WINGS, WINDS, THOUGHTS

WINGS, WINDS, THOUGHTS

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

As we sat at breakfast this morning in the sunroom, great groups of birds were storming our feeders or sitting silently on the bushes below them, hoping for a shot at some seeds, but every so often, they would all rush off in a flash and a furious flap of wings. If you weren’t looking, it almost sounded like a sudden wind, as if a piece of a storm had swiftly passed. It called to mind the moments of my life, usually the stirring ones, that seem to quickly come and go, those short-lived seconds of excitement that burst up as if on wings. I can be calm and quiet, resting in the center of my familiar life, when suddenly I’m flying off with some free-wheeling thoughts. Where these wild flocks of thoughts come from, I have no idea, and neither do I know where the sea of sparrows and finches swept in from this morning. There’s a mystery about where these surprises came from, just as there’s a mystery about where love comes from, or goodness, or sincerity, or the power to be there forever, if needed, when a friend’s life falls apart. We can be sitting in silence somewhere, and suddenly we feel the great force of kindness filling us, or we’re swept away by the wings of wanting to make the world better. With thoughts like these, of gentleness and benevolence, it can happen just that suddenly, like the throng of birds breaking away from the feeder in a sudden, wonderful flurry.