Winged

 

Somehow I landed on the documentary about Mark Bittner and his care of a wild flock of cherry-headed conures on Telegraph Hill in San Francisco, California. I watched and I wondered. Mark had been homeless for many years. At the time he began feeding this flock, he was a property caretaker. He's obviously intelligent, is highly articulate and completely sane. These traits are fully incongruous with the fact that he lived on the street for many, many years. It seems to me that there was a restless wandering inside him that would not allow the confinement of a regular routine for very long. He described bits and bobs of odd jobs. Nothing that would point in the direction of a career. Nothing that would yield the professional and financial stability and/or trajectory that the rest of us scurry about grasping for. I was particularly confounded by him and, yet, I understood him on some level to his very core. 

If I did not have Jesus as the anchor of my soul, my heart would break free and wander untethered, too. I would look under every bush and in every back alley for that thing, that something that would fill me up. I have the soul of an artist and I, like Mark, need a spark. I need passion in my life. As I watched the beautiful birds bobbing and weaving as they interacted with Mark, I saw the essence of life. God made us to need the beauty, intricacy and joy of nature. He expresses Himself perfectly in all of his creation. He also made us to wander and to wonder what exactly it is that we are to do here on this planet. We each have unique gifts, talents and passions. They were hard-wired into us for His purposes and we must suss them out. The good news is that God will help us do just that! I keep, as I have mentioned before in this blog, a cross-stitched picture with the words "My sheep hear my voice" embroidered on it.  (John 10:27) It's displayed in the room pictured above, the place where I seek His face, look expectantly at Him in prayer, ask a million questions and cry a billion tears. It's my private cathedral and I am so thankful for it. Guess what my calling is? It's this. This very thing I do tonight. I write and I write and I cry (sometimes) and I write some more. I go away from this computer spent and happy and not at all concerned how many of you read what it is I have managed to spew. 

If God were the only one who saw these things I express, that would be enough. You see, I believe just being and doing who we are created to be and do is an act of worship and, as much fun as it is for us, it is a holy thing. I believe God gets the same joy from it as we used to when our small children built forts or drew pictures, completely absorbed in the joy of living.

By the way, the wild parrots of Telegraph Hill were once domestic pets. But you can't keep a bird from flying. Not for long, anyway.