Stories

Story: One Might Know

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 1 Comment

May 10, 2026

Acts 17:22-31
John 14:15-21

This story didn’t take place on our island, because although one of the birds in it lives on Hawai’i, the other doesn’t. I took this picture on Kauai, though both birds also live on O’ahu.

The one on the left, swimming in the water, with its red beak and red on its forehead, is an ala’e ‘ula, or Hawaiian gallinule. The one on the right, standing on long thin pink legs with white and black feathers and a very long straight black beak, is an ae’o, or Hawaiian black-necked stilt.

Both of them like to search for food in roughly the same kinds of places: relatively still and shallow water, like old fish ponds or coastal marshes. They don’t eat the same food, however. The ala’e ‘ula likes plant roots and seeds and shoots, and enjoys a snail or two. The ae’o mostly looks for fish, but will snap up water insects when it finds one.

Actually, the ala’e ‘ula will eat those insects, too, but neither of them is so fond of a diet of bugs to get very upset about it.

On this day the ae’o was getting somewhat upset, but not about bugs. It was fish. He couldn’t find many. Oh, one or two swam his direction, but where were the rest of them? He was getting hungry, and he was also getting irritated with the world. Being hungry does that to some people, and to some birds as well.

“Where are the fish?” he squawked in frustration.

“You can’t find fish?” asked an ala’e ‘ula a short way away.

“No, I can’t, and is that any of your business?” he said rudely.

“No, I suppose not,” said the ala’e ‘ula, who’d been feeding quite happily on roots and shoots and therefore wasn’t hangry with the world. “Would you like me to tell you if I find some fish?”

“You do what you want to do,” said the ae’o irritably, and as the ala’e ‘ula swam off to another section of the fishpond, grumbled to himself, “It’s not as if you’ll be of any help.”

It wasn’t very long, though, before the ala’e ‘ula swam back toward the hungry, grumpy ae’o. “Say, friend,” he said. “Take a look over there. There’s a good sized school of fish milling around eating flies.”

“How would you know?” demanded the ae’o, who couldn’t make out the flies on the water from where he stood.

The ala’e ‘ula shrugged. “One might know if one looks under water,” he said. “I was pulling up a root and there they were, all around. When I got my head out of the water I saw the flies swimming on the surface.

“I suppose you could make a meal of the flies if you have to,” he said thoughtfully, “but I imagine you like the fish better.”

“One might know,” muttered the ae’o as he stepped over to where the ala’e ‘ula had been, “but one probably doesn’t. More fool I.”

Then he saw the milling flies, and he saw the ripples where the fish had risen to the surface. He saw the water swirl as they swam beneath. In a moment he was there, and dipping his beak, and catching his fish, and feeling better than he had all day.

“I guess one might know at that,” he said when the ala’e ‘ula found him again shortly after.

“One might know,” said the ala’e ‘ula.

“Even better,” said the ae’o, “one might share what one knows. And the world gets a little bit better than it was.”

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories in full ahead of time, but I tell them in worship from memory and improvisation. The story as written and the story as told are not identical.

Photo of an ala’e ‘ula (Hawaiian gallinule) and an ae’o (Hawaiian black-necked stilt) by Eric Anderson.

Story: Courage

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 1 Comment
A bird with black feathers and a white bill, with a white forehead shield, swimming in gray water with droplets visible on its back.

May 3, 2026

Acts 7:55-60
John 14:1-14

The ala’e keokeo – also known as the Hawaiian Coot, and I guess it is pretty cute – lives along the shorelines, particularly enjoying the old fishponds built by the Hawaiians because the edges are rich in the water plants they like to eat. “Ala’e” means forehead, and “keokeo” means white – so the Hawaiians certainly called it by its appearance.

One young ala’e keokeo liked a lot about his life. He liked the sun, and he even liked the rain when it fell. He had brothers and sisters and parents and aunties and uncles in plenty, and even when they were teasing one another he liked them. He liked swimming in the fishpond, even if he didn’t have webbed feet like a duck. He liked the foods he ate: seeds, stems, and roots for the most part. There was only one problem.

