“[Jesus said,] ‘Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?'”
What is the value of a single coin? Not much today, when we make money with printing upon paper, or with electronic imagination.
What is the value of a single coin? It might be little even in those ancient days, unless, of course, it was a tenth of everything she owned.
What is the value of a single coin? It might be food to take me through the day, or into a coming week, or possibly next year.
What is the value of a single coin? Enough to set me searching high and low, to bear the cost of burning oil in the lamp, to celebrate the sudden silver gleam amidst the dark.
What is the value of a single coin? A better question might be this: What is the value of a single human soul? Enough, said Jesus, for the heavens to rejoice.
A poem/prayer based on Luke 15:1-10, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year C, Proper 19 (24).
How would an ae’o (that’s a black-necked stilt in English) even think about getting rich? You might be wondering, and I would be wondering, too. This particular ae’o had been listening to some human beings who were visiting the Hawaiian shoreline near where she hunted for shrimp and bugs in an old fishpond. The people had been talking about how wealthy they were and how glad they were to be rich.
I’m afraid a lot of it was pure foolishness, and some of it was pure hard-heartedness, because they talked about how they paid their workers as little as possible and bought things for low unfair prices and sold things for high unfair prices. Frankly, most of that went over the ae’o’s head, despite how long her neck and her bright pink legs were. Still, the humans seemed pleased about it, so she determined to get rich.
“How would an ae’o get rich?” she wondered.
She wondered about it as she and her husband prepared a nest. An ae’o nest is pretty simple. They make a hollow in the ground, then line it with grasses and even some of their downier feathers. As they were working, she noticed something bright on the ground. It was a white pebble.
“I know how to be rich!” she said. “I’ll line our nest with bright things.”
Her husband had no idea what to make of that, and even less when she flew out and around and returned with odd things that didn’t make much sense in an ae’o nest. She found more pebbles, which poked at you when sitting on the nest. She found plastic bottle lids, which weren’t any more comfortable than the pebbles. She brought in crushed soda cans that someone had carelessly dropped somewhere, which took up a lot of room, and she brought in bits of discarded paper with the shiny photos of visitor brochures.
“Why are you doing this?” asked her husband. “To get rich,” she told him, and had no better answer.
It was her grandmother, of course, who came by at last to take a look at the bright and shining nest. She was settled uncomfortably into it, wedged in by cans and bottles and avoiding the sharp bits of glass that a sensible bird would have left where they were.
“You call this being rich?” said tutu ae’o.
“Of course,” she replied.
“It looks more like this nest is demanding more of you than it’s giving you in return. It’s supposed to protect your eggs. Is it doing that?”
Indeed, the eggs were going to have a hard time finding space amidst all the hard and sharp surfaces in the nest. Even our rich ae’o had to admit that.
“This isn’t how an ae’o gets rich anyway,” said tutu. “We get rich with family. We get rich with sunshine. We get rich with a big school of shrimp. We get rich with the things the world gives us, things that are never ours, but which we enjoy when they come.
“Give up this empty nest, granddaughter,” she said. “Come lay your eggs someplace comfortable and safe. Then you’ll be rich with a new generation.”
Without a word, the ae’o stood up and walked off to build a new nest with her husband. She never looked back. She looked ahead to being rich in love.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Story
I write these stories in full ahead of time, but I tell them from memory plus improvisation. As a result, what you just read does not precisely match the way I told it in the video.
You know how it is with brothers and sisters and siblings of all kinds. Some days everybody gets along, and the next day nobody gets along. It’s squabbling from dawn to sunset, and on the following day everybody is happy again.
In one ‘apapane family, that wasn’t what happened.
Mind you, they were pretty good to one another in the nest. They were cheerful most of the time when they were learning to fly and when they were getting their adult red-and-black feathers. Each of them felt very grown up as they paraded their bright colors through the ohi’a trees.
For a reason nobody ever discovered, that’s when things fell apart. The two younger ones – and younger is a very narrow thing when you hatch in the same nest just minutes or an hour apart – couldn’t speak a kind chirp to one another. “You’re impossible!” said the brother, who was the middle one. “You’re more impossible!” said the youngest, who was one of the sisters. “There’s no such thing as more impossible!” said her slightly older brother, and it went downhill from there.
