Just Detail

I’m not writing about anything biblical or theological in this blog. Nothing that complex or profound is occupying my attention these days. You see, we have Eastern bluebirds raising their second family of the summer in our backyard. I love bluebirds. They’re so…unexpected…and blue. Most of the birds that visit our backyard are appropriately attired in “earth tones” – brown, grey, yellow, rust, black. But bluebirds have the unmitigated gall to dress up in the showiest shade of blue imaginable. When I look at them, I can’t help but wonder how God came up with this one. “What were you thinking? Blue?”

And then there’s the whole “attitude thing.” Bluebirds have an attitude, anger management issues. They’re not much bigger than a sparrow, but they think they’re hawks! Cheryl and I sit on the deck in the evening and watch the show as Daddy Bluebird chases other birds and squirrels that dare venture too close to his bluebird box wherein Mrs. Bluebird is “great with child,” to employ the biblical idiom. (Okay, okay, I’ll taper off gradually.) He positively torments the squirrels which we, of course, love because they positively torment us, emptying our bird feeders, rearranging anything on the deck not to their liking, and generally making a mess of things and a nuisance of themselves. We sometimes catch ourselves cheering for him as he makes a “strafing run” at the squirrels: “There's one now! Sick ‘em! Get ‘em!” What bluebirds lack in size and camouflage they make up for in attitude and chutzpah. If I’m ever in a bird fight, I want the bluebirds on my side. Their carnivors, you know. All right, so they’re insectivors, but you get the point.

Don’t have a heavy theological question to explore in all this. I’m even going to resist the urge to talk about “natural revelation.” Don’t thank me; it’s what I do. But sometimes I’d like to ask God: “What’s up with the bluebirds? What were you thinking?”

I want to know, sometimes, what God was thinking. Not that I could understand it if I knew, but I still want to know. It’s His fault – He made me that way, with a voracious curiosity about Him and an insatiable appetite for Him. Deepak Choprah (How to Know God) once said: “I want to think God’s thoughts after Him; everything else is just detail.” Now that I understand.