California quail look so cute. Plump in winter plumage, they strut about -- “waddle” might better describe their gait –with a single pretentious feather poking up off the tops of their heads.

            It’s about all they have on their heads. Or in them.

            You remember all those silly jokes, “Why did the chicken cross the road?” The jokes assumed that a chicken actually had a reason for crossing a road. Quail don’t. When a car comes, they scuttle across, then decide they preferred other side, and reverse direction just as the car reaches them.

            In the muted light of dawn or dusk, they sometimes move in such numbers that it feels as if the earth itself is moving.

            Quail would rather run than fly. At speed, their short little legs imitate the cartoon Road Runner.

            They land on my bird feeder the same way they travel on the ground -- en masse. They shoulder each other off the platform. They climb over each other. They can empty the feeder in a day. Last winter, I put out an estimated 300 pounds of sunflower seeds. Quail got most of it.

            This year, I decided to outsmart them. I made a wire cage to cover the feeder. Its mesh had holes big enough for chickadees and finches, but too small -- I thought -- for bulkier quail.

            I was wrong.

            For the first few weeks, no quail got through the mesh. Then one or two smaller quail learned they could squeeze through.

            And suddenly, dozens of them were inside.

            It reminds me of the running battle I had with squirrels, when we lived in Ontario. But squirrels are a lot smarter than quail.

            How do they learn from each other?

            Probably not by language. I doubt that those cuk-cuk-cuk sounds could convey directions for compressing oneself to get through a narrow opening.

            Imitation, possibly. Although we usually limit imitation to what we think of as higher species. Crows and magpies certainly learn by imitation. Wolves and big cats may. Monkeys will imitate anything, including us.

            I keep wondering if birds and animals have ways of communicating that we humans, at our particular niche in the evolutionary tree, seem to have lost.

            A few years back, some biologists touted the “hundredth monkey” syndrome. On a Japanese island, one monkey learned to wash sweet potatoes -- a food source unknown before humans arrived -- in a stream.

            Washing spread slowly, one monkey at a time. First, to that monkey’s family. Then to her clan. And then every monkey was doing it. Even on other islands.

            Several elements of that story have been challenged. But the spread of a new custom without the use of language seems beyond dispute.

            How did monkeys teach each other to wash sweet potatoes? I don’t know.

            How did quail teach other quail to get through the mesh? I don’t know.

            But I wonder, sometimes, if subliminal processes also happen among humans. Without our recognizing how it happens, an idea catches hold, for good or ill.

            It shapes our attitudes, our reactions. And we find ourselves feeling, thinking, and acting differently. As if we have passed through some kind of portal into a difference space.

            Just like those quail.

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Copyright © 2017 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups, and links from other blogs, welcomed; all other rights reserved. To comment on this column, write jimt@quixotic.ca

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YOUR TURN

I received a surprising amount of mail about last week’s column, on the way small things may change our lives. But I want to give first  place to a letter from Valentina Gal, who tackles two important issues better than I did.

            “As you know,” she wrote, “I am totally blind and have commented on several of your columns from the ‘blind’ point of view.

            “I find articles like the one about the brain-injured man, and others sensationalizing the disabled, to be a form of discrimination sanctioned by the general public. While I’m grateful there are supports and help for folks like me, these articles set the disabled apart as surely as do other forms of discrimination. 

            “If you are Christian, you help because Jesus says ‘As you’ve done this to one of these, so you’ve done it for me.’ We ought to help the less fortunate whether they have had an accident or not.  By focusing on the most traumatic stories, we diminish the plight of those who have become disadvantaged slowly, or by things that are not sensational. We, the disabled, when put on a pedestal for money raising efforts, do not feel accepted when pictured this way.  Rather we are still seen as the other, someone that no abled-bodied person wants to be. So whether on a pedestal such as in your illustration for your column, or in a pit such as pity presents, the disabled person is perpetually the outsider.

            “Many folks tell me that they are ‘amazed’ at what I do -- everything from getting dressed in the morning to ‘actually having a baby’ to writing my book. What they don’t get is the very point of your article.  That is, all of us, including the successful and the disadvantaged, can only live life by making one small step at a time. Each step takes us further down the path that unfolds as it will. Even the paths that seem amazing or wonderful are arrived at one little decision at a time. 

            “Some decisions don’t affect things much, but others do, like my father’s decision to cross the Atlantic on a ship.  Had my mother been allowed to stay in Belgium till after I was born, I would have had perfect vision. Her illness on the voyage caused my eyes to be deformed. However, I likely wouldn’t have had the opportunities and education provided for me by the Canadian government.  I couldn’t afford such an education for my own children.

            “In short, all of us have triumphs and tragedies to deal with.  Some are visible and others are not.  Nevertheless, no matter what we have to encounter, we all have to do it one decision at a time.  And we all have to deal with each of them as their consequences dictate.”

Wayne Irwin offered a more prosaic example: “Drop your keys on the way to your car and the sequence of events in your future is altered! [It’s] an awareness that deepens the mystery of it all. What if I had never chosen to reply to this post? As a thoughtful mentor once mused –- ‘God knows. But my head's not big enough!’”