The oldest one, an older sister, listened to them with a mixture of laughter at her younger siblings and a fair amount of sadness that they couldn’t get along.
It got worse during nesting season. For some reason some of the supplies were in short supply. Twigs were in plenty, and grasses for lining, but a lot of the mosses were hard to find. The younger sister and her husband had a lot of trouble. Her older brother and his wife, on the other hand, did pretty well. It was chance, pretty much, but they actually had more mosses than they could use and his sister didn’t.
That’s when she flew over to her brother’s nest and clamored and called for help.
“No!” he called. “Go away!” But her nest really needed the materials, and she really couldn’t find them.
“Help! Help us!” she said, and she kept calling and pecking at the branch by the nest until, at last, he couldn’t do anything but give her some mosses and watch her fly away to her own nest.
Of course she came back. She still needed more. One beakfull wasn’t enough, as both of them knew. She had to go through the same thing again. And again. Until he relented – again – and she flew off with the mosses.
That’s when big sister appeared at her younger brother’s nest.
“Are you going to make her go through that again?” she asked.
“She’s annoying,” said her younger brother, which sort of was and sort of wasn’t an answer to the question.
“And you’re not?” said older sister, to which younger brother could only mumble in reply.
“Did you grow these mosses?” asked his sister. “Did you grow this tree? Do you make the sun to shine or the rain to fall? Do you make the sweet nectar in the flowers? Did you make it so that eggs could hatch and fledglings fly?”
Of course the answer to all those questions was no.
“Be like the sun. Be like the rain,” said his older sister. “Be like the tree and the flowers. Don’t make her peck and poke for what the world provides. It’s easier, too. You’ll both feel better.”
When the younger sister came back, her brother had mosses ready for her, and even helped her carry some back to her own nest. And when, in another season, it was the younger sister who found lots of nesting materials and older brother who didn’t, she shared without fuss or complaint.
They were like the sun, the rain, and the trees.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Story
I write these stories in advance, but I tell them in worship from memory and improvisation. As a result, what I wrote doesn’t match how I told it.
He wasn’t the oldest among his siblings, cousins, and friends from nearby nests, but he was one of the first to molt from his young feathering to his adult colors. He’d had gray feathers on the chest and brown on his head and back, with black on his wings and tail. They all did. It made their games of hide-and-seek pretty difficult, because those colors melded into the shadows on the tree branches pretty well.
As I say, though, he was the first among them to start losing some of those brown and gray feathers, and start to gain the red feathers from head to tail. Frankly, it wasn’t going well. Loose feathers itched, and so did the new feathers as they grew in. They also didn’t fall out evenly. He found himself with a grayish belly blotched with the new red feathers.
“You look ridiculous,” said one of the young ‘apapane who played hide-and-seek with him, and, well, he felt ridiculous.
“Can’t you hide that?” asked another of the ‘apapane. He was a cousin, but he could be mean, even to a cousin. Our young ‘apapane couldn’t think of how.
“Go clean that up,” ordered one of the bossier young ‘apapane. She was one of those who thought she knew best for everybody else. But he still didn’t know how to take care of it, so he kept his perch and tried not to cry.
“Knock it off,” said the smallest of the young ‘apapane. All her feathers were still brown and gray, and she looked like she’d just been groomed by the finest feather-settlers of the forest. Everybody assumed that she was talking to the young bird with the splotchy red.
“Yeah, knock it off,” said the one who’d started this by calling him ridiculous in the first place.
“No, you knock it off,” said the smallest ‘apapane. “And you. And you. And all of you.”
She shook her wings and continued, “First of all, what can he do about it? You all know that our feathers will change from what we’re wearing to what our parents wear. Did you think that happened overnight? Didn’t you realize that it’s going to take time and that there are rough spots along the way?”
As it happened, none of them had thought about it.
“What are you going to do,” she demanded, “when this happens to you in a week or two? Are you going to make everybody going through this fly away, or are you going to help them when it itches and tell them it will be all right? What would you want for yourself?”
She asked that last question straight at the bird who’d ordered the molting ‘apapane to go clean that up. She didn’t say anything until it became clear that she had to answer.
“I’d want help,” she said.
