A lovely, very cold late April morning and out walking the quiet city streets when a little Puritan Lady landed right beside me on a fence and we gazed at each other eye to eye. She was dressed so beautifully in blacks and brown and grays, not frightened to look me in the eyes so I had time to look at her in her superb Puritan Sunday finery and she at me. A gorgeous little fat , taking it easy, Madam Sparrow. Matthew 10:29-31 But not a single sparrow can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it. And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows. Matthew 6:26-27 26 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? 27 Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your lifea]">[a]? But what has this to do with prayer? Well in Eden our first parents walked with the animals and were their friends. It was only with sin that a dislocation occurred and animals become our prey. Ourselves and the birds and other creatures fell out so to speak. The mystics and saints teach us that through prayer we repair this damage and there are many, many accounts of the saints and wild animals becoming close friends again.
Romans 1:20 For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities—his eternal power and divine nature—have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that people are without excuse. The Puritan Sparrow reminded me too how all creation shouts forth the Glory of God. 1 The heavens declare the glory of God; the skies proclaim the work of his hands. 2 Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they reveal knowledge. 3 They have no speech, they use no words; no sound is heard from them. 4 Yet their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. Psalms 19:1-4 - So that little Puritan bird preached a sermon to me before I even got to Church this morning and I am so, so grateful to her for it. The Sparrow Paul Laurence Dunbar 1872 – 1906 A little bird, with plumage brown, Beside my window flutters down, A moment chirps its little strain, Ten taps upon my window–pane, And chirps again, and hops along, To call my notice to its song; But I work on, nor heed its lay, Till, in neglect, it flies away. So birds of peace and hope and love Come fluttering earthward from above, To settle on life’s window–sills, And ease our load of earthly ills; But we, in traffic’s rush and din Too deep engaged to let them in, With deadened heart and sense plod on, Nor know our loss till they are gone.
I believe this is not poetic imagery. Isaiah actually saw the future. The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them. Isaiah 11:6
But before that we have to take time to see them..and let them see us. Otherwise how shall we ever become friends? Jesus knew them well, otherwise He could never have described them with such love. 'Even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed as one of these'.
