Lessons from a Hummingbird

Being relatively new to Sacramento, I sometimes wonder if folks from around here take the Sacramento weather for granted?

I couldn’t get the above question out of my mind when Peg and I returned from a recent visit to the relatively cold shores of New England. We were visiting my older daughter, Robin, as she graduated from college in Massachusetts.

In terms of the weather, it was so good to be back in our neck of the woods in northern California. What came to my mind was a question that I asked the late Nobel prize winning economist Milton Friedman. He had just moved from the University of Chicago to Stanford University.

I asked Dr. Friedman if he missed Chicago. “I miss the intellectual climate, but I don’t miss the actual climate of Chicago,” he smiled.

So here Peg and I were sitting in our garden and looking at the beautiful hummingbirds flying around, and landing on, our blossoming flowers. This led me to thinking about a short article that I had recently read by Heather Japsen in one of my favorite spiritual magazines, GUIDEPOSTS.

Heather noted that it was hummingbird season, “and the birds flew in a frenzy past my head, racing to the feeder on the deck.” She noticed that there was one bird that seemed to be “the bully of the bunch.” The small bird was resting on a branch and eyeing the bird feeder. “As soon as a new bird came by, he’d zoom down and chase it away,” she reported.

After seeing this repeated behavior by the bullying bird, Heather wondered: what was this hummingbirds problem? Was it scarcity and lack thinking? This was so irrational on the part of the hummingbird because Heather put fresh sugar water in the bird feeder every day. There was plenty of food to go around. “He was panicking over nothing,” Heather insisted.

“But then I got to thinking about how much I panic over nothing. Don’t I zip and zoom through my day, trying to get the best of everything—the choicest parking spot, the shortest line at the grocery store, or the top deal for lunch? I do worry about resources and sometimes feel like shoving others out of the way,” she admitted.

Noticing the fearful and egotistical hummingbird, “showed me that I need to stop being so pushy. God has got this. I am well cared for. There will be enough for me today and enough for me tomorrow,” Heather concluded.

I love it that Heather composed a beautiful short prayer that goes as follows: “Dear God, help me to trust that you have things under control, and that there will be enough for everyone. Amen.”

I think the above lesson is applicable not just to hummingbirds and people on the individual level, but I think that there is something here on the level of nation-states. It took two world wars until Germany was realistically integrated into the world geopolitical and financial systems.

While there has recently been military confrontations between the United States and Iran, my really big concern is that China and the United States could wind up at war. This would be so tragic and devastating. It would also be so ironic since, like the hummingbird’s bird feeder, we are dealing with something that could be a “win-win” situation for all.

Lack, scarcity, greedy, and fearful thinking could very easily wind up getting us into World War III. What can we do about this? We can remember the hummingbird. Also, we can follow the advice of Gandhi and be the change that we want to see.

Every Sunday at SLC we sing “Let there be peace on earth, and let it begin with me.” We can take these words seriously and follow the heartfelt thoughts and feelings inspired by this song by Jill Jackson-Miller and Sy Miller.

On an international level, we can remember that planet Earth in so many ways is like that beautiful bird feeder. We do not have to act out of lack, scarcity, and fearful consciousness. We have beautiful minds that can be linked up with divine wisdom.

The possibilities are incredible, and we do not have to act like a bullying hummingbird.

Many blessings,

Rev. Rick