THIS IS FOR THE BIRDS

Let me first make a disclaimer that the information I am about to share is (for the most part) observational.

At my son’s school, they have a pretty large yard that is just about as large enough for about four hundred kids to play on. There is a fairly new play structure and a couple basketball hoops. There are always these pigeons walking around looking for scraps of food. They try to tell the kids do not leave the scraps or their lunchboxes lying around or the pigeons will peck at it, but you know how most kids are. They won’t hear that until they see something happen. There was a kid once that came running up to a teacher crying, “Someone took my bag! Someone took my bag!” As we turned to look, we saw the pigeon on the other side of the yard dragging the bag and pecking through it while other pigeons flew in to battle over the sandwich and whatever was left in the lunch.

I can’t help but notice that pigeons are usually walking around on the ground bobbing their head forward as they walk looking for scraps of what everyone else has left behind. They only fly when they feel threatened, frightened or when they have to get around an object and that’s the only way. They usually only fly low until they get somewhere else.

In all my ten years of teaching at this school, I have only seen pigeons there. This week though, I was told there was a hawk that was stuck in the cafeteria. The fairly large bird (known as a Cooper’s hawk) was stuck in the multi-purpose room high up in the window where the front door is. For some reason he flew inside the cafeteria and was now sitting in the window ceil at the top of the building inside. The ceiling is very, very high. In that window you could see out to the sky and the yard. The hawk was sitting there I’m sure afraid and lonely. One of the teachers told me that the hawk was there from Monday until Wednesday. The hawk hadn’t eaten for a couple days and was weak and hungry. They also said the hawk was young and a little inexperienced. By law they could not get a broom or another object to bring it down because it was an endangered species. If they had hurt the hawk, they could be charged and someone would have to serve some jail time. They closed down the auditorium and no one was allowed in there until they could figure out how to get this poor hawk out. The kids had to quietly come in and get their lunches and quietly go out to the yard and eat. It was a mess as I was told. Finally, there was a man named Dom that was an experienced professional who had come with a net to try and help the hawk out of the building. As Dom reached up to help him, the hawk was frightened and flew against the window really hard trying to get out and broke his own neck and fell to the ground. They took the hawk to the Academy of Sciences later that afternoon.

As I was hearing this story I couldn’t help but ask the teacher, “Why didn’t the hawk just fly out of the building?” His reply was, “The hawk could only see clearly what was up high. They only flew low to find food. They only flew low when they have to.” This teacher went on to say, “They prey on other creatures like birds and rodents. Cooper’s Hawks usually fly high and they only go a little lower to feed on other smaller birds. If they can’t find other birds they will fly low and swoop to the ground to find a rodent. This Cooper’s Hawk got stuck inside because he was chasing pigeons.”

As I was hearing this, I was hit like a ton of bricks with information and I knew I had to get to a notepad to write this down or type it out. I immediately thought of how this relates to us as people. I started asking myself, “Marcus, are you more like the Cooper’s Hawk or the pigeon? Do you spend most of your time on the ground or in the sky? Are your thoughts mostly on the ground finding stuff to eat or are you trying to find something in the sky?” As the famous quote says, “You are what you eat.” It is also significant to note that pigeons are usually found in flocks on the ground while you will only find one or two hawks together at a time.

Think about that. Are the people you spend time with spending more time on the ground or in the sky? Are the prayer requests you tell people about in the sky or on the ground? Do you talk about your situation down to the ground (being negative) or do you speak up in the sky about it? I know some of us tend to say things like, “I am just being realistic about it.” No! What we call “realistic” is really just giving us an excuse to talk down and low. We are spending too much time on the ground like the pigeons looking for bags of trash to drag around and pecking at leftover lunches when we could really find food in the sky. 

I will leave you with this, Philippians 4:8 says, ^“Finally, brethren (brothers and sisters), whatsoever things are true (facts or in the word of God), whatsoever things are honest (free of deceit or untruth), whatsoever things are just (morally right or fair), whatsoever things are pure (free of contamination), whatsoever things are lovely (beautiful or glamorous), whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue (high moral standards), and if there be any praise (approval or admiration), think on these things.”