Stories

Story: Dive or Skim

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 2 Comments

October 23, 2022

Psalm 84:1-7
Luke 18:9-14

It’s a funny thing. The koa’e kea – the white-tailed tropicbird – and the noio – the black noddy – eat basically the same foods. They like small fish, they like squid. But they catch their food in very different ways. One koa’e kea had noticed this.

“That,” he said to another koa’e kea, “is disgusting.”

“What is?” she asked. The two were flying out to their fishing grounds from the ledges of Kilauea.

“Them,” said the first, “those noio. Watch them crowd together. Why can’t they hunt alone? There’s a horde of them fishing there. Then the noise. Every last one of them is screeching and calling. They’re flying low, and any bird should know that you can’t spot fish if you’re not high over the water. And most of all“ – he shuddered even as he was flying – “they don’t even know how to do a proper dive.”

“Really?” asked his friend. “What do they do?”

“Watch,” said the first, and they watched as noio after noio skimmed low over the water. The surface of the ocean rippled with the movement of the small fish beneath it. The noio dipped their beaks into the water, seized a fish without landing, and flew on as they swallowed.

“They don’t even pause on the surface to properly appreciate their meal,” he moaned.

“Aren’t there big fish down there, too?” asked his friend, who had noticed larger forms deeper in the water.

“Ahu,” said the koa’e kea, “skipjack tuna. They’re chasing the same fish as the noio. I don’t know why they’re not all crashing into one another, and why none of those noio have become lunch for an ahu.”

They watched the chaotic scene for a while, and then the second koa’e kea said, “You know, it seems to work.”

“What?” he said.

“With those ahu around, the small fish are closer to the surface,” she said, “and with so many birds in the air you wouldn’t want to pause on the surface. From all I can tell from here, none of them look like they’ll go hungry.”

“Do you want to fish like a noio?” he demanded.

“No, I’d rather dive from a good height,” she said, “and I’d rather not have a lot of other birds about because I’d crash into one when I’m diving. I’m not eager to run into an ahu under water, and one of my dives might get down to where they are. I can’t call the noio disgusting, though,” she continued. “They’re living, and thriving, and happy, and fed. That’s a pretty good life for a seabird, don’t you think?”

I don’t know for certain whether she’d convinced him, because he didn’t say anything more as they flew out to their own fishing grounds farther from shore. I’ll call her wise, though, to recognize that there’s more than one way to live a good life as a seabird, and to appreciate a seabird who does things differently.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

The story is told from memory of this manuscript. That is enough to cause some differences. Today, there was another presentation before the story, and, well, you’ll just have to see it to believe it.

Photo of a noio in flight (though not actually skimming the surface) by Eric Anderson.

Story: The Pueo that Caught a Pig

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 5 Comments

October 16, 2022

Genesis 32:22-31
Luke 18:1-8

As you know, there are birds and animals that don’t eat meat, and there are birds and animals that eat entirely meat, and there are birds and animals that eat either one, depending on what they find. Most of the meat-eating animals have a similar strategy about what they eat. They tend to look for something to eat that is smaller than they are. If that sounds a little bit like bullying, well, I think that’s where bullying comes from. I wish we could think of other people as people, and not as “this is someone I can bully.”

There are a few creatures that do hunt for animals larger than they are. The pueo is not one of them. The pueo flies about over the grasslands and looks for smaller things: mice, small birds, more mice, more small birds… basically, lunch.

This is the story of the pueo that caught a pig.

He didn’t mean to. He was distracted in his flying that day. Everything was nice and clear and there wasn’t a lot of wind. He wasn’t hunting with his full attention; he was mostly daydreaming in the air. Still, when he saw some grass move out of the corner of his eye, he was on it in a flash. Movement in the grass meant a mouse or a small bird. Movement in the grass meant lunch.

In this case, however, what it meant was a napping pig whose ear had just flicked at a fly and moved the grass. The pueo only discovered his mistake when he’d grabbed the pig by the top of her head. All the dreaminess of soaring about the sky vanished in a flash, as the pig woke up, felt the pueo on her head, and dashed off in a panic.

The pueo didn’t know what to do, so he hung on.

