Why We Needed Momma Bird

ian-baldwin-SastSwWtap0-unsplash.jpg

Two weeks ago, I stood on a ladder. Leaning against the thick aluminum rungs, I reached just above our outdoor motion light and removed a rather large robin’s nest. 

It was bittersweet in all the senses held within that word. Bitter. Sweet. 

We saw Momma Robin begin the construction process somewhere around early June. The first sprigs and fronds appeared, piling up in a seemingly haphazard tornado on the light. Before long, a soft structure formed. 

“We should probably take that down before the babies show up,” I thought. Holley echoed the sentiment. 

I delayed. I’m not sure why. Sitting here today watching a late July rain release into warm grey, I can’t say it was a divine withholding. Then again, who really knows? 

June was a tumultuous time for us. 

The pandemic had (and has) already overstayed whatever welcome we were able to tolerate. Both the pinch of life under quarantine and the anxiety of life re-opening settled like the summer’s humid spray. 

But like the epic infomercial sales pitch, 2020 said “But wait – there’s more!”

Things began to break. Health wise, spiritually, and relationally we felt the strain deep in our spirits as a family. 

There are stories of this time that are not mine to tell. I won’t do that here, but suffice it to say this: 

During the month of June 2020, no fan was left unfertilized.

Each day at breakfast, Holley and I sat on the screened porch. We cracked the windows to let the new day humidity drift out and give way to the smell of oatmeal, coffee, and tea. 

Each day we watched Momma Bird. 

The eccentricities of robins with their nests are not that far from the eccentricities of human parents. The fussy way we nest, creating space in tucked away places, where we hope for the safest outcomes. 

Two robins began to scout the backyard, perching on the fence between our neighbors’ yard and our house. That vantage point presented Daddy Bird (I’m guessing) with the ability to see clearly into the nest – to watch for predators, etc. 

We felt the need in our house to create safety. From what? It is hard to say. Emotional exhaustion became like a family member. We set another place at the table and fed it all the sleep and distraction we could. 

Creativity suffered a mortal wound. 

These are the first real words I’ve written since May. 

You cannot pour out when you have not been filled. 

We kept to our routine: morning yoga, breakfast, check-ins. The golf courses reopened and I was able to spend some time with that dastardly and defiant little white ball. Steam released. 

Momma Bird kept her routine as well and soon she began sitting in the nest for extended periods of time. The thickness of her feathers spread the circumference of the nest, she held her beak open. 

What’s that about?  

Google helped us and now we know birds sitting in nests are often overcome with heat and open their beaks as a way of panting. 

The work created heat – the work of preserving life, watching out for predators, and exercising that innate desire to see new life thrive. 

In the house, we knew that work. The caloric burn of emotional life, even life with God, ebbs and flows and we are driven to keep the fire burning. It is within us. In a way, it is the rightness we need from day to day.

Momma Robin relented, and soon we witness small beaks poking above the rim of what had become a very large nest. Five beaks crowned a six-inch high marvel of natural engineering. The babies were safe, protected, and soon were fed by both Momma and another robin we assumed to be Dad.  

But honestly, who knows?

Does it really matter when we are in that vulnerable and unprotected state of life? Does it matter who chews the worm and spits it into our gullet as long as the growling ache beds down?  

People encouraged us. Writers, friends, connections from long ago reached out and asked how we were doing in the pandemic. People prayed for us. 

A trade secret of pastoral work is that you are so often praying for others that when someone prays for you it feels like they picked up the check at a restaurant. Gratitude comes, but then you want to say “I’ll get it next time” for some reason. 

Or at least I do. 

The babies grew through early July. Soon the nest was too small. We watched them jostle for position and soon begin to stretch their own wings. 

The metaphors began to fall from the next like an avalanche.

The deep beak-to-mouth care of a mother to the stretching of wings and the readiness to fly.  

We knew the last year middle school for our daughter would be modified, though not sure how, by COVID-19. Regardless, her transition into high school – and into the last chapters of “life in the nest” – would begin in earnest only a few short weeks from the days of baby birds stretching their wings. 

People tell you that your kids grow up fast. They don’t tell you how that will feel. Perhaps it is too unique, to idiosyncratic to each person for a universal explanation. It feels like grieving. 

The love of God for His children walks them through similar transitions, including those that will lead them away from him for a season. It is good to go away, so we can know what we left behind. 

The speed of parenting feels like grieving. Did Momma Bird grieve? Each baby spread their wings and left the nest. Carefully. Slowly. 

My daughter came downstairs one morning to find Holley on her knees starting out the back window, gently calling “You can do this! Just jump! You have wings!” 

Holley desperately wanted to see one of the babies leave the next. My daughter considered calling someone in behavioral health services. Mom had clearly left reality behind. 

And leave the nest they did, until one day the last bird made its way from the nest to the motion light. A distance of only 2-3 inches, from the nest to the light, but an acre for something once so small and defenseless. 

Holley watched. Glass formed at the corners of her eyes as the last little bird leapt, fluttered, and landed with whatever grace it had. The nest was empty. 

So standing on the ladder, removing what can only be called the set of a drama we were privileged to watch close up, I realized something. 

In the time of pandemic, of ache, and of transition, we needed Momma Bird and the babies.

We needed a reminder that there was something normal going on, somewhere, and that life soldiered forward in its own way. 

The need in us to see that the Spirit ignited the images of parenthood and growth within us at a time when we felt the all-too familiar confusion of parents who had gone before us. 

What do we do now? 

Is this how it is supposed to go?

Watch the robins. Watch. See the tenderness. Now listen. All is as it should be, at least as it depends on you. There are circumstances you cannot control – that isn’t new. What is new is the gravity, the severity, and the finality. But final and severe are relative.

To watch a robin raise eggs into flyers is to be reminded that there is an eternal force of grace in the world kindling hope in each of us. It is a durable hope, like a nest spun from stuff found lying around. 

We are all workmanlike souls, eternal beings put to rights in the woodshop not the laboratory. We are ever evolving, growing, and moving in our spirits either towards who we were made to be or towards the opposite. 

We needed Momma Bird because without her we may have lost the plot and our souls along the way. 

The heavens declare the glory of God. As David Byrne said, “Same as it ever was.”

(Photo by Ian Baldwin on Unsplash)