Columnists
Where there’s a will
Jude Simpson
Certain strange little jobs have become mine by
reason of being the first to arrive downstairs each morning.
Removing the knives from the dishwasher before the customary daily
argument between two toddlers who've both developed a psychotic
need to unload and put away the cutlery. (The interaction
will still be furious, but at least now not fatal.) Unlocking
the back door and placing the key in an unreachable place (for
reasons to do with children, washing machines, toilets and drains).
And lastly, scooping up tiny, dead, ragged baby birds from
the patio.
It's one of Spring's most poignant tasks. As
seasonal as gambolling lambs, daffodils and love, but as
tragic as Autumn. A flightless scramble of skinny feathers and
stiff little legs. A reminder of lost children or never-born
babies. A poke in the eye from a cruel, cyclical Mother
Nature.
Gently wielding the dustpan and brush, I coax the
bird on tenderly, squeamishly. Then I hesitate as to where
best to dispose of the minuscule mess. Black bin or
green?
The Council's checklist does not specify which bin to
use for the remains of baby birds. I cannot (in this present
moment) bring myself to categorise them alongside chicken bones.
Buddhists might peacefully put them in the recycling bin. I go for
green. The colour of trees.
Meanwhile, on my desk inside, sits a will-writing
pack. There aren't many superstitious bones in my body, but every
time I consider beginning this morbid task, I imagine a
wonderstruck Christian whispering to the lady next to her at my
funeral, 'She'd written her will just the night before! The
Lord knew...!'
Yes the Lord knows. But I'm fairly sure he's
unlikely, in deciding whether to sustain or snuff me out, to be
swayed by my procrastination in writing down my last requests.
Still I can't bring myself to do it.
Everything in us clings on to life, while life itself
in all its glory and bitterness often seems indifferent as to
whether we are clamped on or not.
But this is to confuse Mother Nature with Father God.
It's easy to do - especially when God is clearly a better
Mother. Mother Nature is what we call the myriad ingrained
ways that the living world maintains, prunes, ends and regrows
itself. God is beyond that. To be the giver of life, you have to be
larger than life.
Was it really only a middle-aged housewife and her
Cath Kidston dustpan who bore witness to the tiny bird bundle in my
garden? No. God was there. Wasn't it Jesus who said, even
when a tiny bird falls to the ground, our heavenly Father
knows?
And we are worth more than many sparrows. That
thought seems callous in the face of this tiny bird tragedy - ha,
I'm worth more than loads of you - but the point is not that we
overestimate God's love for sparrows, but that we vastly
underestimate his besottedness with us as human beings.