May 24, 2026

Acts 2:1-21
John 20:19-23

I don’t know what it was that he found in the tree. Maybe it was a collection of seeds. Maybe it was some burrowing insects. Maybe it was material for a nest. Whatever it was, he was the only house finch to know about it, and as far as he knew (or I know) the only bird in the neighborhood to know anything about it.

“Wow!” he said to himself, but not very loudly. He had already decided what to do with it all, you see (whatever it was). He had decided to keep it to himself.

“I’ll be really happy with all this,” he told himself, and he didn’t tell anybody else.

Having decided this treasure (whatever it was) was his, he settled into a nearby branch to protect it. He made sure he had a good lookout on the whereabouts of other birds, but he also made sure that he wasn’t too obvious. If other birds noticed that he wasn’t going much of anywhere, they might get curious. Not to mention if a cat noticed him staying still, the cat would get interested for different and more dangerous reasons.

So he perched on his branch, ducking down from time to time to avoid notice, and guarding his treasure. He only snuck away briefly to get water and eat. If you’re thinking, “Ah, ha! His treasure wasn’t food!” all I can say is, what if he wanted to avoid birds noticing that he didn’t have to go anywhere else to eat?

He kept guarding whatever it was.

One of his sisters finally noticed that she wasn’t seeing him in the usual places. She got worried, of course. When a brother goes missing, sisters get worried. She looked about for some time before she finally spotted him just before he ducked his head down out of sight again.

“What are you up to?” she asked him.

“Nothing,” he lied.

“That’s ridiculous,” she said. “Have you been in this same spot all day? Why would you do that?”

“It’s a fine spot,” he said. “You should find one of your own.”

“What are you up to?” she said, and flew a little closer. Then she saw it.

Whatever it was.

She was impressed. “I can’t believe you found all that,” she sighed.

“It’s mine,” he told her. That surprised her. She didn’t think of him as that kind of bird.

“All right, it’s yours,” she said. “What are you going to do with it?”

Now, for the first time, he thought about it. His day in one spot in the tree hadn’t been all that great. He’d never really eaten or drunk quite enough, so he was uncomfortable. He was worried about cats. He hadn’t spoken to any of his friends or family until his sister came along. He hadn’t even seen when the finch races had taken place a short distance away.

“Keep it,” he said, but he didn’t put much heart in it.

“You can, I suppose,” she said, “but it seems lonely and uncomfortable to me. Wouldn’t things go better if you shared it?”

He thought some more. Then he nodded.

“Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll stay here a bit longer to protect it, while you fly around and tell everyone about it. Then we can all share in it.”

And that’s what they did. They all shared it.

Whatever it was.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories in full in advance, but I tell them from memory (plus improvisation). The story as I’ve written it is not the same as the way I told it.

Photo of two house finches by Eric Anderson. I don’t actually know that one of them is guarding anything at all.