“How about the rest of you?” demanded the smallest ‘apapane. They all admitted they’d want help.
“And that’s what you’ll get,” she said. “We’ll start with our friend here.”
“So how are you?” she asked. “Does it itch today?”
That’s how that generation of ‘apapane made it through their molt.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Story
I write these stories in advance, but I tell them from memory and improvisation. What you have just read will not match the way I told it.
Photo of a juvenile ‘apapane in molt (at least that’s what I think it is) by Eric Anderson.
The young ‘amakihi was nervous. She had been busy growing up, which ‘amakihi do a lot quicker than human beings do, but there was a lot to pack into that time. There was eating, and learning what to eat. There was taking care of her feathers, which changed when she molted and the feather lengths changed. And of course there was flying.
Then she had to learn about eating again, because there were things she could get to with working wings that she couldn’t get to in a nest. She learned about new bugs, new fruits, and new flowers. She’d been too busy to be nervous.
She was nervous now, though, because her parents had announced that the family would join a flock for the summer. She wasn’t really used to other birds. She’d met an auntie or an uncle or two, and of course her tutu, but these would be strange ‘amakihi. Would they like her? Would they be mean to her?
It made her more nervous to realize that the flock wouldn’t include just ‘amakihi. It would include ‘akepa, ‘alawi, and scariest of all, ‘apapane. She knew there were a lot of ‘apapane around. She’d seen far more of them than she had ‘amakihi. She’d also seen them chase ‘amakihi through the forest, even her own father. “I got too close to their nest,” he’d explained, and that made sense because she’d seen him chase other birds away from her nest, but still. The ‘apapane made her nervous.
“It will be all right,” said her father. “It’s different when birds aren’t worried about nests and eggs.”
“It will be all right,” said her mother. “You’ll make it all right.”
The day came when she and her brother and her parents flew over to an ohi’a tree filled with other birds. There were other ‘amakihi, and she knew some of them because her tutu were there. There was ‘akepa and ‘alawi showing off their green and bright orange feathers. Mostly, though, there were ‘apapane. They hopped through the branches, singing their beautiful songs, and looking very sharp in their red and black feathers.
One of them, who was keeping rather quiet, hopped over to the branch where she was sitting, keeping very quiet and hoping nobody would notice her.
“Hi,” said the ‘apapane. “What kind of bird are you?”
“I’m an ‘amakihi,” she said. “And you’re an ‘apapane.”
“I am,” he said, and looking rather nervous, said, “I feel really dumb. I’ve never seen most of these birds before. Do you know any of them?”
“Well, I know my family,” she said, “and I’ve seen a couple of these other birds before,” – she didn’t mention that they’d been chasing her father away from their nest – “but most of these birds are as new to me as they are to you.”
“Oh, good,” said the ‘apapane. “I guess this is new to most of us youngsters?”
“I think it is,” said the ‘amakihi. “I’ve been worried that nobody would like me.”
“You’ve made me feel better,” said the ‘apapane. “I think most birds would like you for that.”
“And you’ve made me feel welcome,” said the ‘amakihi. “Thank you so much for that.”
Mother had known, after all. She had made it all right.
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, what you’ve just read will not match what you hear.
How is a young bird, or a young turtle, or a young person supposed to figure out how to be an adult bird, or an adult turtle, or an adult human being? People, at least, get some instructions from their elders. We get taught how to get dressed, and what things are good to eat (or at least good for you to eat; opinions differ on whether things that are good for you are tasty enough to eat), and especially important things like, “Don’t touch the boiling tea kettle on the hot stove!”
Birds probably don’t get quite that much teaching. Certainly they don’t get the years of it that we do as we’re growing up.
A young ‘akekeke was learning how to be an ‘akakeke. He’d already made one trip from Alaska to Hawai’i, just as the kolea do, and he’d been sleeping and eating and flying about ever since. But he was confused.
You see, there were creatures who did very different things than ‘akekeke did, and he wondered if their ways might be better.
Mind you, there were plenty of creatures who did very similar things. Kolea and hunakai and ‘akekeke all hunted through the grasses and tidepools and rocks for insects, snails, and so on. If he imitated them, things went pretty well. He tried to imitate the ae’o, but he didn’t have long pink legs to hold his body out of the water of the fishpond and he ended up gasping and spluttering as he flapped his miserable way to shore.
