unity

Story: The Easy Way to Fly

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 5 Comments

November 17, 2024

Hebrews 10:11-25
Mark 13:1-8

I’m afraid it’s true that there are not many nene. They are easily outnumbered by the ‘apapane, and more than easily outnumbered by people. You may wonder why, if there aren’t that many of them, you hardly ever see them one at a time. I mean, wouldn’t you expect that a nene would go its own way from time to time, just to find some ‘ohelo berries of their very own?

One nene thought that independence sounded like the way to go.

He’d been to nene school, so he thought he knew it all. He knew how to find food. He knew how to fly. He’d done the drills at formation flying without getting excited about it. He was going to be the nene who made his own way, without relying on (and, you know, sharing with) the other nene.

So off he went to find his own spaces.

There’s a lot more of Hawai’i Island than there are nene, so it wasn’t difficult. If he spotted a little flock of nene in the air or on the ground, he’d just go somewhere else that they weren’t. That was lots of places, and plenty of those places had food, and water, and places to rest and relax. All in all, he thought he was having a pretty good nene life.

One day as he was in the air looking for another place to relax and eat, he heard the calls of some nene behind him. Glancing back, there was a little “V” shape of five geese flying in formation. They called out a friendly greeting, to which he replied – he liked being alone, but he wasn’t going to be rude about it.

What surprised him, however, was that the little “V” of nene was catching up with him. In fact, they passed him in the air, still calling out their “Hello!” He thought he was a pretty good flier, but they sped on by and he couldn’t keep up. It didn’t take long before they’d disappeared into the clouds.

How had they flown past him so fast?

Sometimes when you don’t know something and you don’t have Google, the best thing you can do is ask someone who should know. So he sought out his nene school teacher. When he found her, she was just finishing up a formation flying class. He waited, mostly patiently, until she was done, and told her about being passed by those other nene.

“Am I just so slow?” he asked her.

“No,” she said. “You’re not slow. You’re alone. Flying together – in that ‘V’ formation – allows us to fly more easily. The wings of the birds in front create good flying air for the birds behind. It makes a difference. We can put more strength into it. We fly better together.”

“You mean,” he said, “that if I always fly alone, I’ll always fly harder and slower?”

“That’s exactly what I mean,” she told him. “Together is the easy way to fly.”

Never let it be said that nene won’t learn. He found his own place in a little flock, and there in its “V” he flew easier and faster than he could remember doing before. Together is the easy way to fly.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories ahead of time, but I tell them from memory plus inspiration. The story you just read will not match the recorded telling of it.

Photo by Eric Anderson

Story: Weird

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 2 Comments

March 10, 2024

Numbers 21:4-9
John 3:14-21

“I think they’re weird,” said the ‘amakihi.

“Definitely bizarre,” said the ‘akepa.

“Not like us,” said the ‘apapane.

“Not like us at all,” said the i’iwi, who usually doesn’t take part in this kind of conversation but was close enough to overhear.

“They’re not so bad,” said the elepaio, but nobody was listening to him.

“They don’t eat nectar,” said the i’iwi.

“Not everybody does,” said the elepaio, who didn’t.

“They’re not brightly colored,” said the bright orange ‘akepa.

“I’m not either,” said the elepaio, who wasn’t.

“They sit still all the time,” said the ‘amakihi.

“Not everybody needs to hop around to find food,” said the elepaio.

“They don’t sing out the way they could,” said the ‘apapane.

“Would you sing out when there’s an ‘io overhead?” asked the elepaio.

The other birds finally noticed that the elepaio was there.

“What are you going on about?” they asked.

“I don’t see that there’s anything that strange about the ‘Oma’o,” said the elepaio. “In fact, most of the things you’re criticizing are things you could say about me.”

The other birds were silently embarrassed for a while. Some of them had, in fact, said similar things about the elepaio when they thought they wouldn’t be heard.

“Don’t you think they’re different?” asked the i’iwi, who most of the others thought was kind of different himself.

“Certainly they’re different,” said the elepaio. “Different doesn’t mean strange, or bad, or wrong, though.”

The birds were silent.

“If it helps any,” said an ‘oma’o who was sitting there quietly and completely unnoticed in some koa, “I can’t help think that you’re all rather different, too. But you know,” she said thoughtfully, “it seems to work for you.”

The birds looked at one another: red feathers, green feathers, tan feathers, black feathers, yellow feathers, long beaks, short beaks, different shapes to their wings.

“You’re right,” said the ‘apapane thoughtfully. “It does seem to work for us in our different ways.”

“Not so weird.”

“Not so bizarre.”

“Different from us, but it works.”

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

https://www.youtu.be/k9K4xBHIdoY?si=nwagtWna5Njl_C0o&t=835

We had a technical failure and lost the audio from the beginning of the story this week. Our apologies!

I write these stories ahead of time, then tell them from what I remember of what I wrote. Since I don’t remember things perfectly, and since I invent new things in the telling, the story I tell may not match the story I wrote.

Photo of an oma’o by ALAN SCHMIERER from southeast AZ, USA – OMA’O (9-4-2017) pu’u o’o trail, kipuka ainahou section, hawai’i co, hawaii -06, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=74675325.