Author: Rev. Eric Anderson

Unknown Grave

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 2 Comments

“Then Moses, the servant of the LORD, died there in the land of Moab, at the Lord’s command. He was buried in a valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-peor, but no one knows his burial place to this day.” – Deuteronomy 34:5-6

Note: The Hebrew text can be read that the LORD buried Moses after his death.

“Lay it down, Moses. You have walked and climbed
and spoken and shouted and struck and fed
and led for many, many years. Lay it down, old friend.
Your limbs have carried you, and now you rest.”

In view of promises that he had spoken, he
gently took a breath, and let it go. Unequaled
prophet of the once enslaved, now free,
his spirit spread its wings in eager flight.

They mourned him thirty days down in the valley,
never knowing where his flesh, at last at rest,
remained. Did Joshua ascend the slopes to dig,
or did an angel’s hands move dust for Moses’ clay?

In decades past, they’d panicked when he’d disappeared
upon the rumbling heights. With Moses’ final song
still shivering in their ears, they wept and grieved,
and if they climbed, they never found the prophet’s grave.

Today you’ll find a monument to Moses at
the summit of Mount Nebo, a shrine to mark
a grave at Nabi Musa near the road to Jericho,
but Moses’ grave was hidden from the folk he’d led.

They mourned this time without an idol’s aid,
not even the small comfort of a tended grave.
The leadership had passed unto another generation.
Was that enough to satisfy their grief?

Or was it simply that they’d seen, at last,
through passing of the years, that Moses’ legacy
was they, themselves, the once enslaved now free,
their lives his monument less brittle than the stones.

Though Moses died, his people lived. Though Moses died,
his people found a home. Though Moses died,
another generation rose. Though Moses died,
and though I die, the grace of God lives on.

A poem/prayer based on Deuteronomy 34:1-12, the Revised Common Lectionary Alternate First Reading for Year A, Proper 25 (30).

The image is Moses Sees the Promised Land from Afar, as in Numbers 27:12 by James Tissot (before 1903) – http://www.wcg.org/images/tissot/tissland.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7154558.

Story: That’s Mine

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 3 Comments

October 22, 2023

Exodus 33:12-23
Matthew 22:15-22

‘Amakihi are generally inoffensive birds. They fly with other birds, they feed with other birds, and they even allow other birds to get pretty close to their nests – though they’ll chase off a bird that gets closer than, say, about three feet.

One ‘amakihi, however, must have been watching i’iwi, perhaps, or more likely people, because he chose and ohi’a tree and said, “That’s mine!”

I told a story a while ago about an i’iwi trying to protect an ohi’a tree and you might remember that it didn’t work. And I’ve told a story about an i’iwi trying to keep other birds away from a tree in blossom and how an ‘amakihi found a way that other birds could eat there, too. Those trees were in full blossom, with the scent of nectar drawing the honeyeaters of the forest in from all around. This tree, however, the one that the ‘amakihi chose as his? It was not at all tall, and barely had a flower on it. Nobody was terribly interested.

Except for this one ‘amakihi, who told everyone who came near: “It’s mine!”

He ate the bugs from it, and sipped nectar when it blossomed, but he couldn’t really feed himself entirely from this one tree, so he’d forage around the forest. As soon as he was satisfied, however, he’d be right back to his chosen tree, to chase away any bird that was getting “too close,” whatever that meant at the time.

“Why are you doing that?” asked his sister.

“The tree is mine!” he told her.

“How is the tree yours?” asked his father.

“It’s mine!”

That’s an argument you can have for a long time.

His grandfather came by and circled the little tree while he was perched there. He didn’t get too close, so his grandson didn’t get upset. He landed a little bit away in another small tree and called out, “Can we talk, grandson?”

The ‘amakihi wouldn’t even let his own grandfather perch in “his” tree, so he flew to where grandfather was.

“That’s your tree, is it?” asked grandfather.

“Yes, it is,” said the grandson.

“How did you plant it?” asked Tutu.

“I didn’t,” said the grandson.

“Then you must have watered it,” said Tutu.

He hadn’t done that, either.

“Or fed it to make it grow,” said grandfather, but the grandson hadn’t.

“All right then,” said the grandson, “maybe I can’t claim the whole tree. I’ll just claim this branch.” He flew over and perched on it, singing out, “It’s mine!”