He was afraid of the water.

Does it seem odd that he liked swimming but was afraid of the water? Well, it did to me, too. What he was afraid of was putting his head in the water. Plenty of people don’t like that, either. They’ll step into the water up to the shoulders, but put their head in? No.

That was his feeling about it. Put his head in the water? Absolutely not.

To be truthful, he could get along with his head firmly above water. The plant seeds he ate waved over the water, so that was OK. He could pull on stems from above, too. The only time it became a problem was with roots, and wouldn’t you know it?

One of his favorite foods was the root of a pond grass that he absolutely could not pull up from overhead. He tried and tried, and he could not do it.

He resigned himself to a life without his favorite root, but it turned out he didn’t have to. It turned out that when it came time to find someone to build a nest and hatch chicks with, she was a generous and compassionate bird. She didn’t tease him about not diving, the way his cousins did. Instead, from time to time she dove down and brought one or two up, and gave them to him.

He loved her for it.

When she laid their eggs, she stayed with the nest continuously for the first couple days – it would take them a while to learn that he could keep them warm, too. She got hungry, and he went back and forth from the grasses to the nest bringing her seeds and shoots.

As he set out for another foraging trip, he overheard her sigh, “I’m so hungry for a root or two.” She didn’t mean him to hear her, and he didn’t let on that he’d heard. That trip, though, he made sure to find some of those plants as he plucked seeds and shoots.

The next trip, he returned to that same spot. He looked at the water. It was fairly clear. He could see the bottom of the pond and knew just where the root would be. He closed his eyes and held a memory of his wife in his mind – then he dove into the pond.

He wasn’t good at it, because diving takes practice, but he did it, and he did it again until he gripped a root in his beak. He brought it back to the nest, where his wife gasped to see it.

“Here you are,” he said. “I knew you’d want one.”

“Thank you so much,” she told him. “This was so good of you.”

“I wanted to do it for you,” he said. And then he went back to do it again.

Sometimes courage comes from what we need, and sometimes it comes from wanting to do something for someone we love. Love can help us move through the fear and help us do amazing things for one another and for God.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories ahead of time, but I tell them from memory (plus improvisation). The story as I wrote it and the story as I told it are not identical.

Photo of an ala’e keokeo by Eric Anderson.

Story: Good Advice

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 2 Comments
An 'elepaio: a small bird with mottled brown and cream feathers perched on a branch.

April 26, 2026

Acts 2:42-47
John 10:1-10

What do you need to know if you’re an ‘elepaio? It helps that most of the ‘elepaio are very curious, so they tend to ask themselves the questions and then find out the answers. Is it sunny on that side of the tree? Are there bugs to be had in that stand of koa over there? Can I catch a bug in mid-flight?

One young ‘elepaio was having some difficulty answering his questions, though. He was a bit overwhelmed with options. There were so many bugs flying around him, and how was he to know which ones were OK to eat, which ones were OK to eat but tasted bad, and which ones tasted the best? The world swirled with possibilities as the insects danced around him in the air and on the branches and on the leaves.

“What should I eat?” he chirped aloud, and a somewhat devious ‘amakihi heard him.

I think I’ve told you that most birds are basically truthful. Telling lies often means that you deceive yourself as much as anyone else, and a bird can’t live on lies in the mountain forests. This ‘amakihi, however, thought he might amuse himself (in a cruel way) with this young ‘elepaio and keep some of the tastiest insects for himself at the same time.

“Don’t you know, young one?” he called in his friendliest voice.

“Not really. There’s so many choices,” said the ‘elepaio.

“Let me sample them for you,” said the ‘amakihi. “That will help, won’t it?”

Honestly, the ‘elepaio thought that suggesting which ones to try would be more help, but before he could say so, the ‘amakihi had plucked a big spider off a tree branch.

“Oh, this isn’t very good,” he said, as he polished it off and laughed to himself because it was, in fact, delicious. “Stay away from these.”

