December 19, 2013
The Third Week in Advent

You can look out the kitchen window almost any time of day and see them--the other family we feed.   Earliest are the blue jays;  then a host of sparrows, chickadees, cardinals, and titmice fly to and from the feeder.  Underneath, on the ground, are the puffed up little snowbirds, and the mourning doves hungry on a cold morning.    And then come the occasional visits of the nuthatches and downy woodpeckers, and, my favorite, the wrens.    They are busy filling their little bellies, stoking their anatomical furnaces to help them get through these winter nights.   The only things that interrupt this constant feast are the invasion of  squirrels from time to time and the specter of a hawk who comes to inspect the situation, also looking to stoke its furnace.   And, of course, me.  

Open the door, no matter how gently, and they erupt in a flurry of wings, high-tailing it into the treetops and bushes until all is quiet again.   I want to plead with them, "Don't go.   I will not hurt you.   I am the founder of your feast!"   Or, in the  beautiful King James Version words of Luke 12, "Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father's good pleasure to give you the kingdom!"   But this little flock, outside the window, does nothing but eat and be afraid.   Perhaps, come Spring, other urges will kick in.   But for now, these creatures cannot be aware of the good things that I could offer them.   For instance, they have no appreciation at all of the tenor singing his haunting solo from Handel’s Messiah which is, at the moment, filling my living room.

It is that beautiful moment at the beginning, when the lone voice cries from the wilderness to a lonely, fearful flock of a world,  "Comfort ye, comfort ye, my people, says your God!"   Every time I hear it, I hold my breath, feel a sense of hope and wonder, trust that the promise is true.    To all of us in exile, to all who ever are afraid, to every little flock, let the first word, and the final word, be "Comfort ye!"

Comfort Me

They are not much,
these little creatures
of feather and bone,
holding out against the cold.
So they gather together
for this simple feast,
peck at the sunflower seeds
and millet and corn
as if they were all the world,
as if they were the kingdom's treasure.
And then a sound:
a door creaks, slams,
a hawk cries somewhere,
the wind fells a branch,
and they are gone.
Today they are ruled
by hunger and fear,
and sometimes I am no different.
But somewhere is a song,
a message of consolation, tender joy,
in this wilderness of ours
where birds, and sheep, and we poor souls--
all flocks abiding in the fields of winter--
miss hearing the glory of it.
Lord, open our ears,
open our hearts
to the comfort of your kingdom.
Comfort me.

--Timothy Haut, December 19, 2013