October 19, 2025

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

Where I grew up on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean, there are birds that eat worms. In fact, a lot of birds eat worms. Some of them would eat worms (and bugs, and spiders) that burrow into trees. Some of these would use their beaks to dig holes into the bark to get those caterpillars out. Some would even carve pretty big holes in the wood.

Those birds are called woodpeckers.

On our island, we don’t have woodpeckers, we have the ‘akiapola’au, and I think I’ve mentioned before that it’s a very rare bird. They only live on our island, and there are less than two thousand of them. They have a short lower beak, and they use that to dig into tree bark where caterpillars or worms might be hiding. When they find one, they use the curved top beak like a fishhook, only they’re catching the worm.

I guess you could say they use both the upper and lower beak to actually eat what they’ve caught.

One day an ‘akiapola’au caught a caterpillar, but he wasn’t alone when he did. There were several other birds around, and none of them had the unique beak of an ‘akiapola’au. Therefore they had a lot of different ideas about what the ‘akiapola’au should do with his newly caught caterpillar.

“It’s stuck on your beak,” said an ‘apapane. “You can’t eat it from there. How are you going to get it into your mouth?”

“He could put it down,” suggested an ‘amakihi, who may have said that because he was hungry and thought he could get to the caterpillar if it crawled off.

“Is it too big to eat?” asked an ‘elepaio, which isn’t a very big bird but neither is an ‘akiapola’au. “You could bite it into smaller pieces.”

“That sounds like a good idea!” said the hungry ‘amakihi, who hoped to get one of the smaller pieces.

The ‘akiapoloa’au swung the caterpillar around, using the twigs and branch to get it from the hook of his beak toward his mouth. The other birds chimed in with advice like “Left!” “Right!” “Up!” “Down!” which wasn’t very helpful.

The worst advice came from an i’iwi, whose beak curves pretty dramatically, too. “Just put the caterpillar down,” she said. “Get some flower nectar instead. I mean, yuck!”

The hungry ‘amakihi echoed her, but the ‘akiapola’au ignored them all, all except an ‘alawi, another bird that likes a menu of bugs and caterpillars, who simply said, “Hold on.”

Hold on.

The ‘akiapola’au held on as he used the twigs to get the caterpillar lined up just right, and then, well, he was a happier ‘akiapola’au because he wasn’t as hungry. He looked at the helpful ‘alawi, who was searching for a caterpillar of her own.

“When you find what you need,” he said, “hold on.”

There are plenty of things in life that it’s good to let go of. Hot pans. Mosquitoes. Sharp things. There are plenty of habits in life that it’s good to let go of. Greed. Making fun of other people. Eating too much sugar.

But when you find what you need, whether it’s the food for the body or the food for the soul, the best advice there is, is: “Hold on.”

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories ahead of time, but I tell them from memory, so what I said will not match what I wrote.

Photos of an ‘akiapola’au (and his lunch) by Eric Anderson.