When I used to visit my grandparents’ home in Maryland, one of the highlights was looking out the window at the hummingbird feeder. I know that sounds a bit odd – what little boy likes to watch miniature birds drink sugar-water? – but it’s what we did. Maybe part of the joy was my grandmother’s enthusiasm for the whole thing, or perhaps it was just the novelty of it all (if we had hummingbirds in Philadelphia, we didn’t’ know it). Either way, when we eventually moved to Maryland ourselves and my grandmother gave us our very own hummingbird feeder…well, we were all excited.
Just recently I was visiting my parents, who now live in Maine. My grandparents have sadly passed away, but my own parents still get lots of joy watching the hummingbirds of the northeast devour their sugary meals.
But something caught my eye. A hummingbird, dead, was on the deck. My father said he had watched several male hummingbirds take nose-dives at that bird, literally beating the life out of him. He must have encroached on some bird’s territory, or flirted with some bird’s mate. His life ended in a brutal way. And it was crushing to me.
How terrible, that birds should act this way. You’d think birds – especially the smallest ones of all – would somehow unite. Can’t they just happily fly around and eat their sugar water?
Of course, the irony is appalling. I’ve spent the last month at a trauma center in Reading, PA, where I witnessed all manor of evil. Assaults, beatings, shootings, stabbings…what we do to each other is enough to crush any Christmas spirit that is supposed to be swelling inside me. Peace on Earth, and goodwill towards man? Not in the trauma bay. And apparently, not even in the hummingbird kingdom.
It must make God cry, to think we are no better than the hummingbirds. Maybe we should all just drink our sugar and go home to bed. Try to resist killing each other, if at all possible.
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