Leaving the Nest the Hard Way

July 14, 2011

This little guy is a baby blue jay and the reason he’s sporting the pointy punk do on the top of his head is because he’s distressed and the more distressed a blue jay becomes the higher the pointy peak on their head. How do I know this? Wikipedia. My go to source when I want to sound like I know what I’m talking about when I know nothing about what I’m saying.  A more common occurrence than I care to admit.  Anyway, enough about the bird brain, let’s get back to the bird.

I noticed Little Blue dangling on the bottom branch of our Japanese maple tree and by the bottom branch I mean the one three feet off the ground. It seemed odd to see a bird loitering so close to the ground and odder still when rather than flying away as I got close to him he held his ground and gave me a royal stink eye at which point I assumed he wasn’t flying away because he couldn’t fly away because he was wounded and as I do in any emergency; I ran into the house and got my wife who flipped into Nurse Nightingale before my eyes. Leaping into action she dialed up the nearby wildlife emergency number, rounded up a shoebox, padded the box with a towel, poked the box with air holes, and with the shoebox under her arm and gloves on her hands (this woman of mine thinks of everything!) she went out to the bird, assessed the situation, and downgraded it to a non-emergency, level 1. Little Blue had simply fallen from the nest and was fine howbeit temporarily grounded. He was just learning to fly the hard way as baby birds often do.

While we were watching Little Blue from a close distance we couldn’t help but notice two adult blue jays swooping back and forth overhead from the high tree branches just above Little Blue to the highest point of our roof line and then back again. Back and forth they fluttered and dived and the whole time they were cawing and screaming and hurling, what I took as bluejayese profanities, in our direction. Whatever it was they were saying it was clear they were upset and if their screaming and darting back and forth wasn’t an indication of their emotional state the pointed peaks on the top of their heads told us all we needed to know. Apparently high anxiety runs in the family.

After a minute or two we walked across the yard away from Little Blue to see if that would calm everyone down, and by everyone I mean everyone with wings and a beak and a snarly attitude, but not one to leave well enough alone, I just had to take one more look and so back I went and this is when I saw the most awesome thing of all. There standing on the grass with Little Blue was one of the adult bluejays who had come down from the tree and positioned itself side by side, wing by wing next to Little Blue, and even when I took a step forward toward both the birds, the adult bird didn’t take flight for its own safety but hunkered down even closer to Little Blue and stood its ground. The adult bird couldn’t physically remove Little Blue from danger but neither was it going to leave him to face whatever danger came along. The tenderness of it all took my breath away.

The next day I spotted Little Blue again as I was walking to my car and again, there were two adult birds watching and loudly protesting my approach. The day after that there was no Little Blue to be found anywhere but the distinctive sound of blue jays could be heard echoing around our tree-filled courtyard and so I suspect Little Blue was flying high with Mom and Dad, or as we like to imagine in our household with his two mommies.

I also imagine that following his fall and in the subsequent time until he learned to fly on his own Little Blue wanted nothing more than for those two adult bluejays to to swoop down, grab his wings in theirs and carry him back up to the comfort and safety of that old familiar nest. “Rescue me! Save me!” might well have been the translation to all his little bird chirps and calls but we know that birds can’t carry their fledgings back to the nest. Instead when a baby falls the parents stay with him, watch over him, and provide for him until he’s able to spread his wings and fly. And the answer to your question is yes. I know this because of Wikipedia.

At least once in our lives we’ve all taken a fall from our nest. We tumbled from a place that was familiar to us, a nest where we felt comfortable and secure. We were living a life that was all we’d ever known and then something came along that sent us flailing into the unknown and it doesn’t really matter if we fell or we jumped or we were pushed. However it happened we became separated from the place, the friends, the family, the church, the job, or the life that once held us and we found ourselves in a strange land where everything was unknown and uncertain and more than scary enough at times to send the hairs on our heads upward into a razor sharp pointy peak.

For some of us, coming out as lesbians jettisoned us into free fall and when we landed it felt as though we were all alone to find our way, but if a mother and father blue jay will remain ever watchful over their weak-winged child even putting themselves in harm’s way to comfort and protect him, will God not do at least that much for you? So look up because you aren’t alone. You never have been. Someone is watching over you. The same Someone whose wings once sheltered you in the warmth of the nest is with you still. Though it may feel at times like God has flown to the highest branch of the furthest tree from where you are, there will be other times when, as I recently heard a child describe it to me, God seems closer to you than your own skin. But whether it feels that God is far away or God is near, the truth is you have not been abandoned. You have not been forgotten. God may not be able to keep us from falling or save us from every trouble anymore than the birds can for their young but what God can and will do is remain with us wherever we land and through whatever life brings our way.

And the answer to your question is no. I don’t know this from Wikipedia. I know this because I’ve fallen from more than a few nests and every time God was there.

And God is here.

Posted in Devotionals, Periodic Reflections on the Love of God