Bye-bye, birdie

Every spring, birds flock to the Earl O. Henry Sr. Memorial Bird Sanctuary, so named after I developed a historical crush on the slightly nerdy but true-blue Navy dentist and painter of birds who wrote scores of beautiful love letters to his wife before he died when the USS Indianapolis sank in 1945. The “sanctuary” is really two towering Engelmann oaks and the vanishing edge of my swimming pool. Because of the pool’s angled, glass-tile edge, avian visitors can actually sit in a couple of inches of water. Which is why goldfinches arrive in bright flashes to sip and bathe alongside purple martins, while apple-green willow fly­catchers stop by for a drink on their way to Mexico.

Now, though, something new … and weird: As I write this, I am on Day 4 of a veritable siege on my home by a single avian soldier: a spotted (or Western) towhee. Beginning on Sunday, May 4, this dark-winged, red-breasted bird began flinging himself against the windows on the pool side of my house, including his apparent favorite, a set of French doors off the kitchen.

Thwack! Thwack! Scrabble-scrabble-thwack!

The bird hits the glass about once every 10 to 15 seconds. ChatGPT told me some bird species see their reflection in a window, think it’s a romantic rival, and attack. But this has been going on all day for four days. By now the towhee has flung himself into the glass literally hundreds of times. At some point, I keep thinking, won’t he give up, either out of pain or frustration?

Which made me think of all the times I’ve behaved just like Banzai Birdie, as I’ve come to call him. There’s that quote, often misattributed to Albert Einstein: “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” In Al-Anon, we say it a different way: “If you keep on doing what you’re doing, you’ll keep on getting what you’re getting.” (This usually applies to the getting of things the getter doesn’t want to get.)

All through Scripture, we see examples of this strain of human intransigence, our inability—or unwillingness—to learn from our mistakes. Our tendency to fling ourselves, repeatedly and futilely, against some unreachable, unwise, and even self-destructive bauble we see on the other side of the glass.

The Israelites continually forgot God’s deliverance and provision and whored after other gods, reaping God’s discipline, which sometimes lasted for generations. Again and again, King Saul disobeyed God’s commands, pursuing a misplaced vendetta against David, leading to Saul’s downfall and the loss of his throne. Despite witnessing Jesus’ miracles, His character, and His clear love for His people, the Pharisees clung to power and prestige, refusing the reality that their Messiah had come.

Why are we like this? Why am I like this? Why does it take me so long to learn important life lessons, to break unhelpful habits, to rein in my poorest qualities and let my best ones shine? Well, it’s that weed in the Garden, of course, the outworking of the Fall, which has hardwired us to sub­stitute our own will for God’s.

I found myself thinking about all this as I listened to the little towhee’s rhythmic, suicidal assault. Then, I felt the Holy Spirit speaking to me of an area in my life I need to correct. This came all at once, an epiphany. And in that moment, I arrived at the answer to a financial decision I’ve been wrestling with—an answer that aligns with Scripture instead of my own self-will.

After this revelation, I sort of hoped the towhee would instantly fly away, so I could report to you that it was clearly God Himself who’d sent me this avian messenger that departed as soon as I’d learned my lesson.

Alas, no. The assault continued: Thwack! Thwack! Scrabble-scrabble-thwack.

By midmorning of the fourth day, I started to feel sorry for the towhee and tried to scare him off before he broke every bone in his tiny body. On the advice of colleagues, I taped stuffed animals to the French doors—a stegosaurus and a mean-looking bunny—and taped printouts of great horned owls to the windows. Still, with the ramparts thus manned, Banzai Birdie simply switched windows and continued flinging himself into the glass.

We do that, too, don’t we? (Proverbs 26:11; 19:20; James 1:23-24) But we don’t have to, according to Paul. Instead we can “be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect” (Romans 12:2).