Stories

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.

Story: The Fast and the Futile

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 3 Comments
A bird in flight, wings spread wide. The bird coloring is mostly brown.

March 1, 2026

Romans 4:1-5, 13-17
John 3:1-17

Saltiness, sweetness, bitterness, and sourness. Those are the four senses of the human tastebuds. I’ve told stories about the first three over the last three weeks. Shall we go for sour?

Let’s go for sour.

He was the fasted akekeke in his generation (the English name is ruddy turnstone, and there is some reddishness in their brown feathers, and they do turn stones when looking for food). Yes, the fastest akekeke in his generation, and everybody knew it.

After hatching and fledging he’d quickly begun winning races among his siblings and cousins and friends in Alaska. They’d made a short journey to the shoreline where they’d munched on crabs and fish and snails before making the long flight to Hawai’i. That had been his first time, so even though he could fly very fast, he stayed with the other birds and they arrived on the island together.

But as spring approached and the return to Alaska, he started to think about winning.

“I’m going to win the race,” he announced to his friends and cousins.

“What race?” they asked.

“The race back to Alaska,” he said. “I’m going to win.”

“There’s a race?” they said, and they looked at one another in confusion.

“And I’m going to win,” he said firmly, and leaped into the air to practice.

“What are you talking about, son?” asked his father later on. “What race are you flying in?”

“The race to Alaska,” said the young bird. “I’m going to win.”

“But there’s no race,” said his father. “We just fly to the same place.”

“What good is that?” said the fastest akekeke in his generation. “There has to be a race. And I’m going to win.”

And that was that. His father, his mother, his sisters and brothers, his tutus, his cousins, his friends: Nobody could convince him that there wasn’t a race, that there wasn’t anything to win.

“I’m going to win the race,” he insisted.

When the day came for the akekeke to begin their flight to Alaska, he was among the first to take to the sky. He pressed on hard, and rapidly drew to the front of the flock, then beyond it. He was the fastest flyer in his generation, after all.

It wasn’t long before he couldn’t make out the other birds behind him. He was alone in the sky. He was confident, though, that he knew where he was going, and he was also right. He did. It was a long tiresome journey, but he made a successful landing on the Alaskan shores and began hunting for food.

He’d won.

But as he satisfied his hunger, he realized that another hunger remained unsatisfied. He’d won, but there was no celebration. There was nobody there. He was the only akekeke on a long empty beach. He was lonely. It was a sour victory.

It took quite some time before the other akekeke began arriving. It took longer for his father to find him. “How was your race?” he asked his son.

“The flight was all right,” he said, “but you’re right. It wasn’t a race.”

“The victory wasn’t what you thought?” said the father.

“It was sour,” said the son.

“How about now?” asked the father, “with everybody else here?”

The son looked around at the busily feeding akekeke, and the sourness subsided. He felt good again.

“Everybody is in the same place,” he told his father. “We’ve all won.”

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories ahead of time, but I tell them from a combination of memory and improvisation. On this day, for example, one of the youngsters raced up to the front, which was a little unfortunate given the theme of the story.

Photo of an akekeke in flight by Eric Anderson.

Story: The Crunchiness of Life

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 6 Comments

February 22, 2026

Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7
Matthew 4:1-11

Saltiness, sweetness, and yes, I’m visiting another one of the taste buds. I’m afraid it’s bitterness. That’s not a favorite for many people.

Now, coffee drinkers do tend to like some bitterness to it, but the birds of the mountain forests don’t drink coffee. Instead, they drink nectar, and as I mentioned last week, nectar is basically sugar, so it’s sweet. ‘Apapane and ‘amakihi both like the nectar of ohi’a and koa and mamane and lots of other flowers and flowering trees of the forest, as well as some of the fruits.

Those trees don’t flower all at the same time, and they don’t flower all the time, so the birds have to move to and fro to find the ones in blossom. If you’ve got wings to fly with, that’s not so bad, but when those birds can’t find flowers, they look for other sources of food. Mostly, that’s bugs and spiders.

To which I say, yuck.

As it happened, so did an ‘amakihi.

Plenty of birds, ‘apapane and ‘amakihi and others, like the taste of bugs. They like the flavor. They like the crunch. Best of all, they like the way that after they eat some, they don’t feel hungry, which is a very good thing.

This ‘amakihi didn’t like feeling hungry, it’s true. Unfortunately, he really didn’t like the crunchiness of a bug meal. And he didn’t like the flavor at all.

“It’s bitter,” he complained.

