The bird that was there all along

by Will Fletcher.

One of the first posts I wrote here  focused on  my hobby of playing in a brass band. In recent years, I’ve started having a  go at birdwatching. I must admit to not being very good – I don’t always have the patience, and I’m not the best at identifying what I see. However, I do like that it makes me walk a bit slower, being more aware of what is around me. I’m also grateful to friends and church members who have taken me on birdwatching walks and helped me start to learn a little more.

A few weeks ago, I visited a local RSPB reserve on my own. There are a series of hides around the site looking over several ponds. I was in one of those hides looking at the few ducks and geese swimming about. There didn’t seem much out of the ordinary. I was on the verge of moving on. But instead, I lingered a bit longer, and had another scan of the pond with my binoculars. There, in the pond, was a bird I hadn’t seen before, wading through the shallows. After consulting my book (and with confirmation from others present) this mysterious bird was a green sandpiper. Probably not that exciting for experienced birdwatchers, but a nice spot for me.

However, what struck me, was that this bird had been there all the time. It hadn’t flown in but was going about its business unseen by me. What is more, when I took my eyes off it, it disappeared again, until I looked carefully again and found it in a slightly different place in the pond.

This made me think about my encounters with God. My rhythm of prayer is familiar, and sustaining because of that. Watching ducks and geese can be enjoyable enough. Yet it sometimes needs that intention to linger that little bit longer. When it feels as though there is nothing out of the ordinary to see or experience, when there is the danger that the pattern of prayer can feel like a routine where I can predict or expect how things will be, then I need to remember the urge to hold on a little longer, pray a little slower.

As with birdwatching, there still might not be anything unusual to notice. But sometimes, just sometimes, there is the surprising discovery of God present in a way unseen before. Maybe it is in the word of Scripture I’m reading, a line from a hymn, a glimpse at an icon, an ancient prayer, a scene of creation before me, a phrase in a piece of music. Things that feel familiar, yet infused with something new.

It isn’t that God has suddenly appeared, as though God could be absent somehow. Instead, God is the bird that was there all along, in the midst of the busyness of life. With time and care taken to noticing, a new sense of God’s presence is found.

Yet how quickly my attention can slip from that realisation, back to the bustle of life all around me. I remember the jobs I’m meant to be doing, the phone calls I’m meant to make. I start thinking about what I’m going to preach on that coming Sunday, or what I fancy for dinner! So many thoughts flood my mind, distracting me from the thing most important. Despite this rare spot, I’m back again looking at the ducks and geese.

I turn back to where I spotted God before – I rewind the music, I re-sing the hymn, I re-read the Scripture, I look again at the view before me – but it has returned to the everyday. That newness has faded. Have I lost God? Has God departed from me? Taking time to look carefully once more, to turn away from the ducks and the geese, I open myself up once more to discover in a new place, a new moment, the God who has always been there.

This, for me, is at the heart of what prayer is. Not saying the right words to welcome God into my space and time, but creating the space to allow myself to glimpse the God who is always present, and feel that excitement of heart and soul when I do. With that, is also the reassurance when it feels as though I’m only looking at ducks and geese, that God is there in surprising ways, just, as yet, unseen.