Article October 20, 2008 Issue

WINGED THOUGHTS

BY JIM BENCIVENGA

MILLIONS OF PEOPLE ENJOY birding. It's an activity that delights the eye and inspires the soul. It's a chance to be outdoors and enjoy the beauties as well as the secrets of nature. But it's more, much more. Birding has become for me a spiritual exercise, an acquired habit that reminds me to praise God for the wonder of His creation.

Some years ago on a spring day as only happens in the high plains, I walked across a meadow in Montana right into the middle of hundreds of migrating tanagers. They exploded in flight. Their reddish-orange, sun-yellow shapes startled "my heart in hiding." Like Gerard Manley Hopkins, I "stirred for a bird,—the achieve of; the mastery of the thing!"

For the poet, the soaring falcon evoked God's very presence; from my perspective, he must have felt the purity and joy of the Christ consciousness. Similarly, for many of us the graceful flight of birds can be a mental gust of wind beneath thought. The aerial acrobatics awaken awe and adoration for spiritual realities.