Only a Sparrow

W. EDSON SMITH

Christian Science makes a morning land of our splendid world when we see it in the white light of Truth, and the students of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy, the beloved Leader of the movement, gather spiritual lessons along whatever paths they go, from hours on to years. One morning I arrived somewhat earlier than usual at the office where I was working. It was the brightest of summer days, and the whole outdoors seemed to smile at me, radiant, glowing with the same gratitude that I felt. Mindful of our Leader's admonition, "Action expresses more gratitude than speech" (Science and Health, p. 3), I said within my heart, "Dear Father, if there is any way I can serve Thee in these moments before taking up my tasks for the day, I will be glad—whatever it is that comes for me to do."

Immediately after, apparently through no volition of my own and with no definite purpose in view, I walked across the hall to a suite of untenanted offices. In one room there were two windows side by side, facing on the same wide stone ledge. The window to the right was open, the one to the left was closed. A sparrow had come into the empty room seeking a transient shelter for the night. Doubtless since the first break of day it had fluttered breathlessly and striven with all the strength of wild wings in a heartbreaking effort to get through the closed window. There was a last pitiful flurry as I entered and came close, and then the struggle was done. It sat on the sill utterly exhausted with its efforts to be free, yet looking up at me with bright eyes; it did not move, even when the shadow of my hand fell across it.

And so I lifted up the little, weary, ruffled thing—slowly that there might be no new paroxysm of fear, carefully and surely that there might be no hurt—and took it away from the barrier, placing it gently on the stone ledge outside the open window, where it could sense its freedom in the blowing breeze. We looked at each other, the sparrow and I, for a little longer, considering. Then, as life without called, the sparrow flew across the roofs to its own place and I went back to mine.

Oh, that sparrow! All the time since the glimmer of dawn it had been endeavoring to pass a barrier it did not, could not at the instant, comprehend. The world it knew and loved was in plain sight,—sky and tree and housetop,—and yet a cruel, merciless barrier reared itself between, keeping the tiny bird from freedom and food, from song and joy—everything before its very eyes. Other sparrows were flying here and there, high and low, rejoicing in life and living, and still—the barrier. All the while the way to freedom and happiness was so near, so clear. Only to cease the frenzy of panting effort, only a poising of wings, a turning in the right direction, and there was nothing in the way of freedom. The same stone ledge high above the city street, the same bright world before that other window—and nothing in the way.

And when, after the sparrow had done its utmost and had accomplished nothing, a loving hand closed down upon it, who knows what dread and despair filled the moment? That hand may well have stood for a final crushing out,—the end. If its shadow while yet open held thoughts of terror, the darkness of the closed hand surely could only mean death. What greater joy could there be for a sparrow, indeed, than to have the hand open; to find itself, no longer confused, no longer weary, in the warmth of the sun, the stir of the breeze, glad and free? A thought inspired by love had come at the right moment, as always, when there was no strength for wild, agonizing rushes hither and thither, stunning shocks against wall and ceiling, futility and delay. Love met the need; not too soon and not too late. Did not Jesus say, "One of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father"? And the Father-Mother God, infinite intelligence, infinite Love, is never too late.

Shall we not know this? Shall we not cease from striving, and rest? What mortal sense fears, may be only the approaching hand of Love. And what follows, whatever the seeming, is not and never can be a cruel crushing of upward soaring aspirations,—never a maimed hope, never a sick heart, never the darkness of death. The hand of Love closes over us, then opens, to give freedom forevermore. And so we find ourselves. Let us then rest, that we may be the readier for the finding,—the freedom; the stronger when we launch out on the wind of God's wise purpose into the sunlight of Soul.

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