The other day, as I was walking home, I noticed a woman coming towards me. I stepped to the side, smiled, and said, “Good morning.” As she passed, she responded with a similar smile. She said, “Good morning” and then added, “I love the sound of the birds!” This statement stopped me in my tracks. I remained standing there, dumbfounded. The statement stopped me, not because it was profound in any way – it was a simple observation – but because, until that moment, I hadn’t heard the birds. I had walked several blocks unaware of my surroundings. I was entirely in my head, attending to my own thoughts. With the woman’s comment, however, my attention shifted. There were the birds, chirping majestically all around me. I had a moment with myself where I wondered what else I may have missed.
What made this encounter so intriguing is the fact that I was in a pleasant mood. There wasn’t anything wrong with my disposition. I wasn’t over-wrought by negativity or turmoil; I wasn’t wrestling with inner demons or succumbing to inward torment. I felt relaxed and content. It was just that I was turned into a private world, one occupied entirely by myself. The woman’s statement caused me to ask the question: was I present? Was I open to the blessings of my surroundings? Did I walk the streets with an eye towards the sacramentality of the world around me? Did I walk the sidewalk open to Spirit’s presence and work?
I dare say, no.
St. Francis is famously known for preaching to the birds. As the story goes, Francis was wrestling with a decision between spending his life preaching the gospel or living a life of solitary prayer. After receiving guidance from Brother Sylvester, and his Sister Clare, Francis sets out in renewed conviction to declare God’s saving love in the world. He would preach the graces of Christ to all whom he came upon. The first sermon after this renewed commitment, however, was not in a country church or a city cathedral, it was to a flock of birds that had landed in an open field.
This story is often told in reference to Francis’ deep love for all creation, and his almost prophetic understanding of the connection between all God’s creatures. Yet I wonder if there is more going on. Perhaps Francis’s preaching to the birds wasn’t an instance of bringing the gospel to the flock, but an instance of him responding to the blessings of God in the flock. As he raced down the road, firmly renewed in his call to preach the gospel, was Francis arrested by the chirping of the birds, a chirping the caused him to respond to the work of God al? In that moment, did Francis recognize the presence of the Spirit pulsating in the world around him, such that he had to join the flocks in exultant praise? Perhaps Francis didn’t preach to the birds to bring God to the birds, but to respond to God’s presence already with the birds, and with him.
How many moments of divine blessing do we sometimes miss because we are unattuned to the glory of our surroundings? We live our lives enclosed in private thoughts and secret ruminations. Yet scripture teaches us that the Holy Spirit surrounds us. We are baptised in the Spirit, which means that our lives are immersed in the Spirit’s presence. There is no place where we live outside of the spiritual reality of our lives. What is more, the Spirit’s presence is indistinguishable from the Spirit’s activity. The Spirit doesn’t come into our lives as a third-party observer. The Spirit calls us, empowers us, and sends us. This opens before us a myriad of opportunities to join heaven’s work.
Life doesn’t not run simply on the course of finance and materiality. We live in a Spirit-filled world. We believe that the Jesus is alive and at work in the world. This is fundamental to who we are as Christian people. To believe this is to live with a willingness to respond to the Spirit today. Of course, I’m not suggesting that you need to rush into a field and preach to the crows, but what might happen if you were at least open to that possibility? Where might your heat be drawn in praise? Where might the Spirit be prompting you to bring a word to someone, to respond to the Spirit’s work in your life, or in the life of another.
