Do look up

‘Look at the Sparrows…….they dont plant or harvest or store food in barns….Can all your worries add a single moment to your life’ (Matthew 6; 26)

‘Look at the Stars……see how they shine for you..’ (Coldplay)

Ive heard a lot of sermons about the Sparrows verses, and usually they are about trust, trusting in God – because its was often about ‘see how your Heavenly Father feeds them -and aren’t you more valuable than the sparrow’ This is the part that would be emphasised.

But what if this wasn’t the point? what if it was about looking, what if it was about the ability to see

To see the sparrow.

To look at it.

So, go on, look at that sparrow outside your window.

Give it a stare.

What do you see?

Maybe its a pigeon on the street as you are sitting at a cafe reading this – look at the pigeon – what do you see?

Just stop for a while, and look at it

Your mind might want to think about all the judgement of the pigeon or ‘boringness’ of the sparrow.. and thats ok, keep looking… and as you do so breathe

Do you see the colours, it wings, the shape of its feet, its eyes, head, and …anything else?

When you look at the sparrow – what are you not looking at? When you give your attention to it – what are you not giving attention to?

In his book ‘Bird Therapy’ Joe Harkness writes, when looking at a Dunnock – a bird often mistaken as a sparrow – ‘I only discovered their beauty, as I took notice’

This isn’t a piece about the merits of birdwatching – its about looking.

Jesus causes me think about the mind of the birds – look at how they do not worry about food – look at how they behave, look at how they feed, look at how they are – look at them – notice them…and

at the same time

stop looking at yourself for a moment.

Look at something that you have no control over, or should have no desire to control

Look at something that is not looking at you judging you, comparing you

Look at something that lives in the now, has patterns of life, that is in the present

just..look…

What if the imperative is that – by looking you focus into the present, the now – and this causes some of the worries to disappear, even momentarily..because.. the mind is somewhere else

Maybe even in 1st Century Palestine there was enough man made stresses, that the act of looking at sparrows was becoming less practiced…as trade and farming increased, and the country was threatened by the Roman Empires.. – in those moments its difficult to remember to look – survival was the instinct..

As we look – we stop

As we look – we are in the present

What about the now

What about the gap in time created by looking

what are you noticing?

What is in the gap?

Time is what keeps the light from reaching us. There is no greater obstacle to God than time’

Meister Eckhart

Stay there

Look at the stars – see how they shine for you

Look at them

Do look

Do look up

Force yourself

Look up from the things that are otherwise all around, look up from them

Do you notice how every distraction wants you to not do this?

observe the voices, let them have their say…but dont act on them

carry on looking…

Look…. at the Sparrows – what do you see? What do you see in yourself..as you do?

Do look up

References

Eckhart Tolle – The Power of Now – 1999

Joe Harkness – Bird Therapy – 2019

Photo credits, Myself with a Nikon P950 Camera.