|
|
Dalton
Roberts |
|
|
|
It may sound strange
but all the feelings and issues surrounding human suffering and death
can be experienced in the illness of a tiny bird. I was filling my
feeders one morning and a purple finch lit on my hand. At times I have
intentionally trained Chickadees and Titmice to sit on my finger but I
was not trying to get the purple finch to do that I eased him down to my
finger so I could check him out and immediately noticed his watery eyes.
I knew he was blind. I’ve read that certain bacteria can blind birds
but this was the first one I had seen. I rubbed his tiny head
with my finger and sat him on the edge of a feeder. His feet immediately
recognized where he was and he voraciously began to eat. I came back
into the house and sat pondering his possible fates. I could have caught
him and let him live out his life in a regular canary cage but aren’t
there fates worse than death? Isn’t a bird’s life more than just
food and water? Sure I could have loved him and rubbed his head every
day but I could see no way to give him the quality of bird life he would
enjoy in the wild. I felt it might be selfish of me to keep him alive
under un-birdlike conditions. We humans often
rationalize that we are doing things for others when we are really doing
them to meet our own needs. Who wouldn’t like to tell visitors to
their home, “This is my purple finch I saved from certain death.” It
makes you feel good but is it good for the bird? I could have chopped
his head off with a hatchet to get him out of his misery. They say
farmers shoot horses with broken legs. I do not claim to be more loving
than those farmers but I can flatly say if you want a little bird’s
head chopped off or a horse shot, you will have to find someone else to
do it. As Clint Eastwood said in Dirty Hairy, “A man’s got to know
his limitations.” In my first book, Things
That Really Matter, I told how I felt when a dove hung itself trying
to get into a wire feeder I had set up to keep large birds away from
food for small birds. It hurt one cold morning when I saw it dangling
from the cage. I felt responsible. Yet, I had probably fed that same
bird a hundred cold mornings. We sometimes make
decisions about how to care for the things we love and sometimes those
very decisions can harm or kill. My son had a heart defect and wanted to
go out for track. I knew harm or death was possible and discussed those
things with him. He said, “Dad, I am not going to live my life as a
psychological cripple.” I signed the form. Shortly after the
dove’s death, I was going to work one morning and saw a nest on the
ground with three tiny birds in it. Doves make the most pitiful nests of
any bird – just a handful of twigs – so I knew they were baby doves.
I took the time to rebuild the nest and sit the babies in it and stayed
to make sure Ma and Pa returned to care for them. So I guess I felt I
had atoned for the death of the other dove. I am not sure we can atone
for any of our mistakes but it sure is good to feel that we have. I keep praying the
finch landed on God’s finger and He took it home. But the best any of
us can do in this life is to live out our love and hope for the best.
Disciple Peter said, “Love covers a multitude of mistakes” and if
anyone knows, it would be him. You'll enjoy
Dalton's website at www.daltonroberts.com.
His writings are gathered at www.ipsfeatures.com.
|