The pig tossed her head and tried to use her front feet to knock the pueo off her head, but her legs were too short. She threw her head from side to side as she ran so that one moment the pueo was pulled left and the next pulled right.

The pueo hung on. Dust was flying from beneath the pig’s feet but so were feathers from the pueo’s body. The sensible thing to do might have been to fly away, but there were so many feathers in the air that he wasn’t sure he could control his flight, and if he once fell underneath the pig’s feet that wouldn’t be good at all. As for the pig, if she’d thought about it, she could have rolled over and forced the pueo to let go, but she was startled and frightened and panicked, so she didn’t think of it.

This went on for some time until the pig ran out of energy and stopped, trembling. The pueo’s feet were tense and cramped and he still didn’t dare let go.

“Who are you?” said the pig, “Why did you do this?”

“I thought you were a mouse,” said the pueo, knowing that this sounded silly as he said it.

“What do you want?” said the pig.

“I want to go home,” said the pueo. “And I’d like to go home without your footprints in my feathers.”

“I’d like to go home without your claw marks on my head,” said the pig, “but I’m not getting what I want.”

“I’m going home without a lot of feathers,” said the pueo. “I’m not even sure I can fly.”

“What if,” said the pig, “we both get what we want? I want you off my head, and you want to be off my head, don’t you?”

“That would be best,” agreed the pueo.

The pig walked over to a larger rock, one that rose above her head. The pueo, with some difficulty, unclenched his feet and stepped cautiously onto the rock, then hurried up to its top. The pig looked up at him. He was too high for her to reach.

“Thanks for bringing me to a safer place,” he said.

“Thanks for getting off my head,” she said. “Don’t do it again.”

“I won’t,” he said. “I’ll make every effort to avoid it.”

She went home with some scratches. He went home without a few feathers, ones that would have to grow back before his flying was at its best. They went home having given one another the thing they wanted most: an opportunity for peace.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

The story was told from memory of this prepared text. And so… it’s not the same.

Photo of a pueo in flight by Forest & Kim Starr, CC BY 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=6167276.

Story: Details, Details

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 3 Comments

October 9, 2022

2 Kings 5:1-3, 7-15c
Luke 17:11-19

The three ‘amakihi chicks had emerged from their eggs over the course of a day, and they promptly set out to do what newly hatched chicks do: they grew. Mother and father brought them food and cleaned the nest and did the things that ‘amakihi parents do. After a couple of weeks, they set out to teach them to fly.

This turned out to be complicated.

The three stepped up out of the nest along a branch and took their positions, ready to fly. “Get your wings ready!” called mother, and that’s where the instruction began. Two of the chicks extended their wings, but the third on the branch just looked confused. “How do I get my wings ready?” he asked.

Mother and father both extended their wings and spread the feathers along them. The first two chicks had been pretty close, though not perfect. The third one hadn’t apparently been paying attention to seeing his parents fly. It took a while, but he got those wings out and open and spread.

“Now open up your tail feathers,” said father. This time was the turn of the second chick to look confused. “Tail feathers?” she asked, as her two brothers both their tails into the shape of a fan. Father and mother demonstrated, and finally her tail took the proper shape.

Everybody managed to get the next section of the flight lesson, hopping up and down and doing some gentle wing flaps. All three managed to get in more and more wings beats before settling back down onto the branch again.

“Very good,” said mother. “The last thing to remember as we take your first flight to that branch over there” (she pointed with her beak) “is to lift up your feet and tuck them up to your belly.”

Now it was the first chick on the branch to look confused. “Shouldn’t I leave them down to grab the branch?” he said.

“No,” said father. “Your balance will be off if you do that.”

“No,” said mother. “You’ll reach out with your feet when you’re approaching the branch.”

That last chick looked uncertain and confused, and sure enough, when he and his brother and his sister took off, his legs weren’t properly tucked up. They flew fairly straight to the branch their mother had showed them, but he veered wildly up and down and from side to side before seizing that branch a good distance from his brother and sister. All of them were panting, but he was panting the hardest.

“That’s a good start,” said mother.

“This is really complicated!” wailed the chick who hadn’t tucked his feet up. “Really complicated,” said the sister whose tail was still working at stretching out.” “There’s so many things to remember,” complained the chick who hadn’t known to stretch out his wings.