“It’s not that bad,” said a friend.

“I rather like it,” said another friend.

“Yuck,” said our ‘amakihi. “It’s bitter and nectar is so much better. I don’t want to deal with a crunchy life.” So he flew off to look for flowers.

It was a bad day for nectar. Most of the trees were in seed, not flower. The trees that did have flowers also tended to have grumpy i’iwi in them who’d chase him away. He’d get a sip or two from a lonely flower on a lonely tree, then fly off again, sometimes with an i’iwi behind him.

It was a bad day for nectar, and it was a bad day for him.

Sitting on an ohi’a branch, he spotted a spider’s web. That had made for a bad day for some bugs, but now the ‘amakihi was hungry enough that he’d manage the bitterness. He poked his beak about until the spider came out, and a moment later he’d eaten it, bitter crunch and all.

“Yuck,” he said, but his heart wasn’t in it. That bit of food inside him made him feel so much better, so much better than he’d expected. He found another spiderweb and another spider, and he caught a couple of flying bugs as well.

“How are things going?” asked one of those friends he’d flown away from a couple hours before when he went to search for nectar. “Did you find what you were looking for?”

“Not really,” he said. “I didn’t find many flowers, and the ones I found were claimed by i’iwi who chased me away. I found something better, though.”

“What’s that?” asked his friends.

“I can deal with the bitter when I have to,” he told them. “I can hold on until a better day. I can appreciate being fed even when it’s not so sweet. I can even savor the crunchiness of life.”

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories in full, but I tell them from memory and from interaction. The story as you read it does not match the way I told it.

Photo of an ‘amakihi (and a spider) by Eric Anderson.

Story: Finding Sweetness

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 2 Comments

February 15, 2026

Exodus 24:12-18
Matthew 17:1-9

Last week it was saltiness. This week it’s sweetness. We’re making our way around the taste buds, I guess. I don’t actually have plans to visit sourness or bitterness, but who knows?

An i’iwi was having a hard time. They’re used to sipping nectar from ohi’a flowers and koa flowers and mamane flowers and lots of other flowers, and nectar is basically flower sugar. It’s pretty sweet. It does change, though, a little like the way that some oranges are sweeter than others. It’s got to do with the rainfall or lack of it, and the soil nourishment, and lots of other things that I don’t know about and the i’iwi doesn’t know about and the tree might know about but trees don’t talk about that sort of thing very much.

In any case, the i’iwi wasn’t finding much in the way of sweet nectar. Nectar, yes. Enough to keep her from getting hungry, yes. Sweetness that satisfied: not so much.

So she went looking for sweetness.

It’s not uncommon for the nectar-feeding birds of the mountains to fly about looking for nectar. She had a somewhat different agenda, though: sweeter nectar, and not just nectar. For whatever reasons, though, the nectars she sampled tasted much the same: a little dry, a little bland. She could eat it, but she really wanted something better. It was the difference between your grandmother’s chocolate chip cookie, and the cookie you ate the reminds you how much better grandmother’s chocolate chip cookies are.

She didn’t find it.

She was sitting grumpily on a branch complaining about this to her mother. I’iwi can be pretty good at being grumpy birds, and she was putting in the practice to get really good at it. Her mother, I must say, wasn’t a particularly grumpy bird and didn’t want to be.

“So you want to find sweetness?” she asked her daughter. “Where have you looked?”

Her daughter described her flights up the mountain, and down the mountain, and along the slopes of the mountain, and how the nectar just wasn’t what she wanted or hoped for.

“Those are the only places you checked?” said mother.

“Where else?” said the daughter. “I could fly farther but will that work out any better?”

“I don’t know,” said her mother, “especially because I think you can find sweetness much closer to home.”

“Where?” demanded her daughter. “Where is there sweetness here?”

“There’s the warmth of the sun on your feathers,” said her mother, “and the sound of the rain on the leaves. There’s the scent of mamane on the wind, the great blue of the clear sky, and the dramatic greys of the cloudy sky.”

“Those are ordinary things!” her daughter protested.

“Well, there’s also the way your father loves you, and your grandparents love you, and the way I love you,” mother said. “Is that ordinary?”

“It is,” said the daughter, “but it’s special, too.”

“Best of all,” said mother, “is the sweetness that’s inside you. It goes with you wherever you fly. You never have to worry that it will run out. Even when no one is around, even in the coldest, darkest night, even when none of the trees are in blossom, there is sweetness in your heart.”

“You helped put it there,” said her daughter.

