Walking in the Valley A bi-weekly column, featuring one Christian's (a)musings on life's journey by Barbara Dahlgren

Too Busy for the Boirds Column for the weeks of March 1-15, 2006

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Many years ago when we were coming out of church, our 3 ½ year old daughter Sherisa looked up at the sky and the surrounding tall trees, lifted her arms and hands up towards heaven, slowly twirled around, and said, “The birds, the birds! Look at the birds. Listen to the birds.” Actually it sounded more like, “The boirds, the boirds! Look at the boirds!” Too bad for her! We adults didn’t have time to look at the “boirds” so we scooted her into the car as fast as we could to head for another activity. That was most unfortunate!

We like so many others are busy people. We don’t have time to look at birds. We rush from place to place like the white rabbit in Alice in Wonderland, mentally chanting, “I’m late! I’m late! For a very important date. No time to say hello, goodbye. I’m late! I’m late! I’m late!” We live in a driven society. We go, go, go! We do, do, do! We are in a hurry. We stand in the 10 items or less line and count how many items the person ahead of us has. We are elated when the car pool lane opens so we can get where we’re going faster. We listen to self help CDs and tapes when we walk. We check our e-mail 20 times a day. We carry cell phones so people can reach us day or night. We are important, busy people.

We invented fast food. That wasn’t fast enough so we invented the drive-through window to get the fast food. We are in such a rush we sometimes order fast food, pay for it at the drive through window, and drive off before we get it. We are like the old country and western song that says we’re in a hurry to get things done, rushing around until life’s no fun. All we need to do is live and die but we’re in a hurry. Sometimes we don’t even know why.

To aid us in our hurriedness we have inventions which make our lives easier. Chores used to take hours and hours; they now take minutes. With washing machines, dryers, dishwashers, microwaves, computers, and telephones readily available we should have all kinds of free time. It used to take days to get places, now it takes a few hours. But all these inventions just enable us to fill up our “free time” doing more, more, more.

Being a fast paced society has produced lots of health problems. This “not being able to slow down” phenomenon causes physical, mental, emotional, and even spiritual stress. Being aware of this, our country had its first national Slow…Down…Week from January 15-21. However, it went by so fast I didn’t even know it existed until the end of February.

Jesus had stress also. Crowds followed him around day and night. Even he felt the need to get away from it all at times (Mark 6:31). But he was never too busy to draw analogies and attention to God’s creation…even the birds on occasion.

He said, “Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much better than they?” (Matthew 6:26) And “Not even a sparrow, worth only half a penny, can fall to the ground without your Father knowing it. And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don't be afraid; you are more valuable to him than a whole flock of sparrows.” (Matthew 10:29-31 NLT)

Although I smile when I think of my tiny daughter lifting her arms, twirling, and bringing attention to the “boirds,” it also saddens me. I so wish I had lifted my arms and twirled with her. We could have noticed the “boirds” together. It would have taken such a little time for me to kneel beside her and say, “Do you know these birds are part of God’s creation? God put those songs in the birds so they could share them with you. God takes care of the birds. He feeds them and clothes them. And you are so much more precious to God than birds so God takes care of you.”

Be sure to visit this page often to read the next edition of Walking in the Valley. You can write to the author at bdahlgren@wcgsouthbay.org.