“It’s all little things,” said father, “but you’re right. There are a lot of little things.”

“Put the little things together,” said mother, “and you’ll fly with safety and delight.”

It’s the little things, and the little things put together, that make us able to do the big things, like flying, and friendship, and love.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

Technical problems today have delayed the availability of the video, and unfortunately there were audio problem with the recording. You’ll notice that the volume is very low at the beginning of the story and gets much more audible about half way through, at 12:55. We regret the errors.

And, of course, the story as told is not quite the same as the story as written.

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=74674211.

Story: Filled by God

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 2 Comments

October 2, 2022

Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4
Luke 17:5-10

A myna and a saffron finch got interested in human religion. What can I say? People who pray are fascinating. They perched outside churches on Sundays and they listened to the things people were saying and sometimes they even chirped along with the music.

They found communion a bit difficult to understand.

“I was at one church,” said the myna, “and at one point during worship everybody got up from their seats, stood in line to come up to the front, and ate a cookie.”

“A cookie?” said the saffron finch. “That sounds rather nice. I saw people taking pieces from a loaf of bread and dipping it in a cup. When it came out it was purple. Then they ate it.”

“Soggy bread?” asked the myna. “The cookie sounds better. But come to think of it, I’ve seen people dip little wafer cookies in a cup, too.”

“Sometimes the one up front drinks from a big cup,” observed the saffron finch.

“And sometimes everybody gets little cups,” said the myna.

“At this one church in Hilo,” said the saffron finch, “everybody gets a little baggie with a cup of juice and a square of something soft.”

“Bread?” asked the myna.

“We could hope it’s candy,” said the saffron finch.

“But what does it all mean?” asked the myna, and they thought about it.

“They’re sharing in a meal,” said the saffron finch slowly.

“It’s a pretty small one, for humans,” observed the myna.

“And they do have something to drink, and it’s pretty nearly always purple,” said the saffron finch, “and they do it together, even if they have to line up for it.”

“They always look like they’re prayerful, too,” said the myna, “as if God is right there in the bread and the cup.”

“They say that, too,” said the saffron finch. “This is the body of Christ, they say.”

“Perhaps,” said the myna, “this is a part of worship where they take in the blessings.”

“Perhaps,” said the saffron finch, “this is a part of worship where they stop talking to be nourished by God.”

I have to say that for two birds watching from outside, they did pretty well. Communion is when we remember Jesus’ gift to us in a way he told us to do: remembering his body in the bread, and remembering his blood in the cup. Communion is when we literally take those blessings inside ourselves by eating and drinking bread and wine (I’m afraid the myna was wrong about the cookies). Communion is when we Christians stop talking for a moment and let ourselves be filled by God.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I tell these stories in worship from memory of this manuscript – and between my memory and my affection for improvisation, things change.

Photo of a myna by Eric Anderson.

Story: The Hardest Thing

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 2 Comments

September 25, 2022

Jeremiah 32:1-3a, 6-15
Psalm 91:1-6, 14-16

They were an unusual collection of friends. They literally came from different parts of the world: from land, from sea, and from air, a mongoose, a honu, and a kolea. I don’t know how it first happened, but they’d developed the habit of taking a spot on a beach, with the honu pulled up in the sun, and the kolea looking for tidbits, and the mongoose taking a brief rest while the three talked story.

Today they were deciding what was the hardest thing.

“Rocks are the hardest thing,” shuddered the mongoose. “They hurt my paws sometimes, and a couple times when I wasn’t careful I knocked my head on one. Rocks are definitely the hardest thing.”

“Rocks are pretty hard,” agreed the honu, “but they also make nice shelter when the waves are high. You just nestle in behind them.”

“I fell into water once,” said the kolea. “I have to say it was pretty hard.”

“That’s right,” said the honu. “Water is the hardest thing. When the waves are crashing over me or the undercurrent is pulling me away from the beach, I’m grateful for the rocks. They don’t do that.”

“You haven’t tried the air,” said the kolea. “That’s a hard thing for sure. This last flight here to Hawai’i Island, I wasn’t sure I’d make it. We flew into winds that just blew us back and back and back. I can’t imagine anything harder than that.”

