Birds and Viruses

Picture by Orijit Chatterjee, Unsplash

Early each morning when the sun's still tame and romantic, birds around the neighborhood celebrate something. Their cheery singing and game playfulness seem to dully the fact of Covid 19, as if it doesn't exist. Listening to them, you forget the ugly horrors of the deadly virus awhile. The birds loudly insist it's a good morning and it's quite tempting to agree.

I listen for minutes, even hours, as I sit quietly on my favorite chair just beside the bed where my wife still hugs a pillow. Sometimes I envy them--the birds. Covid 19 is a myth to them. Quarantine is mere folklore they hear humans fuss about. From my window, I watch them freely fly wherever they wish, unmindful of deadly aerosol viruses in the air.

Sometimes I watch them more closely--especially how they gather food. They love hanging out on the street gutter in front of my place, or perch on my window sill as they survey the area for possible dangers. When all is clear, they dive gracefully to their food source (often bits of rice washed from kitchen basins to the street gutter) and enjoy the galore.

A life too simple. Too dependent. Too weak.

Once, I watched a particular maya bird carefully eat all he wanted and started taking food to his nest where his wife probably waited while hatching a few toddlers. He kept coming back in intervals of 5 minutes, flying back to a tree right at the back of a neighboring house facing me. What a responsible dad, I thought, and I hoped that God would keep him safe from hunting kids armed with slingshots--or from bird flu and other viruses. They have no healthcare systems. How uncertain it is to depend on nothing but God's kindness.

They never store in barns or plant seeds. Yet they have something to eat daily. And they look so happy. I remember Jesus recommending the faith of the birds. They don't do anything but look to the Father for provisions. Suddenly, I wondered: How do we succeed in life? Survival of the fittest? Nope. Survival of the weakest. Yup, birds know better and we have a lot to learn from them.