Minutes of Meetings with God
and with Myself

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The Sun filled the day with brightness and warmth. Thump! There were all manner of things to focus on and to work at to get done. Thump-Thump-Thump!!! Some of the things required concentration. Thump! However, there was this loud, annoying, distracting noise coming from around our front door. Thump-Thump-Thump-Thump!!!! The noise is hard to describe. Thump! And, it was even harder to figure out what was making it. Thump-Thump-Thump-Thump-Thumpity-Thump-Thump-Thump.

It clearly wasn't some person knocking at the door. Thump! It didn't have that distinctive "knock at the door" sound. Thump-Thump-Thump-Thump!!!! Almost no-one comes to our front door, anyway. Thump! Everyone knows better. Thump-Thump-Thump!!! Like most rural homes, our front door is rarely used. Thump! It's the door closest to the drive-way that gets used. Thump-Thump!! The front door at our place is mostly a decoration. Thump-Thump-Thump-Thumpity-Thump-Thump!!

The closest thing I can think of to describe the sound is a bean bag getting tossed repeatedly, forcefully against the front storm door. But, who would launch a bean bag against our door?

The racket was totally distracting. I went to find out what was going on, but every time I came into the living room, the noise would stop (and there weren't any bean bags or anything else laying around).

There would be blessed quietness for anywhere between 15 minutes and an hour or two after I checked things out. Then it would start all over. Thump! Oh, no ... not again!?! Thump-Thump-Thump-Thumpity-Thump-Thump!!

The noise was about to make me crazy. After going to the door about half-a-dozen times, I decided to get smart. Clearly, whoever or whatever was making the racket saw me coming across the living room and, so, took off. I peeked from just inside the hallway that leads to the bedrooms and out through our big front bay window. I could see most of the front door. And, I could see the noise making culprit.

It was a young robin, repeatedly throwing himself against his reflection in the glass of the storm door. Thump-Thump-Thump-Thumpity-Thump-Thump!! The bird simply would not quit attacking what he thought was another robin he saw in the glass.

My guess is that the young robin was simply doing his "bird-thing", following that genetic program hard-wired into him that told him to protect the territory around his nest from other birds (especially other male robins). Gauging from the vigor at which he attacked his reflection, I imagine he was particularly good at protecting his territory. This bird was not about to let any competitor anywhere nearby. He, literally for hours, attacked himself in his reflection in our front door.

I felt sorry for this young robin, wasting so much of his time and energy battling himself. A bird's life is not particularly easy. Yes, they can fly. But, they still live out a precarious existence that demands that they always be searching for food (the energy it takes to fly demands they consume many times their body weight in food each day) and that they always be on guard against various and sundry predators. Here this young robin was bravely waging totally useless battles against himself. And, I felt sorry for any other real robins he might come across because they were in for one very serious fight.

On one hand, the young robin, no doubt, was honing his self-defense skills. He was learning to stand his ground, to persevere, and to be assertive. He was also probably learning the equivalent of bird "kung-fu" or whatever birds call their martial arts. Those are all good things, especially for birds. But on the other hand, the bird clearly wasn't learning anything about distinguishing reality.

Hour after hour, day after day, the bird attacked his reflection, never "getting it" that he was fighting himself. Young robin, no doubt, experienced him-self as ominously threatened, persistently attacked, and constantly hard pressed by the bird that was merely his reflection in our storm door.

Finally, in order to give the bird and ourselves some relief, we began to open the regular door behind the storm door so that the glass would not reflect as well. Then the bird would go away to do other important bird things, like eat worms.

Jesus watched the birds and used them as examples to teach people lessons, in particular about worry and anxiety (See Matthew 6:25-27 and Luke 12:22-26). Jesus wanted folks to consider how God feeds the birds and to leave off their fear and their feelings of desperate uncertainty.

This storm door attacking robin seemed to have some lessons to teach about worry and anxiety as well as about fear and desperate uncertainty, too. It came to mind that, not only did this bird seriously need to learn something about the nature of life and reality, but so do I, as well. Otherwise, God wouldn't have brought us to the same place to learn. In a sense, the bird and I are just on opposite sides of the storm door, each in our own way, fighting our own reflections.

The obvious of the lessons has to do with "banging your head against a wall." However, there is more to the lessons than that. Most often we humans, like the robin, bang our heads against a wall because we don't realize just exactly what it is we are up against. Like the bird and the storm door, we think we know what's going on. But, we don't. The problem isn't outside of us, the problem is between our ears or in our hearts We create a reality within our hearts, minds, and/or spirits that has nothing to do with what is really real.

Mostly, the problem has to do with how we process life. And the way we process life comes down to our basic assumptions about life and how life is to be lived.

Jesus had amazing assumptions about life. And, Jesus lived an amazing life. Jesus assumed that God really does care about us more than anything, that God really does provide all we actually need (here, we could go off on a tangent and talk about the difference between wants and needs), and that God really is generous beyond all imagination. Jesus processed life based on those assumptions and began changing the world, one person at a time. Jesus mostly didn't force change. He did not conquer or defeat others. Those strategies are based on things other than love and trust and mercy.

Rather, Jesus invited people to change, the way people invite one another to parties, weddings, and other celebrations. Even after the Resurrection, when the troubled, doubting, despairing disciples went back to fishing, Jesus (although he had been victorious over death and could have overwhelmed them) went to the lake shore and invited them one more time … "Come and dine …"