Blackbird

This little guy is a Brewer's Blackbird. He's intensely parental and darkly vigilant where his offspring are concerned. I know this because every time I hike past his house he chitters and flaps threateningly at me, hovering just a couple of feet above my head.

Sometimes I take him by surprise and he doesn't begin his recriminations until I'm past, but once he's spotted me I'm in for it!

He and his family nest on the ground or in the bottom branches of the trees that cluster around our local man-made lakes. His Blackbird neighbors are equally vocal in the defense of their territory, sitting like tiny sentries just a few feet off from their home turfs. As I walk by, I chatter my reassurances in their direction, in my very best Bird, promising that I won't harm their mates or their babes.

They don't believe me and make gently determined swoops at my head, encouraging me to move along a little quicker if-you-please, their tones implying that they will reign their tiny fury down on me right quick if I don't shove off.

I happen to be talking with God about my own kids as I enter the Brewer's neighborhood. I'm asking (beseeching? petitioning?) my Lord for His ongoing presence in their lives. Will He, I ask, lead them to become all that He's created them to be? Will He be their teacher, counselor, conviction, Light? Will He give them the same gift of believing that I feel so grateful for in my own life? Will He teach them to love -- sooner, more deeply, more wildly than I?

You know what those prayers are like, I know! You know the breath-stealing intensity that settles around a Mom's crying out on behalf of her own. When I pray for you...and you...and you, my friend, my thoughts often begin as weighty and awe-filled petitions to God. After a moment's, "Lord, will You do such-and-such for my friend?" the weight of the moment lifts, vanishes.

When we pray for our kids, on the other hand, the import of what we're asking enlarges and expands inside us until it fills us to bursting: we carry unspoken, ongoing entreaties for the children, expelling them in short breaths as we mop the floor or fold their laundry. Spilling them in too-many-word rants in the privacy of the loo. Weeping them in silence in the safe aloneness of the shower. The urgency and momentous responsibility of their care is unchanging in us. The relief that follows a prayer for a friend does not always accompany the prayer for a child.

We're a little like Brewer's Blackbird. We're at our post, watchfully noting the threats and adventures and sustaining-things and breaking-things that are coming our charges' way. We may be tiny, but we will be heard. And if you appear to be a threat to our maturing broods, you'd better come equipped with a very sturdy hat and some good running shoes!

I hurry past, entertained and humbled by the Brewer's determined (militant?) vigilance. I do not have a hat and I'm unnerved enough by their angry chitchitchit's to be grateful for my running shoes. I mark the lesson on guarding the nest and, in my ridiculously high and squeaky sure-to-calm-the-critter language, leave them with a my final reassurance that they've done their work well; their young are safe, the threat vanquished for another day.