NOW WHAT? Let us study the birds….

For the past few weeks, millions of song birds have passed over my head while I’ve slept.  They are winging their way to the sun, their wintering grounds in the Caribbean and Mexico.  The moon was high and bright for much of the peak migration nights, the sky clear.  But unless you knew how to look and to listen, this massive movement would have passed you by.

On the ground, we humans struggle under a storm-laden sky, persisting in our confusions and outrages.  We have entered a hard, cold winter – too quickly to have anticipated it (though the storm-watchers and prophets were everywhere warning us).   Too abruptly to adapt.

Our climate has been radically disrupted.  Yet, most of us can continue to buy our lemons and avocadoes, plan Thanksgiving dinner, clean up the fall garden, get children off to school.  Only, that is, if we are white, and indisputably legal citizens, and only if we remain uninvolved in anything other than normative behavior.

Invisible members of the realm.

Of course, these were the unwritten, but reinforced, rules exacted by Pharoah towards the slaves in Egypt – they would have shelter, bread and roses, in exchange for their silence, and acceptance of a crushing lack of freedoms.
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To take my mind off things, I have spent hours watching the clusters of sparrows that have dropped down from the skies to pause, rest, and gather fuel for the next stage of their journeys.  At certain hours of the day, they secretly take over a neighborhood bush and get busy with their gathering.  They are joyous in song.  Chipping away — talking among themselves, I like to imagine — until, in a lovely dappled pack, they rise and are off again.

They have reminded me of several crucial truths, which we hurried city dwellers forget at our peril.   The sparrows teach that there is a kind of invisibility that strengthens, and a kind that destroys, just as there is a kind of solitude that deeply nourishes, and a kind that erases the self.

We must re-educate ourselves in these distinctions, because our lives depend on it: not only our emotional lives and spiritual lives, but our public life.

With whom are you travelling, these days?  With whom do you walk, talk, and about what?  Is the conversation constructive – where to find sunlight and meaningful food?  Or is it a denatured carping, a fearful hand-wringing, blaming, and anemic name-calling?

Even more important, where are you finding the warmth of a generative sun, a patch of clear sky, a sense of direction – so that once the parade and the costumes and loud speakers have been put away – we can begin to answer the question: NOW WHAT?

This past weekend millions marched in No Kings rallies across the country.  More are being planned in solidarity with these marches in other countries that love democratic freedom.

While this was happening, I was gathered with a small group of women who call themselves “spiritual sisters.”   We were engaged in writing poems that give voice to their prayers, their hopes, their experiences of grace in their days.

These women have met every month for several decades.  They sing and pray together, and share their journeys.  In this practice of community, they find their center and sanity in a “higher power,” a force that won’t make them rich, or materially secure, or cure their illnesses, or guarantee them health until their final days, or housing that pleases them.  But a center that is their sun, warming and nurturing a vision of meaning, and purpose, service and redemption.

Some of them attend Mass daily.  Others pray in their gardens.   In the larger scheme of things, these women, like most of us, are invisible.  But they know how to reach for a faith, that allows them to see themselves and one another through the visionary light of justice and service and mercy.  This is what keeps them steadfast on their journeys, capable of standing firm in the face of changing weather alongside fellow travelers who help keep them true to their journeys.

In a shared solitude of genuine “selfhood” they are not alone.
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A flight of thousands of miles requires this kind of humble and faithful, meaning-making.  Weekly, even daily.  Without it, bold visible gestures cannot sustain themselves, or develop into the sort of shared wisdom needed to sustain a flock.

We each such a practice.  The Spiritual Sisters find it in a range of quiet activities, from prayer to writing poems, retreats to worship.  Others come together in meditation circles, or in shared community service projects.

What now – for you?  What intentional, humble practice will you undertake – among fellow travelers, to working towards a vision that is more constructive than mere reaction, one that will enable you to stay the course?

The sparrows and the Spiritual Sisters will continue on their journey, in conversation, moving through the winter to a safe harbor where they can breathe, recoup, remember themselves, and spread their wings.

Once they are ready, they will return.  The winter skies will part and a clear day will emerge, and I want to believe that this will happen in large part because the birds will have reinforced themselves with new songs, new voices, new poems to announce a slowly, ever-so-slowly healing climate.  They will come again, and they will be singing.

 

“How long, O Lord?  I cry for help but you do not listen!  I cry out to you, “Violence! But you do not intervene.  Why do you let me see ruin; why must I look at misery?  Destruction and violence are before me; there is strife, ad clamorous discord.  Then the Lord answered me and said:  Write down the vision clearly upon the tablets, so that one can read it readily.  For the vision still has its time, presses on to fulfillment, and will not disappoint; If it delays, wait for it, it will surely come, it will not be late.”
Habakkuk 1:2-3; 2-4