Grandfather flew to another branch and said, “You must have done a lot of work to get it large enough to hold you.”

“This flower cluster is mine!”

“Well done for making it blossom!”

The grandson fell silent.

“Even among the humans, grandson, who argue about who owns what among the things of the Earth, and who turn some things into other things and who do make things grow where they didn’t, even among the humans, they know that they didn’t make the land, and they didn’t create the seeds, and their claims to own things are… a problem.

“You’re an ‘amakihi. You’ll build a nest and you’ll raise chicks. Even those won’t be ‘yours;’ they’ll be their own. Let it go, grandson. Let the tree be its own.”

“I think it’s a wonderful little tree,” said the grandson.

“Love it all you like,” said Tutu. “Let the tree be its own.”

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I tell these stories from my memory of what I’ve written. As a result, what I said in the recording may be very different from what I’d previously written.

Photo of an ‘amakihi by Dominic Sherony – Hawaii Amakihi (Chlorodrepanis virens virens), CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52150186.

Whose Image?

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 2 Comments

Then [Jesus] said to them, “Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.” – Matthew 22:21

Nobody asked, “What things are God’s?”
for fear, perhaps, you’d speak the answer then:
“All things belong to God; all things, including you.”

Two millennia we’ve focused our attention
on the first, imperial, clause, debating what
the monarch, governor, or mayor should receive,

As if what they received did not belong to God,
both when the coins were in our hands and when
they’d dropped into official palms. They still belong to God.

As crimson cascades in its gruesome torrents
from the slain of Israel and Gaza, of Ukraine,
Myanmar, Maghreb, of Russia and Sudan,

Of Mexico and Ethiopia, and dozens, scores,
of nations bled by fewer deaths but still,
too many when the the only number should be, “none,”

What do you tell us now, in our imperial power?
Do you hold out the twenty dollar bill and say,
“Please, not like this. Oh, not like this”?

Or do you drop your head into your hands
and in a river of frustrated tears
weep for the desecrated images of God?

A poem/prayer based on Matthew 22:15-22, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year A, Proper 24 (29).

Photo of a first century denarius of the Emperor Tiberius by Portable Antiquities Scheme from London, England – Tiberius, R6195, BMC 49. Uploaded by Victuallers, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10817585.

Story: The ‘Akepa who Needed Comfort

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 3 Comments

October 15, 2023

Exodus 32:1-14
Philippians 4:1-9

The young ‘akepa was eager, so eager, to fly. He’d been fascinated by the idea ever since he first saw his father fly to the nest with food, and then fly away again to get more. As his wings feathers grew on his wings he got more and more excited, even if they did come in first as greenish-grey, the same color as his mother’s wings, and not the bright orange of his father. He didn’t worry about the color. He just wanted to fly.

His nest was a hole high up in a koa tree where a storm had brought down a big branch long before he was hatched. He poked his beak out from time to time to watch the other birds fly, and from time to time he’d stand on the edge and stretch out his wings and imagine what it was like. When the breeze ruffled his feathers he held his wings out to see what it felt like with the wind pressing against them. So many times he nearly hopped away to take to the open air, but somehow he refrained.

It might have had something to do with his sister, who was an hour older and, sadly, somewhat bossy. I’m an older child myself, and my younger brother would probably tell you that when I was young, I was somewhat bossy. “Don’t you do it!” she snapped at him. “You know your wings aren’t strong enough yet.”

“How do you know that?” he asked crossly.

“Because mine aren’t, and I’m older than you,” she said.

“By an hour.”

“It could be by a minute and they still wouldn’t be ready, and yours aren’t ready, so don’t go hopping out of the nest,” she said, and, well, they bickered.

I’m sure you never bicker with your brother or sister or friends, do you?

Both their parents were away from the nest one afternoon and he was perched on the edge of the hole in the tree watching some other birds when a small group of people walked through the forest below. He didn’t pay any attention to them – they didn’t fly, after all – when one of their cell phones rang. The ring tone was an electric guitar riff.

