Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, December 2, 1994 TAG: 9412020031
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A17 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LIZA FIELD
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
And heaven and nature sing.''
IT'S THE first week of Advent, and I've been thinking about birds. Advent is a traditional penitential season in the church, a time of preparation for new birth. What birds have to do with it, I'm not sure.
But there they all are: on greeting cards and in snow scenes, perched in Christmas trees. Perhaps it's because they have long been a symbol of hope and joy for mankind, an image of heaven and nature singing together. Primitive peoples saw birds as messengers; so did members of the early church. Sts. Basil, Bernard and Francis of Assissi, like Jesus, took their lessons from sparrows, eagles and doves, among other wildlife.
Today, it is not the church but the world of science that sees birds as messengers - not of some other world, but this one. As migrating birds canvass large slopes of the globe, their presence tells us a good deal about the health of the world.
That health is failing, ornithologists tell us. These birds are dying in vast numbers. For every 10 thrushes who sang in these mountains one decade ago, four may have sung last summer. Within our lifetimes, the vireo, thrush, warbler, tanager and oriole populations - among others - have plummeted by almost 90 percent.
Science has translated the message for us: The birds - and our world - need immediate attention and help.
While naturalists and ecologists are striving to give that attention, big chunks of the Christian church either ignore the crisis as too lowly a concern, or discount environmentalists as ``Earth-worshippers.'' A large number of Christian broadcasts, in fact, warn listeners against these ecology ``cults'' that - one should imagine - dance around fir trees and chant things to the sun. The Earth, to these Christians, is still unredeemed and corrupt, and those who care for it are pagan.
That this outlook is discouraging to Christian lovers of creation need not be explained. But at this season of the year, in particular, it seems that such fearful distinctions between world and spirit miss the whole point of the Nativity (which word shares the same root as ``nature'': to be born).
As I understand it, the church recognizes, in Christmas, God's longing to be born here. God with us: right here in creation. He is apparently not interested in scorning the Earth; in fact, he landed in a feed trough among donkeys, because the lofty of the day had no room for him. A primary idea behind Advent is that life can come only where it finds room.
At this interesting time in history, science and religion are eyeing each other hesitantly, like schoolyard bullies who have discovered they are kin. While both now are acknowledging the same mysteries of incarnation, creation and life, perhaps Christians and non-Christians can dare take a lesson from the natural world, and receive some wisdom from the birds. If we could hear the needs of these joyful little creatures, we might learn something about our human needs, especially during this season.
Science tells us that what these perishing birds lack is not food. More of us than ever shovel birdseed out the window, hang red sugar water, peanut-butter pinecones, milk cartons of suet. It's the way we've grown accustomed to addressing any need in our culture. Feed it; take it a station wagon full of underwear.
But what these birds lack is a place merely to live. And a place with us, in our yards, not off in some designated bird section of the globe.
These places, if they will accommodate birds, need to contain less of us and more of other kinds of life - and in its various stages. In order to find cover, mate and raise young, for instance, migrating birds need scrub, hedgerows, vines and bracken. Bats, owls, woodpeckers and other creatures need dead limbs and trees, fallen logs, old stumps.
All of these things we have pushed out of our suburban yards to make room for our own ideal - green turf, asphalt, two severely pruned trees; a landscape as barren as a desert to songbirds.
This barrenness poses an interesting question. If a tiny songbird has no room in our lawns and minds, how much life do we have room for?
This season, one of the church's two main holes in the year, is no longer a time to deflate and make room, but the busiest month of the year - a time to get more, fill up.
Now and then some disenchanted individual asks that Advent question: What would happen if we didn't join the fray? Bought no presents, scribbled no cards - and went wandering off in the woods. Despite the implications of voodoo and tree-worship, one might empty out a little. Get cold; listen, smell. Allow for another kind of life.
Last year my parents did just such emptying. They stopped giving Christmas presents, slowed down, went hiking. During the year, they began giving their Roanoke yard back to the birds. You know - letting their old idea wane, to allow for the waxing (and waxwing?) of greater life.
They now let oak leaves lie on the ground. Moss and milkweed, scrub pine and bracken grow where they once struggled to cultivate grass. All kinds of saplings and seedlings are increasing while their old lawn ... decreases.
Also increasing? The bird population. They throng here - thrushes, titmice, waxwing, wrens, woodpeckers, bluebirds, towhee and chickadees. This small yard seems to contain more life than any place I've seen in the city for a while. It's a real nativity scene.
Liza Field is a teacher and writer in Wytheville.
by CNB