Sue Kiryluk wrote, “A friend said to me many years ago there are no wrong decisions. If one uses the information one has at the time, the decision is the right one at that time. With additional information and life experiences, we might make a decision differently, but at the time (without the additional information) it was the right decision. In reviewing 50 years of marriage recently, my husband and I agreed that tough as some of the times were, we would make the same decisions again because we like where and who we are now -- and ‘now’ would be different if we had made different decisions earlier.”

Laurna Tallman said she was with me “all the way through your rationalization for a scrupulous life until the last sentence: ‘You can’t pre-determine the future; it will arrive regardless,’ which is one way of stating the Calvinist/Presbyterian doctrine of predestination. However, you had persuaded us that every tiny act determines the future, which surely is the motivation for acting thoughtfully, prayerfully, and from the best motives one can discover -- tipping the scale away from predestination towards a Jesuit doctrine of reasoned works to the greater glory of God. Those considered acts constitute learning. While learning does not re-run history, it corrects history going forward… The sum of right-minded actions has a cumulative effect, a moving of the mass of humanity towards greater goodness. Thus, we actually do determine the future according to how we choose each step.”

Tom Watson had similar thoughts: “In spite of its feeling fatalistic, your sense of a taking a particular decision or action at a given moment in time having an effect on what unfolds afterwards is spot on. As Alfred North Whitehead instructed in his process theology, every occurring event is inextricably linked to the event(s) which preceded it.

            “No, there is no ‘Undo’ or ‘Rewind’ button but fortunately we humans [can] realize that when actions we took have led to undesirable, sometimes disastrous, consequences, we can take steps to correct the course.”

Isabel Gibson quoted Robert Frost’s The Road Not Taken: “Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back."

John Shaffer shared a life incident similar to my own: “On Friday, October 13th, 1961, I was faced with a major event in seminary.  I had to meet with three professors for one hour.  After this they would vote on whether or not I was fit for ministry and graduation. I was nervous.  So when I went to breakfast, I looked around the room for the prettiest woman (there were not many women in seminary in those days!) and went to her table to eat my breakfast.  The rest is history... We were married in the summer of 1962.”

Charles Hill: “You are so right about decisions in early or mid-life changing the course of future years. It can lead to many regrets in 50+. I hope a few younger adults are reading your column.”

Bruce Fraser offered another perspective: “You wrote, ‘I contend that every event changes life forever.’ This is true; the Law of Unintended Consequences is a valuable thing to keep in mind when making decisions. But I suggest this idea not as profound as you make it out to be.

            “This is a recurring theme for you. Look up the number of times you use the example of a butterfly's wings affecting a typhoon on the other side of the world. Also true... but not useful information.

            “IF there was a way to predict what changes [might] result from those events, then all of this would be enormously important. But without that link, it's just an item with which one might amuse others at a party.”

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PSALM PARAPHRASES

I think most churches will celebrate this coming Sunday as Epiphany. Well, you’re getting the psalm reading for Epiphany anyway -- Psalm 72: 1-7 and 10-14.

1   If only powerful people could be more like you, Holy One.

2   They would apply the same standards to their own lives that they demand of those who depend on them.

3   Office environments would help employees enjoy working;
press releases would tell the truth;
industrial wastes would not defile the world.

4   Powerful people would selflessly serve their constituencies;
they would not exploit, for short term profit ,
those who have less money, less power, and less influence.

5   Such people would earn our long-term loyalty;
they would deserve to prosper.

7   Their radical example would make others reconsider their own attitudes.

10   All the world would recognize this remarkable approach;

11   all the world would come to see how it is done.

12   Amazing -- people in positions of power
who do not manipulate events for their own benefit.
They do what they do for the least of their customers;

13   they treat single mothers, natives, immigrants, and teenagers as people of worth,
not merely as potential consumers.

14   For them there are no mass markets;
every individual is precious as a person.

6   We need that kind of leadership.

For paraphrases of most of the psalms used by the Revised Common Lectionary, you can order my book Everyday Psalms from Wood Lake Publishing, info@woodlake.com.

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YOU SCRATCH MY BACK…

•        Ralph Milton has a new project, called Sing Hallelujah -- the world’s first video hymnal. It consists of 100 popular hymns, both new and old, on five DVDs that can be played using a standard DVD player and TV screen, for use in congregations who lack skilled musicians to play piano or organ. More details at www.singhallelujah.ca

•        Isabel Gibson's thoughtful and well-written blog, www.traditionaliconoclast.com

•        Wayne Irwin's "Churchweb Canada," an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. <http://www.churchwebcanada.ca>

•        Alva Wood's satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town are not particularly religious, but they are fun; write alvawood@gmail.com to get onto her mailing list.

•        Tom Watson writes a weekly blog called “The View from Grandpa Tom’s Balcony” -- ruminations on various subjects, and feedback from Tom’s readers. Write him at twatson@sentex.net

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TECHNICAL STUFF

If you want to comment on something, send a message directly to me, jimt@quixotic.ca.

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            My webpage is up and running again -- thanks to Wayne Irwin and ChurchWeb Canada. You can now access current columns and about five years of archives at http://quixotic.ca

            I write a second column each Sunday called Sharp Edges, which tends to be somewhat more cutting about social and justice issues. To sign up for Sharp Edges, write to me directly, jimt@quixotic.ca, or send a note to sharpedges-subscribe@lists.quixotic.ca

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