It is morning  in August and filled with grey smoke smudging the mountains and sky overhead. Summer fires the size of small states burn in the Northwest  which is tinder dry from lack of rain. I notice a tiny, darker-hued spot darting between the trees. It is a hummingbird which then settles on the tip of a snag and blends like a pine cone into the branches.  Other  birds  come daily to  the feeder on the deck  so I won’t take down the mylar strips fluttering from the windows. I taped the rainbow reflecting strips to the windows earlier in spring  because  birds were crashing into the glass.  

Year after year I sit here at the dining table in the mornings to write. The landscape has not changed much in those years. Even with the seasonal changes, it is very, very familiar to me. Trees, birds and flowers in summer; snow, clouds and shades of winter grey  in January.  Nevertheless, my 4 inch  “square  of perception” is vaster than all the acres of forest  around our house. A small focus is neither  ho hum nor empty. I seek  God in the details.

There comes  a memory. My aged father is here visiting us from New York.  He sits on the deck holding a finch which crashed into the window. The bird is stunned from the impact but still alive. Pop’s calloused hands are wrinkled and scarred from a  life time of working with wood. His thumbs are thick and flattened, like  chisels at the end of his hand.s He patiently warms the bird in his hands, feeling its tiny racing heart until there’s a flutter and the bird flies off.

It is a vignette I’ve never forgotten because I was jealous of that little bird. The trembling broken creature being restored within powerful but gentle hands is the cry of the heart. Do we not all long for such unasked for love, patience and protection? Don’t we shed silent tears for our fathers whom we did not know could be so gentle?  Why do we never think to ask  for love when we too crash into unseen windows and end up with broken wings? I never did.

My father is long since gone but this memory brings me solace for I saw something in him  that could only have come from Our Perfect Father – gentleness,  patience, attentiveness and above all  healing love. The Holy Spirit showed me to look beyond the obvious even in seasons when I could not have said it was so.

Jesus used the illustration of the  ordinary sparrow to teach how the Father sees us, watches over us  especially when we’re afraid or heartbroken.  Why?  Because the One who knows every star and planet  in the cosmos knows our name.  He’s inscribed us into the palm of His hands and holds us fast because of Jesus. The Father’s Eye may be on the sparrow but it is you and I He watches over with tender mercies.   We are of infinitely greater value than any number of sparrows.

Are not five sparrows sold for two pennies? Yet not one of them forgotten by God. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.… Luke 12:6

Jesus opened His earthly ministry claiming the words  of Isaiah 61:1. Jesus brings the good news to the world and the prophetic promises of the Father.   He came to  “bind up  the brokenhearted  and to proclaim liberty to the captives.” He came to hold our broken bodies, minds and spirits in His hands  nailed to  the cross, to die for our transgressions and thus, we fly free. He still does. We still can.