Selah Summer: Christ Plays in Ten-Thousand Places, Come and See

We live on the third floor of a three-story building, and for the past several years we have had the privilege of witnessing the first flights of tiny swallows, robins, and tufted titmouses. Usually, because they nest in the eaves or open vents of our building, their first flights launch from the roof giving them plenty of room for a full descent. But, recently, we witnessed the failed first flight of one baby tufted titmouse who missed the intended mark and, instead, landed on the tiled floor of our deck. 

For at least an hour the teeny bird stood frozen--stunned by its misadventure. Eventually (“Finally!” we said), its mother showed up and urged her fledgling to fly. She twittered for a bit, then flew into our window and knocked her beak against the glass, and, then, returned to her perch tweeting further instructions. A few times she left, only to show up again with a tidbit of food to entice her baby to fly. Amazingly, after the mother’s first set of instructions, the tiny tufted titmouse mustered up the courage and flapped its little wings to ascend only a few inches before gravity forced it to the tiled ground again. Eventually, the little bird found refuge in an open drain through which it soon found freedom and took flight just as God created it to do. These occurrences so often take place without our notice, but when brought to our attention they serve to remind us that we actually share space with all sorts of birds, creatures spoken into existence by the God we love.

Over the past few months I have been reading Bruce Ashford’s and Craig Bartholomew’s Doctrine of Creation: A Constructive Kuyperian Approach. They approach the doctrine as a confession, as something that is appropriated by faith rather than reasoned toward. The Doctrine of Creation is fundamental and foundational to the true story of the whole world not only in the past tense—in the beginning, but also in this moment and serves to inform a creation-based worldview. 

When we confess God as the Creator of all things, it gives rich meaning to our daily encounter with the beauty and life all around--including our rendezvous with the tufted titmouse family. God created and knows all the birds of the air and is concerned for their welfare (Psalm 50:11). Jesus calls attention to birds in the Sermon on the Mount, “Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they?” (Matt. 6:26). He reminds us that sparrows, although valued at less than a penny, do not fall to the ground without the Father knowing. I took comfort as I asked the Father to help the tiny bird to find home again, and indeed he did. 

During this Selah Sabbatical Season God has encouraged me through birds--they seem to never stop chirping and worshipping, falling and flying, perching and soaring all around us. I’ll close by sharing a poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins. I first read this work a number of years ago in Eugene Peterson’s Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places: A Conversation in Spiritual Theology. Peterson’s beautiful Spiritual Theology is captivating and invites us to see the world around us with open eyes, hearts, and minds and to acknowledge God’s handiwork in creation--not only in the past tense, but in the present and as integral to our lives and worldview. 

As Kingfishers Catch Fire

As kingfishers catch fire, dragonflies draw flame;

As tumbled over rim in roundy wells

Stones ring; like each tucked string tells, each hung bell's

Bow swung finds tongue to fling out broad its name;

Each mortal thing does one thing and the same:

Deals out that being indoors each one dwells;

Selves — goes itself; myself it speaks and spells,

Crying Whát I dó is me: for that I came.

I say móre: the just man justices;

Keeps grace: thát keeps all his goings graces;

Acts in God's eye what in God's eye he is —

Chríst — for Christ plays in ten thousand places,

Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his

To the Father through the features of men’s faces