The three of them thought about this for a good long time, tossing in more examples of how rocks and water and air were hard things, when the honu said, “I’m hungry.” His two friends agreed.

They were about to split up to find dinner, when the mongoose said, “Wait just a moment. Wait just a moment and let’s think about this moment.

“Do either of you know that you’ll find food? I mean, absolutely know?”

The honu and the kolea admitted that they didn’t, although the kolea took a quick look around for a handy bug before saying so.

“In this moment, we’re all hungry, we all need food, right? And none of us are certain that we’ll find it.”

“Yes,” said the honu, “but we hope we’ll find it.”

“Right,” said the kolea, “we hope we’ll find it.”

“But isn’t this the hardest thing?” asked the mongoose. “We know what we need now and we don’t know if we can find it – not for certain. We hope we will… but doesn’t that make hope the hardest thing?”

That’s how a mongoose, a kolea, and a honu discovered that hope – that time we spend between realizing what we need and finding what we need – is, indeed, the hardest thing. Hope carries us from one to the other, but it may not be an easy journey, and it’s harder than high winds or strong waves or a solid rock.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

In the video above, the story was told from memory of this manuscript. Between gaps of memory and flashes of inspiration, the two are not the same.

Photo of a honu (before the arrival of a mongoose or a kolea) by Eric Anderson.

Story: World of Weeping

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 1 Comment

September 18, 2022

Jeremiah 8:18-9:1
Psalm 79:1-9

Up on Kilauea, where people look out over the great crater/caldera at the summit, a little girl was crying as if her heart would break. Why? Well, it probably had something to do with a trip and a fall and some bruised knees, and maybe because a favorite stuffed animal was all dusty. There were tears running through the dirt on her face.

This story is not about her, however, even if it starts with her. It is about a young koa’e kea, a white-tailed tropicbird, that was resting on a small ledge in the cliff just below the little girl and her family. She’d never heard such a sound before. She leapt into the air and circled about, watching the little human and her family as they comforted her, brushed the dirt from the stuffed animal, and headed away.

The young koa’e kea found her father had joined her circling. “What was that all about?” she asked.

“That was crying,” he said. “Creatures cry when they’re unhappy or in distress.”

“What a horrible noise,” she said, “and those drops of water from the eyes!”

Her father watched the human father who was carrying the little girl in his arms by this point and said, “It seems to work. A lot of creatures have their own version of tears.”

“I’ll never do anything of the kind,” announced the koa’e kea daughter firmly.

“Never?” asked the father.

“Never,” said the daughter.

“Hm,” said the father. “Fly with me for a little bit.”

The first thing they saw in their loops about the island was a mother pig and some piglets. One of the little ones had wandered into a thicket and got turned around, and he was squalling for his family. The sow heard him, found him, and herded him off to join the rest of the family.

The next thing they saw was an old ohi’a tree creaking in the wind. You and I wouldn’t say it was crying, exactly, but there was a light dust floating away on the breeze as the tree swayed. “Is it sad?” asked the young koa’e kea.

“Just a little,” said her faither. “It’s struggling to keep growing where it is, but it has special tears. They’re seeds, and even if this tree can’t grow, perhaps some of its seeds can.”

They flew about the cliffsides until they heard another sound. It was a koa’e kea nest, and the chick in it had spotted one of his parents. It cried its hunger until the mother satisfied it.

“Did I do that?” asked the young koa’e kea circling nearby.

“You did,” confirmed her father.

Last of all, they swooped and soared over the Halema’uma’u crater, watching the red lava, which was streaming from a vent in the crater side into the lava lake below.

“Is the mountain crying?” asked the young bird.

“You can say so,” said her father. “When the mountain cries, the island rises.”

“So all things weep,” said the koa’e kea.

“Maybe not all,” said her father, “but when they do, it’s usually for a reason. It helps them get through the time.”

“I guess if the rest of the world can do it,” she said, “maybe I can, too. If I need to.”

“If you need to,” said her father, and they flew off to the ocean for dinner.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

As always, Pastor Eric told this story from memory of the text above. The two versions are not the same.

Photo of a koa’e kea taken on Kilauea by Eric Anderson.

