Tuesday, June 17 was a rainy morning. I remember it because a bird took a dive bomb on the top of my head. I had just gotten out of my car to walk into the church building when not one, but two Barn swallows buzzed right by me, and kept swirling around my head, getting closer and closer, as long as I stood outside under the carport. When I surrendered the territory and watched from inside the glass doors, they went back to work on the earliest construction of a mud nest, suspended vertically from a brick pillar with just a couple of inches to spare from the carport ceiling.
I’ve walked past their nest dozens and dozens of times since and it’s been fun negotiating an uneasy peace with them as they slowly grew into a family of six. Before leaving for a few days in Ohio, I could see that the newborns were close to flying the coop. When I got back, there was no trace of any of them and I figured that was the end. But this evening, as I walked out of the church building, all four babies were perched on a handrail and it quickly became clear that I had interrupted supper time. I don’t know how long they’ll hang around, but I got to thinking on the drive home…
There have been quite a few sermons and classes taught in that church building since those birds made a temporary home under the carport. Who knows how many illustrations have been spun to make some connection between God’s word and human hearts? Meanwhile, a 2,000-year-old one has unfolded yet again right before our eyes over the last 6 weeks…
“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” (Matthew 6:25-26)