He’d never heard a noise like that before. It was loud – the phone was at top volume – and fierce, and harsh. Startled, he hopped up and away – but not backwards into the hole in the tree, but forwards into the open air. He desperately opened his wings, but found that his sister was right. He didn’t have the strength for level flight. Flapping desperately, he managed to slow himself down enough to grab some twigs close to the ground. There he huddled miserably beneath some leaves as his sister called from above.

His mother found him there not long afterward. “Get me back to the nest!” he begged. “I promise I won’t try to fly again!”

She looked him over and said, “How?”

There wasn’t a way for her to carry him, or for his father to carry him, or for the two of them together to carry him, and he knew it.

“Will you leave me here?” he asked.

“Your father and I are going to take care of you right here,” his mother said, “until your wings are strong enough to fly – which won’t be all that long. You’ll be less comfortable here than you would have been in the nest, and you’ll have to keep out of sight of the ‘io, but you’ll be fed and you will grow.”

That’s what happened. He wasn’t comfortable. The branch was drafty and the leaves let the rain through and the sun got plenty hot. Plus he could hear his sister calling “I told you so,” from time to time, which wasn’t very pleasant.

But then his father or mother would arrive with something to eat, and with some reassuring sounds, and the warmth of their feathers against his. He wasn’t comfortable, but he was comforted.

A couple days later he could fly just fine, and one more comforting thing happened. His sister, who’d been badly frightened when he fell from their nest in the hole in the tree, said she was sorry for calling “I told you so.”

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories ahead of time, but tell them on Sunday mornings from memory and from improvisation. This is a morning when the telling sounds rather different than the writing.

Photo of an ‘akepa by Tony Castro – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=56759511.

It Seemed So Easy

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 6 Comments

“[The people said,] ‘Come, make gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.'” – Exodus 32:1

Those Ten Commandments seem so clear.
I hardly even needed to take notes
(though in all honesty my memory
is unreliable about the honor due to parents) to
live righteously with just a few missteps.
I certainly would never worship figurines.

Before I criticize those people in the desert wastes,
perhaps I’ll walk a mile in their shoes,
uncertain whether when the day is gone,
that water may be found, and whether on
the morrow manna will appear, to satisfy
the hungry travelers of Sinai.

The man whose staff wrought miracles
had vanished in the clouds that wrapped
the mountain’s height, in billowed fire
that no one could contemplate surviving.
In his absence who could speak to God?
Who could interpret God to them?

“Make for us gods,” they said, and so would I,
for with a leader vanished and the desert fierce
at hand, I’d seek – I’d want – to crystallize
my hopes, to incarnate my faith, to be
the comfort of my fears. A calf? Why not?
It symbolizes promise, strength, and growth.

You’ll find no statue of a calf among
the decorations on my wall or door.
You’ll find the cross – a symbol only, right? –
and yes, some artwork of my favorite stories, like
the walk with Jesus to Emmaus, and
the supper Jesus held with his close friends.

No, these for all their imagery, are not
my idols. I look for comfort rather more
in tasks completed, praises given me,
for though I blush at them, I trust in them
to keep me safe and soothe my soul
amidst the pains and sufferings of life.

They do not work. Oh, they will stimulate
a flush of pleasure in the moment, but
the feeling fades. I know if I rely
on human approbation, I will put my heart
in danger of starvation – I’ve been parched
when human love ran dry before.

It’s human, I suppose, to seek a way
to make the evanescent tangible,
to hold in hand or ear or brain or heart
a solid thing, a symbol sensible,
like praise or wealth or sex or dignity.
These are our ordinary golden calves.

Forgive us, Holy One, as we have failed to learn
how legion are the idols we will make,
how much they look like faithfulness they ape,
how little they will heal or comfort us.
Forgive us, God, and by your grace
dissolve our idols and restore our souls.

A poem/prayer based on Exodus 32:1-14, the Revised Common Lectionary First Reading for Year A, Proper 23 (28).

The image is The Golden Calf by James Jacques Joseph Tissot (French 1836-1902) – https://thejewishmuseum.org/collection/26377-the-golden-calf, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7180440.

Story: The Loyal Myna

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 3 Comments

October 8, 2023

Isaiah 5:1-7
Matthew 21:33-46

While they were young, a myna and a saffron finch struck up a friendship. It wasn’t all that unusual, to be sure. Mynas and saffron finches hunt and peck for seeds and bugs and so on side by side quite often. Along the way they chat about this and that, that and this, at least until the flock of mynas gets riled up about something and start an argument among themselves.