“Okay,” said the ‘elepaio as the ‘amakihi plucked at another bug.

“Try one of these,” said the ‘amakihi. “They’re very good.” Which they weren’t, in truth, and small besides.

“Okay,” said the ‘elepaio, and he didn’t really think the bug tasted as good as other bugs, but maybe he hadn’t developed an appreciation for fine bug dining yet.

This went on for an afternoon, as the ‘amakihi enjoyed tasty bugs and recommended the sour bugs to the ‘elepaio. Eventually the ‘amakihi flew off with a cheery, “I’ll help you some more tomorrow!” and the ‘elepaio went to find his family.

“Grandmother, when will I learn to like the tasty bugs?” he asked her when he found her?

“The what?” she asked, and he explained the helpful ‘amakihi whose suggestions hadn’t tasted all that good to him.

“Oh, grandson,” she sighed. “I wish you’d come to me or another of our family with that question. The ones who know and love you are the ones who’ll give you the best advice. We care about you. We’ll do the best we can. We don’t know everything, and sometimes we’re wrong about things, but we’ll tell you the truth as we know it.

“I’m afraid this ‘amakihi told you a lot of things that aren’t true. And you’ve had a sour afternoon because of it. Here. Try this,” she said, and she plucked one of those spiders off a branch, and sure enough, it was delicious in his beak.

“Two things, grandson,” she told him. “The ones who know and love you will give you the best advice they can. More than that, remember: you’re an ‘elepaio. When you don’t know, try it for yourself. That’s what we do. We look at the world, we ask questions about it, and then we try to learn what’s true.”

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories ahead of time, but I tell them during worship from memory (plus improvisation). The story as I wrote it does not match the story as I told it.

Photo of an immature ‘elepaio by Eric Anderson.

Story: Seeing Further

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / Leave a comment

April 19, 2026

Acts 2:14a, 36-41
Luke 24:17-35

The ‘apapane was young. He didn’t have his red and black feathers yet. That was OK. He knew they’d come. He was content even with the somewhat odd look of red patches on his mostly white chest. He’d be wearing red and black soon.

It was also OK that he’d learned to fly and fly pretty well. There had been some awkward moments in the learning, even one or two painful moments when he’d misjudged a landing, but all in all, he was content with his feet and his tail and his wings.

What he wasn’t happy about was the local ohi’a trees.

He wasn’t very old after all, and he’d never seen the cycle of the ohi’a trees before. As far as he knew, ohi’a trees wore their red flowers all the time. That was his experience. But now whole groves in the forest had no flowers, and he thought that was awfully careless of them.

“Where will I find flowers?” he wanted to know.

He followed the flock to find them, of course, and each day they found plenty to eat, whether it was ohi’a nectar or bugs and caterpillars in the trees. But why weren’t all the trees in flower? That was how he remembered it. Wasn’t that how it should always be?

“Why aren’t the trees in bloom?” he asked aloud one day, and his grandfather overheard him.

“They can’t always be in bloom,” said grandfather, who had seen a few seasons and knew that flowers come and go.

“Why not?” demanded the grandson, who couldn’t think of any reasons why the world shouldn’t run the way he wanted it to run.

“Because otherwise we don’t get new trees,” said grandfather.

The grandson thought this sounded ridiculous and said so, but he followed his grandfather as they flew over to an ohi’a tree that was definitely bare of blossoms. They landed near the end of a branch, where there was a cluster of short brownish stalks. The grandson recognized that they had formed from a cluster of flowers.

“The flowers have died,” he said. “So what?”

“Look closer,” said grandfather, and he did.

One or two of the brown stalks had opened, revealing tiny flecks. “Those are ohi’a seeds,” said grandfather.

“They’re tiny,” said the grandson.

“They are,” agreed grandfather, “but if one roots in the right place, it can become a great tall tree. In another place, it becomes a shorter tree. Both of them will blossom many times. And both of their blossoms will fade and become these seed pods. Then the seeds blow away on the wind and new trees rise up.

