of my aviary friends continued.

A lone hawk sitting atop a fence post, scanning the fields, hunting for dinner as the sun dims on the horizon during my commute home.

A small flock of birds, one early morning, startled into flight from our pear tree in the front yard as I took out the dogs for their ‘constitutional’. The dogs stood, transfixed by the rising mass of birds and muffled sounds of wing flaps. We all watched them rise into the air and depart before moving on to other business.

Birds dotting the lines between telephone posts along the road like Morse Code. I wondered what the words said. SOS?

Empty bird feeders swinging on tree limbs in our windy backyard. No birds in sight. For if the food gone, so are the birds, hunger drives them to look elsewhere.

Birds migrate in cycles including those made in response to changes in food availability, habitat or weather. Habitat and weather changes are usually irregular or in only one direction. Migration is marked by its annual seasonality. In contrast, birds that are non-migratory are known as resident birds. Migrating birds vary migration travels, some short, some long as they move through this cycle. Some lose their way, most regain direction through the magnetic pull of their migrating pattern.

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It’s been a very long time since I’ve blogged in any sort of thoughtful manner. Part of it was time available to write. A new job and shifts in family life have kept my schedule rather packed, but this has not been the entire reason. I wouldn’t call my current spiritual state ‘a crises,’ but I must admit it has not been peaceful, steady, or void of some serious drama and frustration. For several months, I’ve noticed a steady decline in spiritual direction and desire to pursue it . . .fire dimmed a bit, you might say. I in no way believe following Christ is all ups and blessings. That line of thought has gotten many of us in a state of entitlement within Christianity that has dangerous pathways of disappointment and defeat. I do believe that a spiritual growth ebbs and flows as does the pattern of its pursuit.

I’ve noticed that within a discipleship journey I tend to close off conversation with God when I am under the most duress, thinking I can control my emotion, the situation or some aspect until it is ‘resolved’ to my satisfaction. My instinct is to look to my own ability to interpret and understand why. The worse it gets the more of a control freak I become, the less I turn to God for understanding and guidance. Yeah, counter intuitive, I know.

Do you listen in on God’s council?
Do you limit wisdom to yourself? Job 15:8

It is very easy these days to preoccupy myself with other things. Lately, I’ve found myself driving to soccer or work or the grocery store, listening to books or music. I’ve played single parent for more weeks that I care to admit due to some shifts in Wayne’s job responsibilities. I’ve used online communities, movies, TV–any entertainment at my fingertips, to distract myself often from deep thought as I bounce from place to place, from event or obligation to home and work.

Conversation with God dwindled to almost nothing. Even those conversations seemed one-sided monologues, prayers for others done out of duty and habit. I was talking to God less and less. More importantly, I was not listening either.

Show me your ways, O LORD, teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior, and my hope is in you all day long. Remember, O LORD, your great mercy and love, for they are from of old. Psalm 25:4-6

But for the past two months, I’ve been subject to these bird whispers, these subtle words of God breaking through the din of everyday life and my insulated turtle shell. Through the amoebic movement of a migrating flock—through the chatter of that flock as I stop for a train. I knew it was God, but I had no gumption to listen. No inclination to ponder why I was seeing all these bird signs of migration, of community, of loners, of transitions. I sat in my misery wondering about everything. As we all know, blind birds don’t really go very far.

My best thinking, you see, is when I write. Focusing on the blank page, talking out my ideas is where revelation comes. So when the chatter of birds drown out the din of my distractions, I sat down to write this. With the tenacity that only God can employ, I now understand the message delivered in the wings of birds, in sky silhouettes traveling to places far away, in the groups and flocks migrating through the cycles of the season.

It’s okay, Deana, I’m still here. Time to move on.