This young myna didn’t much care for the myna arguments and even less for the major arguments, so she would hop off to one side with her friend the saffron finch, and the two of them would talk about food, and bugs, and the silly things mynas do, and the silly things saffron finches do, and the completely undecipherable things that humans do.

The myna liked her friend a lot. The saffron finch liked her friend a lot. Even when they weren’t talking about anything terribly important, they loved their time.

One of the mynas in the flock became, if not the leader, one of the more popular mynas among them. He was often loud and boisterous, and he tended to win the arguments. But he also got the mynas together. When a cat came by, he was the one who organized everyone to screech at it and dive at it until it went away. He kept an eye out for ‘io overhead and for mongoose on the prowl. If one of the mynas was missing, he’d search until he found them (which rarely took long; they tended to be behind a bush or under the eaves of a roof).

As time went on, he became more and more the leader of the flock, and all the other birds came to value his time and attention. That included the myna who was friends with the saffron finch. One of the things she’d talk to her friend about was the times when he’d talk to her.

“He’s an important bird,” said the saffron finch, before they went on to talk more about which was the best flavored bug that day.

One day, however, the leader myna hopped over to the myna who was friends with the saffron finch. “Hey,” he said, only with more myna screech to it. “I hear that you’ve got a friend who’s a saffron finch.”

“That’s right,” she said.

“No, that’s not right,” he told her. “Your friends should be mynas, not saffron finches. It’s one thing to put up with them – after all, they’re so small they don’t eat much – but it’s another thing to be friends with them. It’s time you dropped her. Tell her to stay away from you.”

“Why would I do that?” said the myna with a saffron finch for a friend.

“Because it’s what you should do,” said the leader myna, “and if you don’t, we can’t have you in the flock.”

At this moment the saffron finch landed nearby. The leader myna told her, “Say goodbye to your former friend. She’ll have her friends among the mynas now.”

“There’s no goodbye,” said the myna. “You’re my friend as long as you want to be.”

“I told you to drop her!” he said.

“You can say that all you want,” she replied. “I choose my friends, not you.”

“We’ll see what the flock has to say about that,” he said, and called them over. “This sad bird has a friend who’s a saffron finch,” he sneered to them. “Are we going to put up with that in our flock?”

The myna looked at her friends. She didn’t say anything. They looked at her, and they looked at their leader.

Unexpectedly, the saffron finch spoke up. “Don’t you have a friend who’s a spotted dove?” she asked one, who nodded. “And aren’t you friends with a yellow-beaked cardinal, and you with a northern cardinal?” she asked two more. They nodded as well.

“Are you going to let this bird choose your friends?” she asked, and all the mynas shook their heads.

That was the end of one myna’s leadership, and the continuation of a number of friendships, because of one loyal myna, and then many loyal mynas, in that flock.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories in advance, then tell them with a combination of memory and improvisation on Sunday mornings.

Photos of a myna (l.) and saffron finch (r.) by Eric Anderson.

Ownership

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 3 Comments

“When the chief priests and the Pharisees heard his parables, they realized that he was speaking about them.” – Matthew 21:45

I’ve never owned land. I’ve never had a tenant.
I’ve been the tenant. I’ve been the replacement tenant.
I’ve felt the urge to seize control.
I’ve seen what happened to those who tried.

When Jesus told this story, God, did those
all-powerful people hear the landlord as themselves?
Did they nod with satisfaction as they gave the story’s end:
“He’ll put those wretches to a miserable death.”

I wonder what a shock it must have been to hear
that they were not the owner, but the tenants,
that they did not possess the power or
the ownership they thought they had.

O Heavenly Gardener, may I tend this vineyard
you have given me to cultivate with care,
and neither seek to seize it for my own,
or punish those who take it for themselves.

A poem/prayer based on Matthew 21:33-46, the Revised Common Lectionary Second Reading for Year A, Proper 22 (27).

The image is Le fils de la vigne (The Son of the Vineyard) by James Tissot – Online Collection of Brooklyn Museum; Photo: Brooklyn Museum, 2007, 00.159.139_PS2.jpg, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10957416. Of all Tissot’s paintings of Jesus’ life, death, and teachings, I find this the most chilling.

