i recently saw some portraits of birds, done by a local artist. the small paintings were whimsical and pictured different birds wearing different hats made from things in nature—a cardinal wearing a crown of sunflower seeds, a chickadee wearing a wild, red strawberry, a tiny bluebird wearing a headband of acorn scraps or a goldfinch wearing a flush of small yellow buds. the artist told me she imagines each hat to be something the birds could make themselves, from things they can find in nature. each hat was playful and protective. each hat seemed to identify each bird as unique, and at the same time, seemed to camouflage them in the woods. in each small square of canvas, the artist tells a whole story about wildness, about pride, about survival and about god’s lavish creation.
this past week, i was walking alone around the lake at Radnor, and just as i entered the woods, i caught a flash of a small bluebird just beside me on the trail, perched on a branch close to me, just above my head. it was impossible not to notice his blue body in the midst of the trim, winter landscape. in so much brown, even the smallest blue miracle is so pronounced. as i walked, he talked and bounced from branch to branch along the trail. he stayed so close beside me for so long that i walked in amazement at the persistence of this little bird and what was happening between us. was he following me? or was i following him? eventually, twenty minutes later, we came to a place in the trail where other people were stopped and gathered. i lost the bluebird there, when i turned my attention to a family of deer eating and chewing and smelling the ground.
we often think we are alone, but we are never alone. i want to wear the memory of that bird close to my body all winter long—the small, blue miracle—like a hat to announce me and protect me and keep me going. it’s a story about how god stretches out alongside us. it’s a story about pride, about survival, about the complicated beauty of this wild world. it’s a story about how each one of us is set down here on earth, a miracle among miracles, and about what we make for ourselves from what we find in the woods.

