Doves and Pigeons

You can read about acts of terror on the news (one yesterday), but on this blog today I choose to write about something not so terrible. I don't feel particularly terrorized or afraid, just disturbed. But it is not just an incident that is disturbing, but conditions in the world and church, which will not be remedied until...until Messiah comes back? That's what a lot of people say. Which leaves room for a sort of hopeless attitude, as if nothing we do now is going to do much good anyway. That is not how I see it. Look at all the promises Jesus gave us about the Holy Spirit. Is the Holy Spirit somehow weaker than or inferior to Jesus?

But today I am thinking about birds. Last night, all through the night, crows were squawking loudly.  And at daybreak many small birds were chirping, loud and shrill. I don't see a lot of birds from my window, but I hear them. (Not like in southern Indiana, where we saw many varieties every single day, just a few feet from the window--robins, juncos, nuthatches, brown creepers, cardinals, chickadees, blue jays, orioles, bluebirds, sparrows, doves, finches, starlings, wrens, and a woodpecker that always notified me when the feeder was empty. And there were hummingbirds at the hummingbird feeder. And down the street were indigo buntings, but they never came to my feeder. And warblers in the tops of trees. And a thrasher in the woods. And wood ducks on the pond, along with a green heron, a bittern, and sometimes visiting large herons. And swallows over the barn and in it, and red-wing blackbirds in the pasture. And owls hooting at night. Etc., etc., etc. Not to mention our own chickens and our neighbor's guinea hens.)

Here in Jerusalem I have seen only pigeons, crows, bulbuls, sparrows, hummingbirds (very iridescent black) -- [actually it's called Palestine sunbird, but it has a long curved beak and it hovers somewhat like a hummingbird], and bright green parrots. Flying overhead, at some distance, some kind of cranes. Maybe a couple others.

Lately doves have been hanging around, inspecting my balcony and my bedroom window, and trying to get through the lattice by the laundry room. They must be looking for nesting locations. One of the pigeons is gray and white-streaked, with purple and turquoise on its neck, and rusty-orange eyes. It is tempting to provide them with a nesting box or nesting materials. Or some kind of feeder, if there were a way to keep the crows out of it.

O that I had wings like a dove; I would fly away until I find rest.

 

O dass ich Flügel hätte

wie die Taube;

ich würde davonfliegen

bis ich Ruhe fände!