The least successful of all was when he tried to imitate a honu. He flopped into the water in a calm spot and lingered below the surface. Then he tried to eat some seaweed on the underwater rocks. He choked on the water, of course, and once more hauled his bedraggled self onto the beach.
He looked about and saw his mother.
She asked, “What are you up to, son?”
“I’m learning,” he said. “I’m learning to be an ‘akekeke.”
She looked around at the other ‘akakeke on the shore, none of whom were trying to feed like a honu. “How?”
“By imitating what I see,” he said.
“Are you learning anything?” she asked.
“I’m learning that some things don’t work,” he said, and coughed up a little more water.
“I’m not saying you can’t learn anything from a honu,” said his mother, “but for basic things like eating and flying, I don’t think there’s much they can teach you. I don’t think you can eat the way they do, and they certainly can’t fly the way you do.”
“I suppose not,” said the ‘akekeke, who was a little sad about not learning anything with his imitations that day.
“You have taught me something today, something I can imitate,” he said.
“What’s that, son?” asked his mother.
“You’ve taught me to be kind.”
Whether we wear feathers, shells, or rubbah slippahs on our running feet, let’s all imitate those who are kind.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Story
I write these stories ahead of time, but I tell them from memory (plus improvisation) during worship. What you have just read is not necessarily how I told it.
Photo of an ‘akekeke (ruddy turnstone) by Eric Anderson.Not far away, grazing in a shallow pool, there was a honu (green sea turtle).
“Peter put all of them outside, and then he knelt down and prayed. He turned to the body and said, ‘Tabitha, get up.’ Then she opened her eyes, and seeing Peter, she sat up.” – Acts of the Apostles 9:40
“To sleep, perchance to dream – ay, there’s the rub, For in that sleep of death what dreams may come?” asked William via Hamlet in the play. In Joppa Tabitha had ceased her work.
She lay upon the cot unmoving as her friends displayed with streaming eyes the cloth and clothing she had made with loving hands for them, their families, and those in need.
She’d lived a life full well and full of grace, and if she’d died, a life reborn would come, so said the messengers who preached the Way, the Jesus Way she’d taken as her own.
What dreams moved through her soul as she lay still? What visions came to eyes of spirit now that those below her brow saw naught? What sight of welcome to a life eternally?
Somehow she heard the summons, “Tabitha, get up.” The dreams collapsed as her lids raised, to see an unfamiliar, anxious face, perhaps a little bit surprised, above.
She rose. She met her friends once more. What did she say? We’ll wonder, since the author left that out, and failed to write as well, what dreams she’d had, which we may have ourselves someday.
She rose, awoke to love and work, restored to life ephemeral, a life to end someday once more, a life she would lay down again, and dream the interrupted dreams.
A poem/prayer based on Acts 9:36-43, the Revised Common Lectionary First Reading for Year C, Fourth Sunday of Easter.
The image is the Tomb of Tabitha, Jaffa, Palestine by William H. Rau (1903) – This image is available from the United States Library of Congress’s Prints and Photographs divisionunder the digital ID ppmsca.10664.This tag does not indicate the copyright status of the attached work. A normal copyright tag is still required. See Commons:Licensing., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18866918.
This poem includes quotes from Hamlet by William Shakespeare (ca. 1599 and 1601) and “Awake, Awake to Love and Work” by Geoffrey Anketel Studdert Kennedy (1921).
“The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.” – John 1:9
The true light may now be at hand, but the light is lit by flickering flame and smoky wick. I watch that light with anxious eye, for fear it spread its burning oil on the straw below.
The light unsteady served to hide the dark green sticky contents of that first cloth barrier, wrapped inexpertly by unaccustomed fingers round the infant’s flailing hips,
But did not muffle his fierce cries of outrage testifying that the light has lungs! Re-swaddled, he subsides, and sleeps re-laid into the feeding trough, while grateful stable denizens rest, too.
The midwife gone, the man and I trade naps, and watch, and wait for his next cry. Will he be hungry? Dirty? Lonely? Or just angry that the borrowed cloth moves roughly on his skin?