“You can’t just look at what’s in front of you, grandson. You also have to look ahead to what might be, can be, or will be. Today’s flowers fade so that tomorrow’s flowers will bloom. Today’s seeds fly so that tomorrow’s trees can grow.”

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories ahead of time, but I tell them from memory and improvisation during worship on Sunday morning. The story you read does not precisely match the way I told it.

Photo of a juvenile ‘apapane by Eric Anderson.

Story: Surprise

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 2 Comments

April 5, 2026

Acts 10:34-43
John 20:1-18

Sometimes a bird on the mountainsides just takes a liking for a particular ohi’a tree. I don’t know whether the nectar tastes better, or if you get a particularly crunchy kind of bug, or if there’s something else that gets a bird excited.

This is about an i’iwi who had a favorite ohi’a tree.

He like other trees as well. When the mamane were in blossom, he’d happily sip from those flowers as well, but as far as he was concerned there was nothing better than his favorite ohi’a tree. The flowers were the right color red, he thought, and they’d get that lovely gold tip as they blossomed. Sometimes there weren’t any flowers on it, of course, but that just meant he’d develop an appetite as he waited for them to bloom again.

It was his favorite tree.

I think you know, however, that sometimes trees in the ohi’a forest die. Sometimes the wind blows them down. Sometimes an earthquake from the volcano shakes the soil loose beneath them. Sometimes an eruption knocks them down. And sometimes, I’m very sad to say, they get very sick very quickly. Their leaves fall and, all too often, no leaves grow ever again.

The i’iwi’s favorite tree got sick.

He didn’t notice at first. He noticed it didn’t have any blossoms, of course, but that wasn’t unusual. A tree can’t bloom all the time. But then he noticed that some of the leaves were browning and dropping away. It looked like the tree was trying to grow new leaves, but there didn’t seem to be a lot of them. The i’iwi realized that the tree was in bad shape.

He shouted out his frustration to the world.

He carried on with living. But he decided it would make him too sad to see his favorite tree get sick and maybe – probably – die, so he spent his time in other parts of the forest. There were good trees there. None of them were his favorite tree. None of them could ever be his favorite tree.

One day, however, the forest’s blossoms were scarce in the groves he’d been browsing. The pattern of flowers led him, tree by tree, toward his favorite tree. He didn’t really want to go there, but if that’s where the nectar was, that’s where the nectar was. Eventually he found himself flying right toward his favorite tree.

It was covered with bright red ohi’a lehua.

Imagine his surprise. He was sure the tree was dead, but it had survived, and it had even thrived. He flew around it, singing for joy. He settled onto a branch and lowered his long curved beak into a flower. The nectar tasted like heaven, even better than before, he thought.

This story is about Easter, but it’s not about mistaking who’s alive for someone who is dead. No. this story is about Easter because it’s about surprise. That i’iwi knew, knew to his soul, that his favorite tree was no more. Jesus’ friends and disciples, Simon Peter and Mary Magdalene, they knew that Jesus had died – as he had.

Both a Hawaiian bird and Mediterranean human beings learned that the world has more surprises in it than they’d imagined. An ohi’a that got better. A Savior who rose again to new life.

Happy Easter!

by Eric Anderson

Regrettably, there was a technical problem this morning, and the story was not recorded.

Story: All the Things

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 1 Comment

April 5, 2026

Acts 10:34-43
John 20:1-18

You’ve heard, I know, that there are some birds that winter with us here in Hawai’i, and that they fly to Alaska for the summer. Those birds might prefer to fly on a big jet, like you and I, but they use their own wings, even though some of them are pretty small birds. The kolea are the best known, but we’re also saying farewell to hunakai, ‘ulili, and ‘akekeke in the next month or so.

An ‘akekeke getting ready to fly looks like, well, it looks like an ‘akekeke does most of the time. It hops around the sands and stones and grasses near the ocean looking for crabs, worms, small fish, and basically anything it can eat.

