CONSIDER THE HUMMINGBIRDS.....

Jesus tells us in the Gospel of Matthew 6:25 ff in a section of the Sermon on the Mount called:  "Dependence upon God": 

                "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you

                will wear.  Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?   Look at the birds in the sky;

                they do not sow or reap, they gather nothing into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are not

                you more important than they?"

 

Here at our Franciscan Prayer Fraternity, all summer long we are graced with the presence of the tiniest of God's birds: the

hummingbirds.    They arrive, coming up from the Gulf of Mexico, in May and spend the summer with us.  Outside our dining room

windows are several hummingbird feeders at which all day long we, and our guests, have the pleasure of watching anywhere from 2 to 4 up to sometimes 6 to 10 hummingbirds buzzing and feeding, darting back and forth, reflecting exactly what Emily Dickinson speaks of in part of the poem:   Within my Garden, rides a Bird:

 

                Within my Garden, rides a Bird

                Upon a single Wheel --

                Whose spokes a dizzy Music make

                As 'twere a travelling Mill --

 

                He never stops, but slackens

                Above the Ripest Rose --

                Partakes without alighting

                And praises as he goes.

 

or perhaps captured well in the poem  The Hummingbird   by  Harry Kemp

 

                The sunlight speaks.   And its voice is a bird:

                It glitters, half-guessed, half-seen, half-heard

                Above the flower bed.   Over the lawn ....

                A flashing dip and it is gone.

                And all it lends to the eye is this  --

                A sunbeam giving the air a kiss.

 

A delight for us is this annual pilgrimage of the hummingbirds to spend the summer months here at P.O. Box 1042,  Ava, MO, availling themselves of the hospitality of our feeders, flashing, dipping, giving the air a thousand kisses with their tiny fluttering wings.   In one of the photos, you can catch a glimpse of Br. Joe, who dutifully prepares their daily meals.  They do greet us in the morning and stay with us throughout the day, especially at the feeding times of morning, noon, and night -- like us.   Recently the local paper carried some astonishing facts about these tiniest of God's creatures:

 

                --  average length is  3 inches

                --  average weight is an eighth of an ounce

                --  the ruby-throated hummingbird makes a 500-mile migration to and from the Gulf of Mexico

                --  hummingbirds do not hitch a ride on the backs of migrating geese - they make the non-stop flight all on their own

                --  the 500-mile journey can reduce the bird's weight by half

                --  wingbeats are 75 per second

                --  flight speed is up to 60 miles per hour

                --  the ruby-throated hummingbird is Missouri's smallest bird

                --  hummingbirds can live up to 9 years

 

We close these thoughts with a final scripture, part of the Creation story in Genesis 1:20 ff: 

 

           Then God said:  "Let the water teem with an abundance of living creatures, and on the earth let birds fly

           beneath the dome of the sky."    And so it happened:   God created the great sea monsters and all kinds of

           swimming creatures with which the water teems, and all kinds of winged birds.  God saw how good it was,

           and God blessed them, saying,  "Be fertile, multiply, and fill the water of the seas; and let the birds multiply

           on earth." 

 

How grateful we are for the creation of the tiniest of birds, the hummingbird!  How grateful we are that they choose to make our home their own for the summer here in the Ozark Hills of Missouri!   Praise God for the gift they are to us and our guests!