Story: The Best

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 3 Comments

October 1, 2023

Philippians 2:1-13
Matthew 21:23-32

She was the best. Everybody knew it. When young koa’e kea began learning to fly, they aspired to fly like her. She was the best.

Koa’e kea move awkwardly on land, and so did she, but the grace with which she’d take off had everyone gasping with amazement. One moment she was stationary on the ground, the next moment she was in the air, moving as if she’d never been anywhere else. When fishing, she would dive straight down, and only stray to the side to intercept the moving fish in the water below. Her take-offs from the water were as seemingly miraculous as her take-offs from land. One moment bobbing in the waves, the next moment climbing to the skies.

When young koa’e kea tried to race her, they rapidly fell behind. When they tried to turn more sharply than she, they either skittered away or fluttered helplessly down until they’d caught themselves and controlled their flight again. She landed so gently that her legs barely flexed. From time to time she’d gently roll through the air. Those who imitated her went through day after day of struggle, turning this way and that and descending rapidly, until they finally mastered those subtle movements of the feathers. Then they’d roll, but never with the same grace and power.

When she wanted to relax, she’d catch the rising air above Halema’uma’u Crater, soaring in rising circles with barely a wingbeat, higher than any of the other koa’e kea dared to go, a spot of white against the blue sky.

She was the best.

One young koa’e kea was determined to be her successor – in fact, to fly even better than she did. He studied every move she made. He exercised his wings. He spent hours facing into the trade winds and seeing what happened when he moved this feather like this, or that feather like that. He was going to be the best.

There was one difference, though. He announced it.

“I will be the best!” he said at some point during just about any conversation. He knew he wasn’t the best, not yet, but every koa’e kea on the mountainside knew what he aspired to be.

As for the best flyer among them? She said nothing, did nothing, but flew her best over the ocean, and over the pali, and over the mountain. When someone asked her help or advice she gave it (she was a willing teacher), but there was never a word from her about who the best flyer among the koa’e kea was.

There were plenty of words from the younger one. “I’ll be the best!” he said. “I’ll be the best very soon!” And indeed, that seemed like it might be true. He was taking turns almost as sharply as she. His take-offs were almost as magical. When he soared, he rose nearly as high.

So his grandmother took him aside one day. “Grandson,” she said, “I am very proud of you. You are the best flyer of your generation, and you may become the best flyer of us all. I’m so proud of all your hard work.”

“I’ll be the best,” he said.

“But one thing, grandson,” she said, “will prevent you from being the best if you keep doing it.”

“What’s that?” he asked. “Is it the way I hold my tail on takeoff? I’ve been working on that.”

“No,” she said. “It’s the way you keep talking about becoming the best.”

He was confused. “If I’m the best, or nearly the best, shouldn’t I say so?”

“Does the best flyer among the koa’e kea need to say it?” his grandmother asked.

As he thought about it, he realized that she never said a word about it. Even when she was doing something showy – like those rolls through the air – she never did it in a way that upset the other birds. She relaxed through those rolls, and in those rising circles, so that nobody ever thought her skill was a taunt or an insult to them. It was just an expression of her joy in flight.

“No, I don’t think she does,” he replied.

“You’re more than a good enough flyer,” said his grandmother, “that you don’t need to say a thing about it, either.”

It took a while to break the habit – bad habits are hard to break, aren’t they? – but on the day that his soaring circle reached higher than hers, he said nothing about it. She did – she congratulated him on his skill – and the two of them were the wonder of the koa’e kea of Hawai’i Island, rising, turning, diving, and soaring so beautifully that everyone else watched in wonder and in awe.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories first, and tell them from memory – which means things change. Today that includes the addition of sound effects.

Photo of a koa’e kea (white-tailed tropicbird) by Eric Anderson.

Small Voice

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 1 Comment

“Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves.” – Philippians 2:3

So many years ago:

The certainty with which I judged.
The anger I received,
Hot words with friends
There in the driveway.

The bitterness I brought to bed
that, strange to say, provoked
a prayer. To my surprise, in answer
came a voice:

“You were wrong.
Go and apologize.”

Since that angry night,
I’ve known that pride goes not
before the fall: Pride is the fall.
At least, my fall.