“Sip that sweetness when you need to, daughter,” said her mother. “Sip it and be refreshed.”

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories ahead of time, but I tell them from memory and improvisation. The story as you have read it is not identical to the way I told it.

Photo of an i’iwi by Eric Anderson.

Story: The Salty Koa’e ‘Ula

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 4 Comments

February 8, 2026

Isaiah 58:1-12
Matthew 5:13-20

Salt is a funny thing. Your body, my body, pretty much every body of every person and every creature needs some salt. Without salt, we get sick. On the other hand, if we have too much salt, we also get sick. Not too much, not too little. That’s the way to do it.

Most of the birds, including yellow-billed cardinals, manage to get the right amount of salt just by what they eat. Seeds have a little salt. So do berries. But every once in a while things don’t go the same way, and one yellow-billed cardinal found himself feeling hungry in a very odd way.

He was hungry for salt.

Personally, I’m rarely hungry for salt itself. I’m not likely to go find a salt shaker and sprinkle some on my tongue. I mean, yuck. Put salt on fried potatoes, though, or popcorn, or…

Well. Let’s just say I’ll eat those up.

Nobody was going to make popcorn or French fries for a yellow-billed cardinal, especially one who couldn’t cook. He hopped around the shore looking for salt, and although there was plenty of it in the ocean, he wasn’t about to drink salt water. He already knew from painful experience that he’d get sick from that.

To his amazement, as he looked, he saw white crystals glistening on the rocks, and even on some of the leaves of the bushes. He thought at first it might be salt left by ocean spray, but it was too far from the breaking waves. Regardless, he pecked a couple of those crystals, and felt much better, even if he did feel pretty thirsty from it.

He didn’t know where it came from, but from time to time when he got hungry for salt again, it was there.

In the meantime, overhead flew the koa’e ‘ula, who spend much of their time far out to sea where there’s too much salt in the water and, for that matter, in the fish that they eat. One of them, in fact, had just had a good long drink of sea water with more salt in it than was good for her.

Unlike the yellow-billed cardinal on the shore below, she could take in more salt because her body could get rid of the excess. Something like tears, salt crystals formed along her beak and sprinkled down on the ground below, where a salt-hungry bird might pick them up.

Neither the koa’e ‘ula nor the yellow-billed cardinal knew anything about the other. Neither of them thought much about it, in fact, but one of them was doing something really important for the other, and didn’t know it.

The same is true of us. Jesus called us the salt of the earth, and he meant that we help other people live and thrive. Sometimes we know we’re doing it, but sometimes we don’t. Just like the koa’e ‘ula, we do ordinary things in our ordinary lives, and someone else lives better because of it.

May we always be the salt of the earth.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories ahead of time, but I tell them from a combination of memory and improvisation. As a result, the story as I wrote it does not match the story as I told it.

Photos of a yellow-billed cardinal and a koa’e ‘ula by Eric Anderson.

Story: The Bright Oma’o

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 3 Comments

February 1, 2026

Micah 6:1-8
Matthew 5:1-12

Lots of the Hawaiian forest birds are bright with color. Think about the ‘amakihi and the ‘ahiapola’au with their bright yellow feathers, or the ‘apapane in red and black, or the i’iwi that adds a bright orange bill and orange legs to all those red feathers. That’s a lot of colorful birds flying about the mountain forests.

It has to be said that they also fly around quite a bit. Since they mostly sip nectar and eat nectar-eating bugs, they go from flower to flower pretty quickly, not pausing for very long. When there’s not a lot of nectar in any given flower, you’ve got to visit a lot of flowers for a meal.

The oma’o is different. The oma’o’s gray and brown feathers match the trunks and branches of the trees. It eats lots of fruits, such as the ‘olapa berries in this photo, so it doesn’t fly around as much. Oma’o are enthusiastic and talented singers, rather like the ‘apapane. It even has a call that, to me, sounds like they’re singing, “Oma’o!”

One oma’o, though got to feeling bad about being so gray and so settled. “You should get out more!” sang the ‘apapane as they flew past. “You should be yellow!” shouted the ‘amakihi as they hopped along nearby branches. “You should be red and black!” said an i’iwi as it chased some ‘apapane away.

“Maybe I should,” said this oma’o.

He tried, in fact, to change this. He started with what was easy. He flew about more, flitting from tree to tree. He didn’t really have much idea about how to eat nectar, but he focused on the nectar-eating bugs for a while. That kept him busy, but it also kept him hungry, so he’d return to the ‘olapa trees from time to time and perch and pluck berry after berry until he realized he’d been stationary for “too long” (whatever “too long” meant) and leaped into the air again.

