Living to be a Light!

A sunbird in its preparation for the day!

I notice similar bird behaviour each day, when some birds take time to sense their surroundings by hearing, seeing and feeling! Birds have four rhythms to their behaviour- grooming, flight path planning, flying and resting! It is an integrated rhythm of action and reaction. They act to fend for themselves and react to protect themselves. 

Even a small bird has this rhythm in its instinct. 

In the book,  Monastery without walls,   John Main, referred to ordinariness of life as a 'necessary context in which our deeper experiences can be assimilated and lead the whole person we are into fullness of being'!(p87).

For the bird above, it is immersed to follow its ordinary life each day, some experiences lived in the familiar setting and some of new encounters of each day. This helps this bird to stay in its familiar patterns and to move out to acquire new experiences for it to assimilate   new experiences to grow to be a bird in all its fullness. 

The comment of John Main, ' ... if we become wiser in time, it is through experience and practice rather than through abstraction and theory. There is no wisdom that is not the wisdom of humility-none that is not the result of loving more deeply and allowing ourselves to be loved more vulnerably'.

It is from this inner humble orientation towards ourselves, we become seekers of truth that shall 'set us free'. To seek one needs to be open, still to receive and ready to allow the seed to sprout within. 'The effectiveness of all doing depends on the quality of being we enjoy'. To be open implies other qualities too: such as being still, because we cannot be open to what is here if we are always running after what we think is there; such as being silent, because we cannot listen or receive unless we give our whole attention; such as being simple, because what we are being open to, is wholeness, the integrity of God. The condition of openness as the blend of stillness, silence, and simplicity is  the condition of prayer' (p55).

These thoughts returned to me as I watched the Sunbird above in its stillness, silence and simplicity. It seemed to stay in its perch receiving the outer into its interior. The interior is a metaphor of the wholeness through which it sees its outer environment. A bird receives to process what is around it before choosing its flight path and movements. The doing is an outcome of its being. 

A bird has the freedom of flight in the wide open space all around. For humans this freedom is to create a sense of belonging to be a light, that is on a lamp stand, as indicated by Jesus of Nazareth as a vocation! 

This to me is the vision that liberates humans from selfish pursuit of pleasure! Each day, if I can get up in the morning to feel the call of being a light, then I exist fully and share the light as my gift of love.

Yes, it was a time to 'look at the birds of the air..' as suggested by Jesus of Nazareth. How much they are provided for even though 'they do not sow, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns and yet our Heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they' (Matt.6:26).

Life is a light; it is lived to share light. Being a light is graceful way of living!

M.C.Mathew (text and photo)