The voice did not just speak
to judge or to correct, but leads
and has led me that night to this.
And, no, I’m never sure

This voice is God’s, and this voice mine,
but on that night, I knew and know.
If I am humble, it has been
the struggle of my life and soul.

So Paul rings true to me
to warn of pride (I laugh to think
how much he struggled with
his very warning),

And I take my comfort in
the humble form of Jesus, who,
though God in truth, eschewed the power:
and shared the love.

A poem/prayer based on Philippians 2:1-13, the Revised Common Lectionary Second Reading for Year A, Proper 21 (26).

Photo by Eric Anderson.

Author’s Note: This is a true story. I’ve struggled with pride ever since, of course. My arrogance is never far away. For the record, I followed the advice of the voice. I apologized.

Story: Love Isn’t Fair

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 2 Comments

September 24, 2023

Jonah 3:10-4:11
Matthew 20:1-16

He was the oldest of the three ‘amakihi, so he thought he would get everything the first and the best.

In fact, he did get fed first after he’d emerged from the shell and was breathing deeply for the first time. Getting out of an eggshell sounds easy, but he didn’t find it so. Next to him the other two eggs continued to rock and creak for some time as he ate his first bug from his mother’s beak. It tasted wonderful.

I know you and I might not think so, but he thought it tasted wonderful.

Truly, though, he wasn’t born first by much. His sister emerged from her shell within an hour, and his brother was eating his first bug a half hour after that. Still, he was first. And if you’re the first born – um, first hatched – that comes with some benefits, right? First hatched, first fed – at every meal. First hatched, first flight lesson. First hatched, first singing lesson. First hatched, first… well, everything.

But his parents didn’t seem to have learned that rule.

When they came with bugs for their nestlings, they tended to put it in the first handy little beak. Our oldest little ‘amakihi didn’t like it, but in all the chaos of pushing about in the little nest he thought they were just careless and making mistakes. As they grew, he learned to get his beak in place just a little more quickly at mealtimes, but he thought his parents had figured out how to feed him first. And at singing lessons, he didn’t wait for them to say, “Who wants to sing first?” He just sang first.

Flying lessons, though, were different.

Flying, obviously, has to be taken seriously. ‘Amakihi may be small birds, but gravity pulls them just like it pulls you and me. Mother and father didn’t ask for volunteers or pay any attention to his volunteering. They called on the one who was ready, not the one who was eager.

It made him mad.

“That’s completely unfair!” he shrieked one morning when his younger sister took off before he did. He launched himself into the air, flapping madly (and angrily) and not very well, because he wasn’t paying attention to what he was doing, he was paying attention to what he was feeling. He landed rather painfully in a nearby tree and sulked.

The branch jumped a little bit as another bird landed near him. He looked up to see his mother.

“What’s not fair?” she asked.

“It’s not fair for you to teach the others before me. I was born first. I’m always first. I’m always supposed to be first. I’m first!” he said. And he cried angry tears.

She waited until the crying had settled down some, and said, “No, it’s not fair. And it won’t be fair. Not because being born first, you always go first – that’s not true, son, and it’s about time you learned that – but because love isn’t fair.”

It was a shock to hear that he wasn’t always going to be first, but it was more of a shock to hear that love isn’t fair.

“I love everyone in our family equally,” she said. “I love them equally even when they peck at me, like your sister did yesterday, or when they ignore me, like your brother did this morning. I love them equally when your father eats the bug I was following or when your grandmother tells me how to do something that I already know how to do. If I were being fair, I’d love your sister more when your brother annoys me, and I’d love your brother more when your father makes me angry.”

“And you’d love everyone else more when your oldest son gets mad and flies off in a huff,” said her oldest son.

She didn’t have to reply.

“Thank you for not being fair,” he said.

“You’re welcome,” she said. “Now, shall we work on that takeoff? And landing? And paying attention to where you’re going in flight?”

That little ‘amakihi family went right on being unfair – and loving one another each day.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories ahead of time, then tell the story from memory. Memory plus improvisation, that is.

Photo of an ‘Amakihi by Bettina Arrigoni – Hawaii Amakihi (male) | Palilia Discovery Trail | Mauna Kea | Big Island | HI|2017-02-09|12-21-50.jpg, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74674240.