I heard it from the finches

He has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son. (Colossians 1:13)

Early mornings were cooler this week. It was still humid, but lower temps summoned me to the balcony on the east side of the house to sip coffee and listen to the birds.

I usually try to call the cardinals, imitating their whistle. Sometimes they reply, although I sense confusion in their response.

There is no confusion among the finches, however. Red-crested house finches flutter madly around their home in the big spruce that brushes the side of the house, protecting their domain.

Nearby, goldfinches pierce the morning air, furiously pumping their wings. They rise then stop, pump then stop, pump then stop, pump then glide, over and over again. Their flight scallops the air in repetitive arcs, gracefully up and down, up and down, whizzing by until one lights on a frail, bare branch pointing skyward atop the maple near the corner.

With nary a catch of breath, like kindergarteners released for recess, they burst from their perch, racing and chasing each other above the grass-green expanse. Feather-light, unburdened with no thought of the morrow, they preach a Sunday sermon, demonstrating the joy for which we are made.

I pray to be as free as they. I seldom am, but watching them … I think I see what God has in mind for us.

Surely, Jesus had such as these in mind when he told us to look at the birds and let go of our obsession with ourselves. Just watch, he seemed to say. The Love who loves you will have its way; just give it some time. But that’s most of our problem. We want things our way.

It’s hard to let go and let Love have its inscrutable way with us. And it’s even harder these days when the Love Who Is appears so powerless. ‘The power of darkness’ poisons our politics as masked men maraud our streets, hunting prey, mocking the mercy and decency I once thought was irrevocably encoded in the DNA of our nation.

Examples of official cruelty and jingoism are too obvious to mention. More troubling are the millions who cheer it, willfully blind to the humanity of those crushed in the juggernaut of federally-sanctioned hatred.

Cheer it or condemn it, we all wake into the same world each morning, or do we?

So many appear to wake into a world where might makes right, a zero-sum world where one must always be on the defensive, where the most important value is power, being greater, better, stronger and able to enforce your will. In this callous world, the lives and struggles of others don’t much matter, especially if they are ‘different.’

This reality is all-too-much with us, but out here, looking at the birds, I feel the presence of quite another reality. Their sermon transports me into a world where the light of beauty and mercy has shattered the power of darkness, a world where I can breathe the featherlight sweetness of morning, drawing in the grace of an Immortal Love who dances and plays and charms my heart.

Out here, I know: I don’t live under the power of darkness. Transferred into the kingdom of the Beloved, I dwell in a world of beauty and mercy where every life is precious and holy.

And I … am personally invited … to come out and play.