A little flock of ‘akekeke noticed, however, that one of their number never seemed to pause much. Oh, she’d rest when she needed to, but the rest of the time her beak was pointed down, following her eyes constantly searching out the next worm, or small fish, or crab. She’d pause when she’d really filled herself up, but even with that she was hunting far more than her family or friends.

“What are you up to?” they asked her.

“I’m getting ready for the big flight,” she said.

“We all are, but we’re not eating all the time. You’re eating all the time. Why?”

“I want to make sure I can get all the things before it’s time to go,” she said.

“What are you talking about?” they asked her. “You can’t eat all the things. There’s too many things to eat to do that. And where would you put them?”

“I know,” she said, “but I’m going to look for as many as I can find, and who knows? Maybe that will be all the things.”

Why do I tell you this story? Well, it’s because out there along the walkways of the church there are Easter eggs. Some of them are ones you colored yesterday, and they look amazing. Some of them have sweets in them, and the sweets (not the plastic eggs) taste amazing.

What’s important, however, is that we find all the things. All the dyed eggs. All the plastic eggs. All the eggs you can use to make egg salad. All the eggs that have goodies in them.

Be like the ‘akakeke this morning. Find all the things!

by Eric Anderson

I tell two stories on Easter Sunday. I told this one just before the keiki began the annual Easter Egg hunt, where it is really important to find all the eggs. For the record, they did!

This story was not recorded.

Story: The Colt

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 1 Comment

March 29, 2026

Philippians 2:5-11
Matthew 21:1-11

Today’s story doesn’t take place in the forests of Hawai’i. Nor does it take place in our time. It starts in a small village not far from Jerusalem, and it takes place on a day we’re familiar with because we celebrate it each year.

Surprise! It’s Palm Sunday.

He was a very young donkey. He’d only lived in one place, and he’d only really experienced one other creature, and that was his mother. He drank his milk and experimented with grass and hay and basically thought that life was pretty good, if a little dull.

On that day, however, a couple strangers came by and began to untie his halter and his mother’s halter from the fence. “What’s going on?” he asked his mother, who understood human language better than he did.

“These men say that the Lord needs us,” she said with some surprise.

“What does that mean?” he wondered, and his mother didn’t know, either.

Mystified, they followed the two strangers to a group of strangers. They put cloaks over his mother’s back and over his back, and then one of them sat on his mother while his friends cheered.

“What’s going on?” he asked his mother in some fright.

“They’ve asked us to carry Jesus to the city,” said his mother. “Just walk by me and everything will be fine.”

Off they went. One of the men led his mother along the road, though she seemed to know where she was going anyway. He trotted alongside – his legs were shorter than his mother’s, so he had to go faster to keep up.

As they made their way down a hill, other people began to gather along the road. They began to shout at Jesus and his companions. Some of them took their cloaks off and laid them on the road in front of the two donkeys. Others had taken branches from the trees and were waving them in the air as they shouted. Some of the leaves covered the road and the cloaks, and as the donkeys’ hooves stepped on them, they made a lovely scent rise.

“What are they saying?” he asked his mother, a little frightened by all the shouting.

“Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord,” said his mother with wonder in her voice. “And they’re calling, ‘Help us! Save us!’”

The little donkey didn’t know how they were going to do that. He didn’t even know how he was going to help his mother carry Jesus. Abruptly, he knew that the thing he wanted most in the world, in fact, was to help his mother carry Jesus. He nuzzled up to her side.

“Let me help,” he said plaintively.

She said nothing at all, because Jesus reached over and rested his hand on the little one’s head. Just his hand. It didn’t weigh much at all. Jesus even scratched him behind the ears a little. But he proudly carried that hand along the way, through the city gates, and up the streets as the crowds grew and kept calling out in joy and with need:

“Help us! Save us! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories in full ahead of time, but I tell them from memory (and a certain amount of improvisation). The story as you read it is not necessarily as I told it.