Story: Over and Around

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 1 Comment

September 11, 2022

Exodus 32:7-14
Luke 15:1-10

A few weeks ago, you might recall, I told a story about nene school. Do you remember that at all? In the story, the class got to talking while the teacher was working with one of the students. They didn’t listen when their teacher asked them to be quiet, until she got so frustrated that she flew off in a huff.

Or, well, a minute and a huff.

This story is about that same class and that same teacher, but now we’ll spend time with the young nene who was getting special instruction in flying.

The reason he needed extra help was, well, the fact that he would try anything. I mean anything. One of his early attempts at flying was to see what happened when he flapped his feet. Nene have webbed feet, to be sure, but they have less webbing between their toes than a duck does or than a Canada goose (which they resemble) does. It wouldn’t matter if they had the same amount of webbing on their feet. Ducks and geese don’t fly with their feet.

But he thought he’d give it a try. If you’re wondering how well it worked, it didn’t work well at all.

He tried flying with one wing pointing up at the sky and one wing pointing down at the ground. That was also, I must say, a crashing failure. He tried taking off by doing back flips. I’m afraid his classmates found that pretty funny, and I dare say you and I would have laughed, too. A lot of his experiments resulted in scattered feathers and, let’s be honest, strained muscles and a fascinating set of bruises (hidden beneath the feathers). Most of them ended right there on the ground where they began.

His teacher tried desperately to limit some of his ideas to things that wouldn’t lead to total disaster. Sometimes she succeeded. Sometimes she’d turn around for a moment, hear a honk and a clatter, and look around to find dust rising over another crash landing.

She had to admit, though, that he didn’t repeat his failures. If something didn’t work, he might try a variation or two on it, but he didn’t do the same thing twice. That sideways idea, for example. He tried it with the left wing up, and he tried it with the right wing up, but he didn’t try it with the left wing up a second time.

The teacher also noticed that every once in a while he found something new that she’d never seen before. One day, for example, he was flying at a good height, flipped over on his back, tucked his wings in, and pointed his beak at the ground. She watched in horror as he headed toward earth, but he pushed those wings back out again, caught the air, and leveled out going back the way he’d come. It was amazing.

“Why,” she asked him, “do you try everything when you know so many of the things you try can’t possibly work? Why don’t you follow the flying lessons nene have been using for years?”

He looked uncomfortable, as well he might (he’d just had another crash landing and the aches were settling in). “I could do that, I know,” he said, “and it would work just fine. But…”

“But what?” the teacher asked.

“But then I wouldn’t have tried everything, and I wouldn’t know about the things that nobody has tried, or nobody has passed down the word. I wouldn’t know what I can really do and what I really can’t.”

Trying everything is a hard way to do things, for sure. The good news is that trying things is a way to learn and to grow. Trying things is all about making spaces to find out who you are and what you can be.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

The story above was told live from memory of this text.

Photo by Eric Anderson.

Story: Here. Not There.

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 2 Comments

August 21, 2022

Psalm 71:1-6
Luke 13:10-17

It’s been a while since I told a story about this kind of fish. It’s called a hinalea, a cleaner wrasse – in fact, a Hawaiian cleaner wrasse – and they’re small fish that live along the reefs in somewhat deeper water.

As small fish, you’d expect they’d be hunted by larger fish for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And they are, in fact, hunted – but not as food. Despite the fact that we’re so much bigger than a mosquito, they still come and land on us and try to eat a little bit of us, right? Similar things happen to fish, and unlike mosquitoes, a lot of these pesky creatures don’t let go. After a while, a fish can have quite a lot of unwelcome passengers, all of them trying to take a nibble on them. It’s not fun.

Cleaner wrasse eat those tiny pesky irritating creatures, gently nibbling them away from the skin and scales of the larger fish. They set up spots along the reef which people call “cleaning stations,” and where the larger fish will gather for a cleaner wrasse or three to remove those little pests. It’s a nice arrangement. The large fish go away greatly relieved, and the hinalea get, well, breakfast, lunch, and dinner.

One particular school of hinalea had one of the busiest cleaning stations on the reef. The school leaders – and I know you want me to call them teachers, but a wrasse school isn’t a school, it’s a business, so the best term for school leaders is bosses – the school leaders had announced that they needed all the hinalea there at the cleaning station. No cleaning fish anywhere else.

