A Bad Decision

“That was a bad decision,” I pronounced to my wife. I was telling her that a finch that had built a nest on an artificial wreath. This wreath, this questionable location for a home, decorates the door of my storage shed. We open that door at least once a day, usually several times a day, to fill and retrieve the garbage and recycling bins, to gather materials or tools I need and to perform other such homemaking tasks. If the repeated opening and closing weren’t enough, the shed with its wreath-and-nest adorned door sits near the head of my driveway. As you can imagine our cars come in and out of the driveway frequently. In my mind, the finch family would be disturbed constantly by engine noise, artificial lights, and exhaust. To add another element of unsuitability for the finch’s home, there is the seven-foot drop to the cold, hard cement below the wreath. A young chick could easily fall out of the nest as it tries its best to learn to fly. Bad decision!! How did that mother finch ever think she would be able to raise her chicks safely in that wreath? I even made a few jokes to my wife about bird brains.

Then one day I noticed the hawk who often perches herself (I can tell she is a female due to her large size. Female hawks are bigger than their male counterparts.) high atop one of the many pine trees in our backyard. She, as hawks are want to do, is always on the lookout for food. The treetop is the perfect parapet for searching and swooping on unsuspecting wildlife making their way across our yard. However, due to its perfect positioning, the finch nest escapes the hawk’s sharp eyes. The finch knew exactly what she was doing building her nest in that wreath. She was willing to suffer some disruption in her life for safety and security of her brood. I had no idea how smart and calculating she was. Who was I to judge and make fun of her “bird brain”?

Nature and Mama Finch had de-centered me. Sometimes our ego tells us we are the center of the universe, where everything orbits us, and begins and ends for our uses and needs only. We get to be the judge of all beings even if we know very little or nothing at all about the species we judge. Indeed, even if we know a lot, there is still so much more to learn and understand-if only we would open ourselves to those lessons. I thought I knew what the finch should have done. I thought I knew what a smart, non-bird brain decision should be. I thought I knew how to pick a location for a bird’s nest better than the actual bird building the nest. I thought these things until the finch taught me otherwise. I was humbled by the wisdom of this tiny bird who had obviously learned the lessons Nature was teaching.

De-centering! We have a hard time de-centering from ourselves. We take ourselves as individuals so seriously and we think very highly of ourselves. We have a leader who cannot de-center. It’s exhausting and dangerous. We have built a society that needs to be the center of all societies. Our politicians routinely wrap up their speeches with “the greatest nation on Earth.” So is every other society second-rate? Why? Who are we to judge other societies as less worthy or deserving? Living as the center of everything, can be isolating and ultimately dangerous, not only for ourselves, but for other beings with whom we share our existence on this small planet.

Nature and Mama Finch can help us! They can help us get back in touch with soul. By observing and learning about other beings, without judgment, we can remove ourselves from the center and join the other beings once again as a part of, not the dominant center of life.

Be well,

Bill