March 10, 2024
Numbers 21:4-9
John 3:14-21
“I think they’re weird,” said the ‘amakihi.
“Definitely bizarre,” said the ‘akepa.
“Not like us,” said the ‘apapane.
“Not like us at all,” said the i’iwi, who usually doesn’t take part in this kind of conversation but was close enough to overhear.
“They’re not so bad,” said the elepaio, but nobody was listening to him.
“They don’t eat nectar,” said the i’iwi.
“Not everybody does,” said the elepaio, who didn’t.
“They’re not brightly colored,” said the bright orange ‘akepa.
“I’m not either,” said the elepaio, who wasn’t.
“They sit still all the time,” said the ‘amakihi.
“Not everybody needs to hop around to find food,” said the elepaio.
“They don’t sing out the way they could,” said the ‘apapane.
“Would you sing out when there’s an ‘io overhead?” asked the elepaio.
The other birds finally noticed that the elepaio was there.
“What are you going on about?” they asked.
“I don’t see that there’s anything that strange about the ‘Oma’o,” said the elepaio. “In fact, most of the things you’re criticizing are things you could say about me.”
The other birds were silently embarrassed for a while. Some of them had, in fact, said similar things about the elepaio when they thought they wouldn’t be heard.
“Don’t you think they’re different?” asked the i’iwi, who most of the others thought was kind of different himself.
“Certainly they’re different,” said the elepaio. “Different doesn’t mean strange, or bad, or wrong, though.”
The birds were silent.
“If it helps any,” said an ‘oma’o who was sitting there quietly and completely unnoticed in some koa, “I can’t help think that you’re all rather different, too. But you know,” she said thoughtfully, “it seems to work for you.”
The birds looked at one another: red feathers, green feathers, tan feathers, black feathers, yellow feathers, long beaks, short beaks, different shapes to their wings.
“You’re right,” said the ‘apapane thoughtfully. “It does seem to work for us in our different ways.”
“Not so weird.”
“Not so bizarre.”
“Different from us, but it works.”
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Story
We had a technical failure and lost the audio from the beginning of the story this week. Our apologies!
I write these stories ahead of time, then tell them from what I remember of what I wrote. Since I don’t remember things perfectly, and since I invent new things in the telling, the story I tell may not match the story I wrote.
Photo of an oma’o by ALAN SCHMIERER from southeast AZ, USA – OMA’O (9-4-2017) pu’u o’o trail, kipuka ainahou section, hawai’i co, hawaii -06, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74675325.
ordainedgeek 
I love this!!!
Thank you so much, Maren!