Grackles

I’m supposed to be writing a sermon right now… but I’m really upset.  I’m tired, and frustrated by this whole pandemic/shutdown thing.  I miss everyone terribly.  I miss worship in God's house.  And I wonder the right way forward as a nation, as a church, as a family.  And many are wondering which is a bigger problem: the pandemic or the shutdown? People are lining up on both sides.  People always line up on both sides.

I don’t really want to argue about it.  I’m not a fighter by nature.  I’m a… hmmm… a lover?  Oh… I know.  I’m a peace-enjoyer, and a peacemaker when I have to be, when I have the energy to be.  There’s a time for fighting, and so we need fighters, and even peacemakers can and should be that when necessary.

But I’m tired.  And I don’t even want to debate it.  I'm not saying it shouldn't be debated.  I'm saying that I don't want to debate it.  That tendency of mine is sometimes a strength, but in this case probably a weakness.  I just don't want to deal with it.  I can’t focus on sermon writing, so I’m sitting on my deck in the sunshine, listening to a calming playlist of songs by Gerald Finzi, and trying to get in the right mind for sermonizing.

And the grackles are squawking near me—their harsh, metallic “chirp” and their plain black attire disrupting the beauty that I’m trying to soak in.

We always have grackles in our yard.  We have lots of other birds too.  Cardinals, chickadees, robins, mourning doves, sparrows, downy woodpeckers, hummingbirds in the summer, juncos in the winter, and behind our yard there are often geese and ducks in the pond.  I love seeing them all.  So, of course, we put out feeders of different kinds for them.

The problem is this, even if we keep squirrels out of the feeders, the grackles are voracious and chase away the other birds.  It’s a problem.  Grackles are fighters.

We finally found a feeder that works.  It’s called (I think) a Squirrel Buster feeder.  Squirrels and birds that are too heavy land on the feeder and their weight makes it close.  It keeps the grackles out.  The cardinals too, but that that’s a small price to pay.  The cardinals still gather up what is dropped from the ground, so I’m glad they are still here.  But the grackles do that too.

I’ve thought about how I could end the awful squawking.  In frustrated moments I’ve even fantasized getting an airsoft bb-gun and popping off one or two of them to see if the rest would go away.  I never would.  But I thought about it.

Something strange occurred a few days ago, however.  I found something in my yard—the guts of some creature.  A bunny?  A squirrel?  The sight reminded me of a few years ago when a hawk was eating a bunny ON MY CAR!  It was gross.  It ate what it wanted and left fur and intestines on the roof of my car, sliding down the passenger window.  You should have seen the guy’s face at the drive through car wash!

But there it was in the yard.  I buried it so Lucy wouldn’t try to eat it.  Then later she found half a mouse.  I’d suspect a cat if I hadn’t just buried the remains of something much larger.

Then, just a couple days ago, I hear a terrible squawking.  Then the piercing cry of a (presumably) young hawk.  I look up into our three-trunked maple tree just in time to see the grackles chasing away not one but two hawks, one larger than the other.

Hmmm… maybe I should be glad for the grackles.  I don’t mind a missing squirrel, but my Shih Tzu is only 7 pounds.  Having grackles might add some protection.

And maybe I’ll let go of my frustration that my neighbor doesn’t seem to care that the grackles built a nest inside the soffit of his garage.

Maybe God, after all, knows how best to care for His own creation.  Maybe God knows what I need better than I do.  Maybe we humans are always, always too nearsighted to see the big picture.

“MY ways and thoughts are higher than YOUR ways and thoughts” declares the Lord (paraphrase of Is. 55:9).

Maybe the best we can do is remain united in Jesus Christ’s…

… truth + love