Letter from aunt in California to Niece in Massachusetts October 2020

What is God telling me through nature when the world around me is going up in flames? This has been a record year for wildfires in California. To date, over four million acres have burned. All I can think of is Sodom and Gomorrah, where Lot fled the burning city with his wife and daughters. The wife looked back and turned to a pillar of salt, but Lot and the girls fled with the angels leading them. No one else in the city heeded the warnings, they just laughed at them–even his sons-in-law.

The idea that California is going through some kind of judgment now is laughable to some. Others would grab the idea and begin foretelling some kind of apocalypse. When did the people of Sodom figure out what was happening to them? They had Lot’s warning, but reacted as his sons-in-law with scorn and disbelief.

How can I enjoy watching birds while the world around me burns and goes crazy in the pandemic? How can I recommend bird watching to anyone in this apocalyptic (now there’s a word to look up in the dictionary!) world today, where everything is going crazy and not the normal it used to be? You may not have wildfires in Massachusetts, but this crazy pandemic is affecting the entire world.

Suddenly the winds shifted and took the smoke away, bringing cooler air and lots of lively birds. It’s easy now to forget that doomed feeling that the end of the world may be upon us.

As the world goes up in flames around me, why is it relaxing to watch birds? This morning has been one of the clearest, most smoke free since the fire season started. Birds are out in mass. Even a tree squirrel. I counted ten species (of birds, not squirrels) in twenty minutes. I enjoyed watching them going about their activities: snatching seeds, drinking from the bird bath, splashing in the bird bath, avoiding the squirrel who is scampering up one oak and down another. I’d like to shoot him!

But here is a lesson for me: you don’t solve problems by just eliminating them. Birds, if they don’t want to deal with the squirrel, just fly to another tree. Eventually the squirrel will go away. I was talking about the birds when I got distracted by the squirrel. But maybe that distraction was more important than the thought I was pursuing at that moment. Distractions often come from God, Who wants you to be aware of something you were previously blind to. Jesus’ ministry was full of distractions: the sick people pulling on Him, the blind calling to Him. He used each incident to make a point to the audience, to make them aware of something they didn’t know.