So, since Early February we have had this crazy cardinal outside our dining room window. We have a bird bath and had a feeder out there as well, however, I have since dried said bath and emptied the feeder to get this nut-job cardinal to go away. Every morning, he perches on the limb of the little tree, right outside the window and stares at himself in the glass. I have no idea what he says, or what his posture may be saying, but it only takes a few minutes before he is hacked off at the “other” cardinal staring back at him. He then begins to fly into the window attacking the cardinal in the reflection. We stand inside and laugh at the literal insanity of it. He flies into the window aggressively which knocks him to the ground. He falls down and then flies back up to the limb and stares again. He then flies into the window again attacking the cardinal in the reflection and falls to the ground. Hops back up on the limb and goes again. I have literally heard him going at this for hours at a time. We have gone outside and scared him off. We have covered the window with paper but when we take it down he's back. I go into the dining room and sometimes this makes him leave for a while but it won't be long and “clink, clink, clink' he is back for more. Obviously, he thinks his reflection is another male cardinal and he feels as if he must do the right thing to win the affection of the lady cardinal sitting in the adjacent tree. Yes, she's there every morning as well. Just watching. Waiting. Heck, she may even be encouraging him for the amusement of it all. I can just hear her later, with her mama cardinal. “Hee hee hee, yes mama, that idiot just keeps hitting the glass and I tell him, baby, you got this... get him! And He just keeps smacking into that window like a kamikaze fighter pilot.” “It's the funniest thing ever mama, you should come see tomorrow! Oh certainly, he will be doing it again, if I tell him to!”

The glass on the window is marked up with something. I don't know if he is leaving little skid marks with the material of his beak or if it is like bird spit or something... I truly have no idea, but it has a million little marks on it where he has flown into the window repeatedly.

Karen, my lovely bride, has a habit of talking for the pets in our house. As the Lab walks into the room, she has an uncanny ability to read the facial expression of the dog and she immediately says in her own little dog voice, whatever it looks as if he might be saying as he saunters about. Very often, what comes out of “his mouth” seems to be spot on with his actions and is nothing short of hilarious. She talks for the GSP as well and with her quiet wit, she keeps the rest of us in stitches because it truly seems like that is exactly what the dogs would be saying in any given circumstance. It is a virtual stand up comedy routine all the time. Naturally, this habit rubs off on the rest of us and we give the comedic relief a try as well. With much less effectiveness and a serious shortfall on humor, we have all been guilty of talking for the dogs. In light of this, I walked through the dining room the other day and there was the whacked out cardinal, banging his head on the window while his girlfriend sits patiently in the tree a few yards away, watching him. In my best French accent.. (I guess because I can only imagine a Frenchman being this stupid, sorry Frenchie) “My Love, I will be there in a moment. First, I must deal with this intruder! (blam!) ...I must conquer you, you low-life pond scum! (blam!).... My love awaits me, but I cannot be her man while you are here watching me with such judgment, (blam!)... such condemnation in your eyes.. (Blam!)... I will poke them out with my pointy beak! (blam!)....I must defeat you! (Blam!) Be patient my dear! I will be done killing him momentarily!” All the while, his lady friend just sat in the tree, taking it all in. You get the picture.


Suddenly, as if He were sitting there in the room, I hear the small voice of God. “That is what I do. I sit patiently, waiting for you to stop knocking your head against the wall. While you are needlessly distracted by imaginary appointments of importance. While you are fighting with reflections of yourself that are confusing to you and blatantly incorrect. While you “deal” with all the things in life that seem to be imminently pressing, I will sit and wait for you to come to me. It is Springtime. That male cardinal only needs to fly over there and court the one I have given him. Yet, he is too busy fighting a false image, an incorrect reflection, a self-created distraction. Too busy to simply do what I have created him to do. Tim, move away from the window, and start doing what I created you to do.”


So often, we believe things about ourselves that keep us from fulfilling our God-intended purpose. So often, we create our own distractions and then tell ourselves we are too busy to do what God wants us to do. So often, we talk ourselves out of reaching out to the world around us because we think that we cannot be that person. We are ill-equipped. We are not good enough. We are not the “preacher type”. “That's just not who we are” ... “I would rather just live in front of them then actually share Christ with them” “I'm not the 'witness kind of person”...


We let that false image in the window keep us from actually doing what God intends for us to do in our life.


We would rather fight against imaginary enemies of our faith than actually do something in faith. We would rather tell the sick we will pray for them on Facebook than to go over and lay hands on them and pray WITH them.


We would rather post a cute Jesus meme than to sit down and write our personal story of salvation and what Jesus did for us.


We want to be the cardinal who looks pretty and boasts to be brave and heroic. We do not want to answer the call to go to the ends of the earth.


I truly believe that the girlfriend of my window smasher will, one day, grow tired of watching these poor attempts at chivalry and false indomitability of her intended mate, and go-a-callin' elsewhere. I believe God does that. If we don't answer the call, regardless of the reason we may dream up, He simply finds another who will. But what do we miss in that? I don't want to find out later, what I could have been a part of. I am leaving the perch at the window. Join me.


2 Comments

battery betting

Date 10/30/2023

avenue

Date 11/7/2023

Add Comment

Mailing List

TOP