A Lesson from a Blackbird

My eyes follow the busy chatter of hungry finches and sparrows breakfasting at their suspended bird feeder outside our condo in Mountain View, CA.

I love bird watching. I savor their sweet bliss… until I discover a feathery black bundle plopped on the ground in the bird seed below. A legless blackbird – unable to stand, a crawler amidst the agility of the others around him.

“Poor crippled bird,” my sad heart whispers. Suddenly his plight  is mine, as I remember my childhood years. Legless Judy – a crawler, low to the ground, envious of the agility of others.

His very presence interrupts my sad remembrance as I hear him shout, “We’re survivors!” Slow-to-believe am I until suddenly his strong wings lift him amidst his feathered friends from the ground to the sky.

He can fly!

We, too can fly, dear ones.

Let’s use our God-given wings today and rise above whatever is causing us to grovel.