“The light shines in the darkness,” they will write, and I suppose it does. It murmurs sleepily, then coos a moment, then subsides. The crude light wavers at the breeze, and shadows waver on incarnate light asleep.
I am too weary to compose a poem; I ache in every muscle, every bone. I cannot help but think that this poor babe, in manger laid, could shine so bright this stable would be taken for a star.
For now, the light is dimmed, and in its dimness I, at least, can see that lovelight shines most clearly here, in common human form, and in the dark.
A poem/prayer based on John 1:1-18, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year C, Second Sunday after Christmas Day.
The image is The Nativity, a section of the 13th century altar frontal of St. Mary of Avia Church in Bergueda, Catalonia, Spain, by an unknown artist. The frontal itself is in the National Art Museum of Catalonia in Barcelona. Photo by Enfo – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=21384531.
The cattle egret is a relatively quiet bird. Most of the time it goes about its business of hunting insects and such without talking about it. When a cattle egret has something to say, it will say it. But if it doesn’t have something to say, it doesn’t say anything.
Unlike a lot of people you’ve met, I’m sure.
There was another bird who really wanted a cattle egret to say something. I don’t know why a saffron finch decided that he wanted wisdom from a cattle egret, but he did. Maybe it was their relative sizes (rather small to quite impressively tall). Not that size reliably indicates wisdom. Maybe it was the bright white feathers, but color doesn’t tell you much about wisdom, either. Maybe it was the silence.
Not saying anything until you have something to say could be a good sign of wisdom.
At any rate, it’s wiser than saying something when you don’t have anything to say.
The saffron finch landed on the ground near a cattle egret and the two of them fed side-by-side without speaking for a while. The cattle egret ate bugs. The saffron finch ate one or two spiders and a good amount of seeds. Neither of them chose to speak with their mouths full.
When he was feeling pretty satisfied, the saffron finch asked, “What’s the most important thing?”
The cattle egret looked around to see if there were any other birds the finch might have been talking to. She didn’t see any, but she also didn’t think that this was a question a complete stranger was likely to ask her, so she didn’t say anything.
“No, really,” said the saffron finch. “What the most important thing?”
The cattle egret looked carefully at the saffron finch. He was clearly asking her, though she didn’t know why. She took a couple more mouthfuls of insects to give her time to consider the question. Then she cleared her throat and said:
“Love.”
She looked around and didn’t see any more bugs, so she nodded to the saffron finch and took off to find another spot with more bugs. When she got there, she was surprised to find the saffron finch landing beside her.
“Could you say that again?” he asked.
“Love,” she said, and went on eating.
“Really?” he asked.
“Love,” she repeated for the third time.
“I’m not sure I know how to love,” he said sadly.
The cattle egret paused her hunting for a moment and looked carefully at the saffron finch.
“Ask,” she said.
“Really?” he said.
“Ask,” she said.
I’m still not sure I’d go first to a cattle egret for wisdom – which is mostly my problem for not understanding what a cattle egret might say – but I have to agree with this cattle egret. What’s the most important thing? Love.
And if you’re not sure how to love: Ask.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Story
I write these stories in advance, but I tell them from a combination of memory and improvisation, so it won’t sound exactly like you’ve just read.
“And this is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what really matters, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.” – Philippians 1:9-11
I am stripped down. I wait my fate. What will it be? Will it be gain? Will it be Christ? I will not choose, except, of course, that I have chosen by the words I’ve spoken, by the things I’ve done.
I am stripped down.
I have been stripped of agency. Another will decide my course. I’ve lived in faith that God has set my way, but set my way through me. A crueler hand now rests upon the tiller of my time. Does it grow short?
I am stripped down.
I struggle to bring influence, to speak good news, for few may hear me now. Is it hubris to believe that they who hold me in this place consider what I’ve said and turn their souls toward Christ?
I am stripped down.
Thank God Epaphroditus has recovered, though for him, like me, to die is gain. For Jesus and for me he’ll carry word to those I love that… well, that I love them from the heart. I am stripped down. What more to say?
Just that I love.
A poem/prayer based on Philippians 1:3-11, the Revised Common Lectionary Second Reading for Year C, Second Sunday of Advent.
ordainedgeek 