August 20, 2023
Isaiah 56:1, 6-8
Matthew 15:10-28
When the young myna was a fledgling, he didn’t pay much attention to other birds around. As he grew he took more of an interest in the little flock and those around.
Mynas don’t typically pay a lot of attention to other birds – they save most of their squawks and shrieks for other mynas – but this young myna was a little more territorial. He thought the grasses and seeds and bugs and worms on his turf should be for the mynas, and pretty much only for the mynas. Other birds weren’t worthy. They could go wait in a corner until the mynas were done.
He would fly and shriek at the cardinals and finches and waxbills that settled on his flock’s patch of grass until they flew off to find a quieter place for lunch. The other mynas mostly ignored this; some birds go through this stage, they told one another. He’ll grow out of it.
To their surprise, there was one bird he was particularly mean to. He didn’t actually peck at this bird, but he’d get closer and scream louder and flap his wings harder at the kolea than any spotted dove. It might be because the kolea was actually slightly bigger than he was, so he put more effort into his, well, I guess we’ve got to call it bullying, don’t we? than he needed to for a little yellow-beaked cardinal. And I’m afraid the other reason was that the kolea was always alone. The saffron finches usually fed in pairs, but the kolea was always alone.
To this bully of a myna, that just made him vulnerable.
He’d scream and flap and chase and generally make himself obnoxious. The kolea never said a word, just hopped or flew aside until the myna was satisfied. And he always came back.
Until one day when the kolea wasn’t there, and the myna thought he’d won.
“I drove that one off for good!” he exclaimed, but there was a big myna argument going on so nobody heard him to correct him.
Months passed, and one morning he landed on his flock’s favorite grassy area to find the same kolea, resting peacefully and feeding on grasses and bugs and worms. The myna was furious.
“How dare you come back?” he shrieked. “You’ve no business here, you coward. I drove you off once, I’ll drive you off again!”
“Hold on a minute,” said an older, somewhat wiser myna. “What are you talking about?”
“I drove this pest away months ago. He hasn’t dared to show his beak since.”
“You didn’t drive him off,” said the older myna. “He spends the summers in Alaska.”
“Where?” said the bully myna, who’d never heard of Alaska, and of course the older myna had never been to Alaska, so it took some time to explain that the kolea had flown 3,000 miles over the ocean to get there, and another 3,000 miles to get back.
“That kolea’s no coward,” said the older myna in conclusion. “Nor are the saffron finches or the northern cardinals or the spotted doves. They just don’t like all the noise while they eat.”
The bully myna was silent. He couldn’t fly 3,000 miles and back, and he knew it.
“The kolea’s more worthy of eating here than I am,” he said.
“Everyone’s worthy of eating here, youngster,” said the older myna. “’Worth’ has nothing to do with being hungry and needing food.”
After that the young myna still had to be reminded to let other birds alone from time to time, but that was OK, because it usually meant that he got to screech at other mynas instead, and that, as we know, is just what mynas love to do.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Story
I tell these stories live without notes – so they will always be different from the text I’ve prepared.
Photo of a myna by Eric Anderson
ordainedgeek 
Just what mynas love to do … don’t you mean ‘church folk’? Great post.
Ah, if bullying behavior were limited *only* to church folk it would be a better world. As it is, I’d like to persuade church folk to leave it to others.
Amen … it’s the only folks we get to talk too, just like mynas to mynas.