The image is The Entry of Christ into Jerusalem by Master of Maderuelo (12th cent.) – photographed by Zambonia 2011-09-29, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=17158568.

Story: Late

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 3 Comments

March 22, 2026

Ezekiel 37:1-14
John 11:1-45

The Manu-o-Ku chick was hungry. Of course he was hungry. Mom and Dad had fed him, then flown off to find more food. He sat on the branch where he’d hatched, and waited for them to come back.

He was hungry.

He got hungrier. The sun kept moving across the sky, but as it did no white wings appeared. He saw no black beaks carrying fish. There were plenty of other birds about, but not the ones he looked for.

He was hungry.

He was hungrier.

Where were they? They were clearly late. When you’re hungry, a late meal is the next one you have, because you want to eat when you’re just starting to be hungry, and not when you’ve been hungry for a while.

He’d been hungry for a while. At least so it seemed to him.

The sun really wasn’t moving that fast across the sky, but it was moving. He shuffled along the branch for a bit and that didn’t help. Now he was hungry in a slightly different place. It wasn’t really any different from being hungry in the place he’d been.

Where were his parents?

The ocean wasn’t that far away. He could hear the waves breaking sometimes. How far did you have to fly to find fish in the ocean? He didn’t know. He couldn’t fly yet.

What if they had to fly to a completely different island to find fish? That didn’t make sense, but sometimes when you’re hungry, you think things that don’t make sense.

Where were his parents? Did they get lost? Were they feeding some other chick? Had they decided that he was too much trouble?

No, he was sure they were coming back. If they could. If they hadn’t been blown off somewhere by a high wind…

He was so hungry.

He closed his eyes to focus on worrying and feeling sorry for himself and feeling hungry.

He opened his eyes a moment later to the sound of fluttering wings and the scrape of claws on bark. It was his mother. She had food for him. She was late – at least as far as he was concerned – but she was there.

But she didn’t have a fish for him.

She had two fish.

Not one, but two. She’d fished a bit longer to fill him up a little more.

He ate the first fish, and he felt less hungry. Then he ate the second fish, and he felt very good indeed.

“Thanks for being late, Mom,” he said. She gave him a funny look.

“Thank you for bringing two fish,” he said.

“Of course, son. You’re welcome,” she said, and she took off again for the next fish she’d bring back to him.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories in full ahead of time, but I tell them from memory and inspiration. The story as I wrote it and as I told it are not precisely the same.

Photo of a Manu-o-Ku parent delivering two fish to a chick by Eric Anderson.

Story: Visible

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 3 Comments

March 15, 2026

1 Samuel 16:1-13
Ephesians 5:8-14

‘Apapane depend on finding flowers for their nectar, and also to find the bugs that they eat, because those bugs tend to like eating the nectar. For an ‘apapane, a grove of ohi’a in blossom is like a long buffet table with all the variety they could ask for. When the trees where they are aren’t blooming, they’ll search about to find some that are.

One ‘apapane turned out to be really good at finding trees in blossom. His friends and family grew to depend on him. He’d fly about early in the morning, find a grove of lehua, and summon the rest of the flock. They’d all descend on it and merrily feast on nectar and bugs until they set off to find another good spot.

One day, as this ‘apapane was making his morning search for nectar, he found two places before he headed back to his family and friends. One of the spots was barely okay. It would do if nothing else was available. The other spot was amazing. Every tree was just dripping with blossoms. A flock could spend a couple days and not visit every flower.

He could just about taste the nectar. He started flying back, and as he did, a thought crossed his mind. What if he led everybody back to the first spot, the one that was just okay? If he did, he could go to the second spot and have it all to himself.

He got back to the flock and said, “I’ve found something! It’s not great, but it will do until something better comes along.” So they followed him – to the first little grove.

As they settled in to sip nectar and hunt bugs, he quietly flew away to the second spot and drank nectar until he overflowed.

The next day he did it again. He found two spots, and led his friends and family to the one that wasn’t as good, while he snuck off to the better one. The next day he did it again. And again.

