Prayers For a Tiny Finch

The past few days I have had a finch with an injured wing hanging around at my bird feeders. She hangs with the rest of the group, sort of, for when they all come to eat, she is there. When they are gone she is gone. But for the most part she hangs out alone, not in duos like some of them. My heart is getting quite attached to her as I have been trying to catch her so that I can take her to the Grass Valley Wildlife rehab to get some medicine. But today I fear it is too late.

She can still fly. Not well, but she can, which is why I cannot get her. She sits high up on one of the plum tree branches on a branch that is getting sun. She is puffed up today, a bad sign. Her wing joint has an abscess that is caused by some kind of injury, perhaps hitting a window or the angry peck of a bird fighting for food, I'm not sure. But this is the 5th or 6th day of me watching her, hoping the best for her, saying actual prayers for her.

Eloise Wilkin's Bird book

From Eloise Wilkin's book, Prayers for Children

Prayers. I have an odd collection of friends with all kinds of spiritual beliefs. Mine are my own. I grew up Mormon but left those beliefs around age 17. I tried out a few different spiritual ideas and practices and gatherings in my 20s, but I always felt lured back to the ideas and teachings of Jesus. His teachings resonated truth for me, promoting unconditional love and working hard and being kind and not being afraid. Despite wandering around in my spiritual ways, I always believed in some kind of a God, and no, despite considering myself a "mystic Christian", I do not believe God is a man in the sky. Not even close. I also don't believe God is a he. God is whatever IT would like to be, since it can create sky and atmosphere and move mountains and is in everything everywhere. My personal version of God is pure magic. God is the part of DNA that scientist can't quite nail down, the ALIVE part! But if you ask me, one must believe in actual magic to believe truly in God. I once heard two scientist argue this God DNA debate on NPR. Pretty sure this guy was involved in that debate, Francis Collins, head of the Human Genome Project. He is a scientist with a point of view quite similar to mine.

For me, God is everywhere, and that means magic is everywhere. Nothing is normal, everything is filled with actual magic. The littlest finch: actual fluttering, breathing magic. Each feather... magic. Our perfect bones and the veins and muscle connecting them, magic. A life code, a magic spell (that's how I think of it in my funny brain) that makes everything ALIVE.  For me, God IS "the universe", and sometimes I do use that new-agey cheesy phrase as I know it is more all-encompassing and doesn't share the negative or narrower connotations that the word "God" often does.

 And it makes me so sad that the word "Christian" has turned into a word that often evokes extremely negative thoughts. Even for myself sometimes. I like to say I am a Christ-follower instead. Or, as I stated before, "Mystic Christian" because somehow the word mystic, such an amazing word, immediately cancels out any sour connotation that Christian might bring up... by sour connotations you all know what I mean. Angry faces driving trucks that say "Jesus Hates Gays" (if all this heaven business is true those people are gonna GET THEIRS when Jesus actually slaps their faces, repeatedly)... and other churchy sorts of "christian" people who speed up to hit squirrels, yell "get a job!" at homeless people, spend all of their free time judging other people, shopping at malls, and panicking that others will steal from them or hurt them, and generally prove how hard and fearful their hearts are on a daily basis. These fake and/or angry Christian types have pretty much ruined the real point here. They are often mad instead of appreciating and enjoying the life that their "God" supposedly granted them. What a great way to insult your maker! Be mad ALL the time at everything! Never focus on what's amazing and beautiful and the kindness of humans and the goodness in the world. I know if anything these kinds of angry holier-than-thou people send many of my close friends shuddering at the word "Christian", a sad phenomenon indeed. J himself is probably very saddened. I mean c'mon, the man hung out with thieves and prostitutes in REAL life and loved them, A LOT. Kindness was his daily bread! I just don't get how being mad at the government, at the world, at other people's lives has anything to do with being a spiritual person! I'm sure many of you agree.

To me, gratitude is the greatest expression of constant prayer. Constantly being in awe and thankful for this amazing, heart-pumping, sun-rising, earth-moving thing called life. And gratitude happens when you are not only happy, it happens when you are overjoyed.

My little finch with the injured wing

Sitting in the plum tree

ANYWAYS. Sorry the tangent from my main subject here, my tiny finch friend. So I pray to the Great Spirit of God when I pray for a tiny bird. I say things like "Great Spirit, I know you already have it all worked out, that everything is OK, that everything is beautiful, but could you PLEASE, just this once, let this little bird get better for my sake? The hope it would give me! Seeing something in nature overcome for once, instead of wither! But if not, God, it's OK, for I know the world is beautiful and all the goodness lasts forever... but... PLEASE?" It's kind of like The Smiths song Please Please Please, which yes I have covered at a show and plan to do so again. Man I love that song. 

But today I know I'm not gonna get my way. This little bird is gonna go. If it would only let me catch it I have even hooked up with a wildlife rehab lady who I just have to call and meet her with the bird. But it's probably too late. Once a bird is puffed up all the time, they are fighting to stay warm, and this little gal is puffed up today. I kind of wish a Sharp Shinned Hawk would just swoop out of the sky and take her, I would feel better about that. But not this. Not this hanging on for days... If I ever die (smiley face) I do hope I go quickly.

The finch page in the Birds book

Another little prayer

So I said another bird prayer. "God whY?? Why does she have to hang on for days? What lesson could be in this, since every tiny thing under the sun happens for a reason? Why does she have to stay alive while suffering for so long?" And for that, my heart had a sudden answer.


I can never know what a bird consciousness feels like. But I will try to imagine. And suddenly I see that this little bird who has been so strong still has a tiny reason for being here. But the reasons are all her own, they exist as surely as the sun rises and the ecosystems of nature function. Perhaps it is the yellow leaves, which match her underbelly, falling to the ground that gives this little bird some kind of peace. Perhaps it is endless days of warmth, the blue blue sky and the sun rising to greet her, even in late October, that she was made to stay alive to witness. Perhaps it is some tiny thing she does that is synchronistic that keeps another bird from getting hit by a car or plucked from the sky. Perhaps it is where she will fall in the earth, her feathered body nourishing the ground where earthworms will be pulled up by the spring birds next year. Perhaps it is all of these things.

The view from the tree by my kitchen window feeder

No matter what the tiny reasons, I know they exist. I know everything happens for a reason, and no matter how it hurts or how we don't want it, in the end it is for the Good. I know this like a resonation from my heart. I don't even care if it is not true, it is what I must believe, and how good it feels to know it! The evolution of everything, the birth and death of things, it all is for good. And someday I do believe I will understand exactly why.

I like to think that in the evenings she roosts with the other finches, cuddled close to them and warm. I surely hope so. Even if last night was her last.

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And from all this... I have decided to build fall winter roost boxes! I read a lot about it last night, and because people are so gung-ho about cutting down diseased or dying trees, birds have many many less places to roost, especially when they need to stay warm in the winter. Roost boxes are different than nest boxes, and I am going to make one. Also if you have a love of birds, do hesitate when cutting down trees of any kind. The Cornell Lab of Ornithology leads the nation in research, education and understanding the life of birds and they have information and blueprints on how to make nest boxes (for spring) and roost boxes (for autumn, winter). I got a jigsaw and a sander for my birthday last year and planned on making cutting boards and crafts, but now I realize, I'm destined to create snuggly homes for birds.

Sweet animal love and bright stars to you all.