The Fledging of a Sea Bird
The RCL Epistle for the 5TH Sunday of Easter is 1 Peter 2.2-10.
Hatchlings
Once a little bird made a nest of sea grass near the beach, and laid her eggs there. But a hawk came along. The little bird hopped away, fluttering her wing, to distract from the nest, and she never came back.
Near the same place an old sea turtle had crawled ashore, dug in the sand, and laid her clutch of eggs. Then she covered them up and crawled back to the sea.
One moonlit night the eggs hatched. The little turtles began skittering to the water, rushing for dear life. A chick, the only one who chipped his way out of the shell, watched from the bird’s nest. “What are you doing?”
A baby turtle paused long enough to say, “Hurry! Into the water! The birds will eat you! You’ll only be safe in the water! ”
So the chick raced with all the little turtles into the foaming tide.
The Sea Bird
He grew into a beautiful gray sea bird. Eating worms and insects mostly, he made a nest in a tangle of reeds that grew in a marsh near the ocean.
The bird enjoyed the water. He loved to dive.
Water or Air?
Sometimes he watched the gulls and other birds that not only lived near the water. They also flew. A strange longing filled his heart.
But he kept hearing what the baby turtle said, “The birds will eat you! You’ll only be safe in the water.”
When he talked to the fish, they all agreed. The water is where life is meant to be. The air is unnatural, dangerous.
All his friends lived in the water. For them the air was an unknown realm of fear and danger.
Yet, in quiet moments, all alone, the sea bird felt a terrifying urge to fly.
The Old Turtle
Once, an old turtle crawled up on the beach near the gray bird’s nest. It sat still as stone, sunning itself in the hot sun.
The bird hopped near, but not so near that he couldn’t hop out of reach if the old turtle decided to make a snack of him.
“I knew some babies who’ll grow up like you,” the bird said, trying to think of something pleasant.
The old turtle opened one eye and stared at him.
“We hatched together, right there on the beach.”
The old turtle did not move or speak or even breathe, as far as the bird could tell. But it didn’t close its eye, either.
The bird kept talking, mostly because he was nervous. “They saved my life, you know,” he said.
The old turtle thought it had never heard anything so ridiculous. At least, the bird thought the silent old turtle thought that.
“They told me to stay in the water, or else the birds would eat me.”
What the Old Turtle Said
The gray bird wondered if the old turtle was paying any attention to him at all.
“So I stay in the water, where I’m safe from the birds,” the bird said, “well, most of the time, I do, that is. I like to swim on the surface, and there’s a quiet pool near here where I go hunting insects and worms.”
He was so nervous he just kept chattering, and the old turtle never closed its eye.
“I wish I could dive deep into the sea, like the fish and the turtles do. Of course, the sky is beautiful, light and breezy. If only birds weren’t so vicious and mean.”
He finally ran out of things to say. The old turtle just looked at him.
Then, in a cranky voice, it said, “You’re a bird.” And it dragged its great shell into the water and slowly swam out of sight.
A Bird? Him?
A bird? Him?
The small gray bird couldn’t believe what he heard. Birds snapped up baby turtles. They swooped from the sky to catch fish. Everyone was afraid of the birds.
Days passed, nights went by.
The bird couldn’t sleep, couldn’t eat. How could it be true? A bird? Him?
What the Deeper Voice Said
Actually, inside he heard another Voice, deeper than the fear. It said, “Fly!”
All he could think of is the advice of his fish friends, “You must never fly. People with fins, normal people, don’t fly.”
Still, at night, when all was silent but the roar of the waves crashing on the shore, the small bird heard the Voice, calling, “Fly!”
He tried stretching his wings. Oh! He’d never felt anything like that before.
Then, he dashed along the wet sand, spread his wings, and hopped. He landed with an embarrassing smash.
Night after night he practiced, being careful not to let anyone know what he was doing.
The Voice within grew stronger and stronger. “Fly! Fly!”
The Main Thing
By now, the bird felt torn apart. He didn’t know who he was. No one ever taught him to pray. He sighed and wondered if he was the only one who had ever felt like this.
You’re the only one! whispered a voice. It had a fish sound.
The bird had always tried to do what’s right. He didn’t know it, but the main thing in his life was love.
He loved the breeze whispering in the reeds. He loved the way the waves looked in the moonlight. He loved the fish and the turtles, the crabs and all the creatures on the beach.
He never hurt any of them. Except worms, which he ate, of course. What else could worms be for?
At the Edge of the Cliff
One night there was no moon. The bird hopped to the top of a cliff he had often seen from his nest among the reeds.
I don’t know what he had in mind, in going there. He was so sad, so confused. Anyone that wanted to fly in the air must be a monster, he believed.
Perhaps it would be better not to be alive.
The small bird trembled at the edge, looking down at his world: the beach, the waves, and far out the sea, calm and dark.
“Birds are vicious,” he thought. The fish and baby turtles were right. “I don’t want to be like that.”
First Flight
There came a strong breath of wind, launching the bird from the cliff.
At first he simply fell, carried by the air current. Then, without thinking, he stretched his wings, as he had done so many times secretly on the beach.
He was flying!
Now the Voice inside said, Fly, Bird! Fly!
He felt such joy! He didn’t know anything like it could be possible.
Far below, in the water, the fish looked up.
What the Fish Saw
“Will you look at that!” they said to each other.
Because they knew the bird. They’d often chatted with him as he floated on the surface of the water. They’d never actually known a bird before.
The bird himself was never the same, although his life went on, much as it always had.
Except for the time he spent in the air!