Getting colorful was harder. As far as he could tell, his feathers were the color they were and weren’t going to change. He supposed he could dye them, but his experiments with ‘akala, the Hawaiian raspberry, washed off in the next rain, and hadn’t made him very colorful anyway. He took to following ‘apapane around (i’iwi were too grumpy for this) and picking up feathers that they dropped. Then he’d carefully place them among his own feathers. Feathers have little hooks in them, so this worked better than you’d think, but not much better. They fell out nearly every time he took off, and remember, he had to fly a lot to be like the honeycreepers.

“Grandson, what are you doing?” his grandfather asked one day, having observed the frequent flying and the phony feathers for a couple days.

“I’m trying to be bright,” the younger one said. “I’m trying to show some energy and some color in the forest.”

“Whatever for?” asked his grandfather.

“Because all these other birds look so good, and seem to eat so well, and sing so well, too. I want to be like them.”

“You mean, you want to be happy and well fed? You want to sing with a full heart and a full stomach?”

“Right. Just like that.”

“Now grandson,” said the grandfather, “have you been doing that?”

Of course he hadn’t. He’d been flying about eating things that didn’t satisfy him. He’d been singing sad songs about the colorful feathers that kept dropping away.

“Go perch on some ‘olapa and get filled up,” said grandfather, “and then settle down for a bit and sing the song that’s in your heart. See if doesn’t match the ‘apapane’s song or even do better.”

He’d been foolish, but the younger oma’o recognized wisdom when he heard it. He at some ‘olapa and he perched on its branches for a while. Then he opened his beak and shared his wondrous song.

Like the poor in spirit, like the meek, he was blessed, and shared blessing.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories in full ahead of time, but I tell them from memory (plus improvisation). The story you just read does not precisely match the way I told it.

Photo of an oma’o eating ‘olapa by Eric Anderson.

Story: The Fishing Game

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 4 Comments

January 25, 2026

Isaiah 9:1-4
Matthew 4:12-23

One of the things that humans do, you’ve probably noticed, is play games. Sometimes they’re running around games, sometimes they’re tossing things back and forth games, sometimes they’re sit around the table and hope you get to move the number of spaces you want to move games. Sometimes they’re quiet. Sometimes they’re noisy. Hopefully they’re fun, because after all, that’s the point.

Humans aren’t only ones who play games. Lots of creatures do. We see it all the time, and probably sometimes without realizing that they’re playing a game. Even when we do recognize that they’re playing, we may not understand the rules.

Some ae’o – that’s the Hawaiian black-necked stilt – were organizing a game and no, I’ve never understood the rules. I know it had something to do with fishing and something to do with cooperating and beyond that, I’m at a loss. It doesn’t matter to this story, though, because this story is about getting the teams together for the game. Which needed teams. You’ve probably had to put together teams for a game, right?

It can be hard to do.

The two ae’o who were recruiting the teams had very different approaches. One of them basically flew and waded and strutted around and screeched at the ae’o that he wanted to be on his team. “You’re on my team! Get over there!” he’d call, usually without indicating where “there” was, and always without asking if they wanted to be part of the game or not. Some of them did want to play, it’s true, and a few wanted to be on his team, but fewer of them wanted to be on his team when they’d been screeched at like that, and even some of those who did want to be on his team couldn’t figure out where the team was gathering, so that didn’t work very well, either.

The other ae’o, it must be said, took more time at it. She went up to each bird, told them she was putting together a team, and asked them if they wanted to play. If they did, she asked them if they wanted to be on her team. And if they did, she invited them to come along with her while she went to ask the next bird. By the time her team was complete, she was being followed by a trail of ae’o, all of them ready to play the game.

The other team leader had finished screeching, but didn’t actually have a full team. Some were lost. Some had said no. And some had decided they had better things to do than be screeched at while playing a game.

Games are supposed to be fun. Which group of ae’o do you think had more fun?

Being a follower of Jesus is supposed to be a blessing. How do you think you might encourage people to follow Jesus?

This is just me thinking, but I think it would look a lot more like what that second ae’o did: one at a time, gently and lovingly, and with a growing flock behind to show that yes, this is how you can find blessing.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories in advance, but I tell them from memory combined with inspiration. The text above does not precisely match the story as I told it.

Photo of an ae’o screeching by Eric Anderson.