They couldn’t clean all the time, of course. Nobody can eat all the time, despite the things you’ll sometimes hear about human teenagers. The cleaner wrasse would take a break for a while, but the only place they were allowed to clean was at the station.

One hinalea was on his break, lazily swimming along the reef and not much worried about anything, when a larger fish came along. It was an ‘uhu, a parrotfish, and it was in terrible shape. It had picked up so many pesky creatures that it was really painful. She was wandering aimlessly along the reef, unable to figure out which way she was going and where she could find a cleaning station. She spotted the lone hinalea with its bright blue and yellow and purple scales, and settled next to him.

She didn’t need to say anything. She needed help. The hinalea went to work. All alone outside the cleaning station and as covered as she was, this would take some time.

Another hinalea, one of the bosses on break, wandered over and stopped, shocked to see what he was doing. “This isn’t the cleaning station!” he said. “Stop that now!”

Our hinalea said nothing – his mouth was full. In fury, the other hinalea swam at him and chased him away from the ‘uhu, chased him all the way back to the cleaning station.

“This fish cleaned away from the cleaning station,” announced the boss. “What shall we do with him?”

The other bosses gathered menacingly. This didn’t look good at all. But just then the ‘uhu appeared and swam to the little wrasse in the center of the angry fish. “Thank you so much,” she said.

She turned to the bosses and said, “Do you know what this little one did? I had so many pests on me that I couldn’t find the cleaning station. He picked off enough of them that I could find you. I can’t tell you what would have happened if he hadn’t. I’m pretty sure you would have lost a customer.”

She looked at the hinalea again and said, “As good a job as you did, you got interrupted. Do you suppose you could finish?” And so he did.

Sometimes bosses in the world are foolish, and sometimes they are wise. This group of hinalea bosses chose wisdom that day. It remained important that everyone concentrate on the cleaning station – a lot of fish waited there – but if a hinalea on break could help get a fish to the station? That was good, and right, and important, too.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

The story above was told live from memory of this text.

Photo of two hinalea by Dr. Dwayne Meadows, NOAA/NMFS/OPR – http://www.photolib.noaa.gov/htmls/reef0662.htm, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2111807.

Story: When Nene Get Cranky

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 2 Comments

August 14, 2022

Jeremiah 23:23-29
Luke 12:49-56

It might surprise you to hear that young nene go to school. Many of us wish that their classes included one in staying away from roads that have cars moving on them, but apparently they don’t.

As you’d expect, though, they teach a lot about two of the big components of nene life. Eating and flying. They do learn about eating and flying from their parents, of course, but there’s definitely more to learn about both topics for a growing nene.

A little flock of young nene had gathered with their teacher and had just finished the eating section of the day. Eating lessons for a nene are both complicated and simple. They’re complicated because nene like to eat a lot of different things. If it’s green and its leaves are grass-shaped, they probably eat it. So there’s a lot to explore in an eating class.

What’s simple about it, of course, is that if it’s green and the leaves are grass-shaped, they’ll try to eat it.

Flying, however, is definitely an advanced topic. Nene have smaller wings for the size of their body than you’ll find on other birds. It requires effort to get that much bird off the ground. When there’s a few of them in the air, they fly carefully spaced in formation. That takes some learning. And, of course, they will pull a few special tricks from time to time, like making a barrel roll in midair.

The class this day had got pretty excited during the eating session and the young students were eagerly debating the merits of the various grasses they’d tried. Their teacher was talking with one of the young goslings who wanted some help with take-offs. As she spoke with him, the other nene got louder, and louder, and louder.

“Class, settle down,” said the teacher (I’m afraid teachers everywhere of every creature say that phrase a lot). “I’ll be right with you, and if you listen you can learn something about take-offs, too.”

They were quiet for a few moments, but rather like human students, the chatter started up again, and grew rapidly until the teacher couldn’t hear herself.

“Class, settle down!” she called.

They were quiet. For… a little bit. And despite the very helpful things she was saying about wing position on takeoff, the quickly raised the volume from a murmur to a racket.

The teacher honked in complete exasperation and shouted, “Class dismissed!” Then she flew away.