One of his friends noticed that he wasn’t finding good groves the way he had before, and then also noticed that he went missing shortly after leading them to iffy trees. So when he slipped away she followed him to the heavily flowered grove he’d found and not shared. As he took his first deep sip of an ohi’a blossom, she landed next to him.

“Is this what you’re doing now?” she asked. “Being selfish?”

“How do you know what I’m thinking?” he demanded.

“I don’t know what you’re thinking,” she said. “I do know what you’re doing. What you’re doing is showing your friends middling spots while you save the good spots for yourself.”

“What are you going to say to the others?” he wanted to know.

“That depends on what you do tomorrow,” she said.

Early the next day, he flew off to seek for ohi’a groves. His friend watched him go, and she watched him come back. The flock followed him to a stand of ohi’a trees, and they were covered in bright red blossoms.

He perched next to his friend.

“Better?” he asked.

“Better,” she said. “I’m glad to know you’re not selfish at heart.”

“How do you know that?” he asked. “Can you read my heart?”

“Of course not,” she said, “but what you do reveals your heart. When you act selfishly, you show a selfish heart. When you share, you show a sharing heart.

“Of the two,” she added, “I prefer the sharing.”

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories in advance, but I tell them live from a combination of memory and improvisation. The story as written does not exactly match the story as told.

Photo of an ‘apapane in ohi’a blossoms by Eric Anderson.

Story: Comforter

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 2 Comments
A black and white bird standing on widely space long pink legs has its long straight black wide open.

March 8, 2026

Exodus 17:1-7
John 4:5-42

I don’t know precisely why the ae’o was upset. I don’t know whether someone had squawked something at her, or if one of the fish she caught tasted bad, or whether the sun was too hot for her that morning. I suppose she might have been frustrated by a fish that got away, or by the sun’s glare in the sky, or by a friend who forgot to say, “Hi.”

It could have been any of these things or more. For whatever reason, she was upset and she let everybody else know it.

She squealed and she squawked. Ae’o can be very loud about that. She hollered at the fish she was hunting. She hollered at the ala’e ke’oke’o in the water. She screeched at ‘auku’u and the cattle egrets and the kolea and the akekeke. To be honest she yelled at so many different birds that I can’t name them all.

She was upset and everybody knew it.

Her family couldn’t get anywhere with her. Brothers, sisters, parents, even tutus all flew over to her and asked her what was wrong. She didn’t tell them anything – she just shrieked at them without words and they unhappily retreated. They didn’t like being yelled at. They also knew that as long as she was yelling at them she wasn’t getting less upset, so they went away.

“I don’t know what to do for her,” said a brother.

“I didn’t get anywhere,” said a sister.

“She even yelled at me,” said her grandmother.

“Let me try,” said one of her friends.

“Are you sure?” asked the ae’o’s mother. “She’s just getting more upset with everybody.”

“I think there’s one thing I can try,” said the friend, and she flew to be a little closer to her upset friend.

She didn’t get very close. She just settled onto the shore and started poking at the grasses for bugs and worms. Her friend huffed, but didn’t scream.

Gradually, the friend took one or two steps at a time toward her upset friend. Each time she poked her beak down to peck at a bug. Each time she paused before taking any more steps.

Eventually the two birds were standing much closer to one another. The upset one hadn’t screeched. Her friend hadn’t said anything. She just drew a little closer to her friend, so she could see she wasn’t alone.

Two black and white birds with long straight black beaks and long pink legs stand near one another alongside a large pool of water.

Neither of them spoke for a long time. It was the upset bird who broke the silence.

“Thank you,” she said.

“You’re welcome,” said her friend.

“I’ve been so upset,” said the first bird.

“I know,” said her friend. “And you’re not alone.”

“That’s good,” said the first bird. “It’s good to know it, too.”

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories in advance and tell them from a combination of memory and improvisation. The story as I wrote it is not precisely as I told it.

Photos of ae’o (Hawaiian black-necked stilts) by Eric Anderson.