Sermon (by Lisa Sadleir-Hart) for Creation Care Service (April 26 2020)
It’s 1970; I’m 8; I live in Woodland, CA - 20 miles north of Sacramento off of I-5. Mrs. Kroft, my third grade teacher, assigned a month-long nature project. I don’t want to disappoint her, so well before 8am, I’m perched on a chaise lounge with notebook in hand in my 1805 Archer Street backyard. It’s relatively quiet; I’m there to listen, watch and record the robins that visit my backyard in the morning every day for the next month. American robins arrive early in spring. I’ve seen them balancing easily on the fence line from the living room; I’ve heard their joyous morning and evening song;
It’s 1971; I’m 9; my dad is a California state Fish & Game Warden - a protector of God’s Holy Creation. He’s home early; he has a surprise for my sister and I in the garage. On his rounds today, he came across a snowy owl - alabaster white feathers with keen eyes and a broken wing. She’s on route to the raptor center at UC Davis. I am enthralled to be so close to God’s messenger; she is a true sight to behold. This memory is etched on my heart forever.
It’s 2020; I’m 58; I’m in the garden with Jackson who’s there to help move 3 gooseberry plants. Tapppppppppp “Jackson turn slowly around, look there,at the top of the roof - a Northern flicker”. She flies to a hemlock tree and sings, chatters and fully delights us. Five minutes later “ Jackson slowly looks up, there’s a Wilson’s Snipe; oh, look” as 3 in the adjacent yard take flight & the one on the roof flies over our home as a bald eagle circles far above. Earlier on Monday, I had recorded 7 Canadian geese, 4 Greater Yellowlegs, 2 Belted kingfishers, 2 Pacific wren, 2 chestnut-backed chickadees, 21 Buffleheads and numerous mallards, mergansers and gulls on my walk in Totem Park. Later a rufous hummingbird graced our feeder on the back deck and 2 Northern flickers and a Wilson’s snipe hung out eating in the muskeg behind our home. This was an exceptional day for birding or as I like to say “ for God-ing”
But ask the beasts, and they will teach you; the birds of the heavens, and they will tell you; (Job 12:7)
My affinity for birds started at an early age. My dad gave me my first set of binoculars which I still have then last summer helped me pick out my most recent upgrade. He, also, gifted me with my first Peterson’s Field Guide to Western birds. He taught me that to really see and hear birds, to fully take them in, you need to pause, get still and listen. Birds startle easily and quickly take their leave. And for me, God’s a bit like birds. To really connect to the Creator requires a deep sustained pause and an unwavering willingness to still both the loud inner and outer voices in our psyche and communities, respectively, to hear what the Divine has to say.
He put another parable before them, saying, “The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field. It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.” (Matthew 13:31-32)
Birds are no doubt Divine messengers (think canary in a coal mine), and they are in serious trouble. As humans, we have not planted hospitable gardens for them to nest in. To the contrary, we have created environments that have put considerable stress on birds. Audubons’ recent report on birds and climate, Survival by Degrees: 389 Bird Species on the Brink, indicates that 389 North American bird species—nearly two-thirds of those studied—are vulnerable to extinction due to climate change. Risks to these winged species are on the rise due to wildfires, debilitating heat waves, heavy rains, red tide and sea-level rise. AND as they point out, there’s hope - “If we take aggressive action now, we can help 76 percent of vulnerable species have a better chance of survival.”
“Hope is the thing with feathers, that perches in the soul and sings the tune without words and never stops. - Emily Dickenson
The Audubon report was on the heels of an in-depth assessment that appeared in the September 2019 online issue of Science - Decline of the North American Avifauna. Over the last 50 years we lost 1 in 4 birds across North America and Canada. That’s close to 3 billion breeding adult birds across all biomes! We lost 33% of boreal forest birds, 23% of Arctic tundra birds and 37% of shorebirds. This includes a loss of 1 in 3 Dark-eyed juncos - one of my frequent companions. Cornell Lab of Ornithology conservation scientist, Ken Rosenberg, commented that “these bird losses are a strong signal that our human-altered landscapes are losing their ability to support birdlife...and that is an indicator of a coming collapse of the overall environment.”
It is never too late to go quietly to our lakes, rivers, oceans, even our small streams, and say to the sea gulls, the great blue herons, the bald eagles, the salmon, that we are sorry.
— Brenda Peterson in Singing to the Sound: Visions of Nature, Animals and Spirit
So what are weary, yet cautiously hopeful, God & bird lovers to do? First, and foremost, continue to take time in the Divine’s holy, beloved creation. It brings solace to one’s soul and gives one clear evidence of how a changing climate is impacting local bird habitats. Second, learn about climate change science through non-partisan organizations like Audubon, Sitka Sound Science Center or the Sitka Raptor Center and its impact on our winged brothers and sisters. Third, speak up on behalf of birds. They indeed are “canaries in coal mines” (miners actually did bring birds into mines to give them early warning signs of oxygen loss in the caverns) and the sheer loss of them since 1970 sounds a loud and clear alarm. God is asking us clearly and loudly that THE TIME IS NOW! REPENT - TURN AROUND/PIVOT/ABOUT FACE. YOU STILL HAVE TIME. And finally, commit to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology’s 7 simple actions to help birds.
1. Make Windows Safer, Day and Night.
2. Keep cats indoors.
3. Reduce lawns, plant native plants.
4. Avoid pesticides.
5. Drink coffee that’s good for birds.
6. Protect our planet from plastic.
7. Watch birds, share what you see as a citizen scientist.
For more information, go to https://www.birds.cornell.edu/home/seven-simple-actions-to-help-birds/ and join me in giving our winged neighbors a fighting chance at survival.
To close, I’d like to leave you with a Mary Oliver poem, Such Singing in the Wild Branches.
Such Singing in the Wild Branches
It was spring
and I finally heard him
among the first leaves––
then I saw him clutching the limb
in an island of shade
with his red-brown feathers
all trim and neat for the new year.
First, I stood still
and thought of nothing.
Then I began to listen.
Then I was filled with gladness––
and that's when it happened,
when I seemed to float,
to be, myself, a wing or a tree––
and I began to understand
what the bird was saying,
and the sands in the glass
stopped
for a pure white moment
while gravity sprinkled upward
like rain, rising,
and in fact
it became difficult to tell just what it was that was singing––
it was the thrush for sure, but it seemed
not a single thrush, but himself, and all his brothers,
and also the trees around them,
as well as the gliding, long-tailed clouds
in the perfect blue sky–––all of them
were singing.
And, of course, so it seemed,
so was I.
Such soft and solemn and perfect music doesn't last
For more than a few moments.
It's one of those magical places wise people
like to talk about.
One of the things they say about it, that is true,
is that, once you've been there,
you're there forever.
Listen, everyone has a chance.
Is it spring, is it morning?
Are there trees near you,
and does your own soul need comforting?
Quick, then––open the door and fly on your heavy feet; the song
may already be drifting away.
-Mary Oliver
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Quotes about birds and wings:
“The reason birds can fly and we can't is simply because they have perfect faith, for to have faith is to have wings.” ― J.M. Barrie, The Little White Bird
“A bird is safe in its nest - but that is not what its wings are made for.”
― Amit Ray, World Peace: The Voice of a Mountain Bird
“Run my dear,
From anything
That may not strengthen
Your precious budding wings.”
― Hafez
"Faith is the bird that feels the light when the dawn is still dark."
- Rabindranath Tagore