The students were shocked. This had never happened before. They looked at one another – and for once, they were silent. The one who’d been getting take-off instructions looked at them unhappily.

“Come on,” he said after a few minutes. “We need to go find her.”

They found her in a clump of ‘ohelo, taking a berry, then honking in frustration, then taking a berry. They waited until she’d slowed down on berries and on honking.

“We’re sorry,” they said.

“What are you sorry for?” she asked.

That was a question they hadn’t expected. What, after all, had they done? They weren’t sure they knew, except for the one who’d been getting take-off help.

“We’re sorry we didn’t pay attention when you were teaching us the things we want and need to learn,” he said.

“Are all of you sorry for that?” she asked.

Now that somebody had said it, they were.

You see, that’s when nene teachers get cranky: when they’re sharing the things young nene need and want to know, and the students ignore them. Fortunately, there are things that help. There’s ‘ohelo berries, of course, and a soothing turn around in the sky. Best of all, there’s the students who think to say, “I’m sorry,” and come back ready to learn.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

The story is told from an imperfect memory of this manuscript. To responsive children. The story as told is not identical to the story as written, oh, no, not for a moment it isn’t.

Photo of nene on the wing by Eric Anderson.

Story: Two Wings and a Prayer

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / Leave a comment

August 7, 2022

Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16
Luke 12:32-40

The oma’o is a fairly small bird, living on the lower slopes of the volcanoes from Hamakua to Ka’u. When you’re an oma’o chick, you’re even smaller. He hatched and grew up in a hole in a koa tree, and about the only thing he could even imagine as he looked out from the hole was:

It’s a great big world, and I’m a very small bird.

He was, of course, a very small bird, but he grew to become, well, a larger but still very small bird. The world outside was still a lot bigger than he was. He watched his parents fly back and forth to and from the nest, and wondered how they did it. Their wings seemed awfully small to carry even their small bodies. Their feet seemed awfully fragile to grip a twig. How was someone like him to have any place in a huge world like this?

Young oma’o do some experiments that lead to flying. They move their wings around and start to preen them, to settle their feathers with their beaks. They start to hop and stretch their legs in the nest – but they don’t leave the nest. In fact, after they leave the nest, they don’t come back to it. They’ll stay where their parents can find them – they still feed them for a  while – but they don’t go back to the nest.

This young oma’o, however, wasn’t sure he wanted to leave the nest. Big world. Small bird. Small wings, big air. It was a night that the winds blew hard that he came to a decision.

“No,” he told his father. “I’m staying here.”

“Very smart, son,” said his father. “It’s a nasty night. The nest is a good place for now, and it’s not a great time to take your first flight.”

“No,” said the youngster. “I mean I’m just staying here. I’m not going to leave.”

The father didn’t know what to say, so he didn’t say anything. Nor did mother when the youngster told her in the morning.

“What are you going to do just staying in the nest?” asked mother.

“What I’m doing now,” he said.

“Wouldn’t you like to fly?” asked father.

“I don’t think so,” said the child.

It was mother who settled down with him and got him to say what was going on. The world was too big. The winds were too strong. His wings were too fragile. He was too small.

Then he asked, “How do you do it, Mom?”

She thought about it. “It is a big world,” she said. “I’m a small bird. My little wings aren’t much to carry me through strong winds. But I’ve got a couple of things that carry me through it all.”

“What?”

“Well, I haven’t got one just wing. I’ve got two. With only one, I don’t think I’d get far. With two, I can get anywhere I want.”

“But how did you make that first leap of faith?” he asked.

“I just flapped my wings and hopped, and as I hopped I hoped and prayed. Suddenly my wings caught the air and I was flying.”

Without even realizing it, the young fledgling was hopping and flapping. “So a wing and a prayer?” he asked.

“Two wings and a prayer,” said his mother, “and I took my first flight – just like you’re doing now.”

Sure enough, his flapping wings had caught the air and he’d taken off on his first short flight.

“Just like that,” he marveled, “on two wings and a prayer.”

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

The story was told from memory of this manuscript text – which means that in the recording, it’s told differently.

Photo by Bettina Arrigoni – Omao | Hakalau NWR | HI|2018-12-02|13-40-46, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=75174855.