I heard a thump at the window. Too soft for a knock. When I went to see what caused the noise, I found a California quail staggering through a layer of new-fallen snow. It tottered about ten feet towards the edge of our deck.

            Then it fell over.

            It tried to get up. It failed. And it lay there with its little legs sticking up in the air.

            Now, I have no sentimental feelings about California quail. Cute headgear. But in my experience, they make chickens look like candidates for Mensa.

            We joke about chickens crossing the road. Around here, quail move in flocks. Sometimes so many they an impression of the earth itself, rippling in waves.

            There is no such thing as a single quail. So if I see a solitary quail at the side of the road when I’m driving, I slow down.  That quail will certainly try to cross the road in front of me. At the last possible second. And it will equally certainly be followed by the rest of the flock. They could fly, but they won’t. They’ll erupt from the grass and underbrush like nerf balls, and scuttle on Roadrunner legs across the blacktop.

            Except that when they’re almost across, they will decide they didn’t want to go there after all; they will turn, en masse, and head back — sometimes actually underneath my car.

            So I do not have a high opinion of quail intelligence.

The struggle for survival

            Even so, I went out to see if I could help this particular quail. I was already too late. It didn’t respond to being picked up. Its head flopped loosely on the end of its neck.

            Clearly, it had broken its neck when it flew into my window.

            I doubt if breaking one’s neck is painless.

            Yet, even with a broken neck, it managed to stagger ten feet through the snow, towards what it imagined would be safety.

            The unfortunate quail reminds me of the sheer tenacity of life. Of ALL life. Felled trees send up shoots from their roots. Struggling cedars burden their branches with extra seeds. Roadkill marmots make a last despairing effort to flip-flop their crushed bodies off the road.

            Victims of bombings, earthquakes, and floods, cling to life beneath rubble when any rational analysis of their chances would tell them to give up.

            Life is sacred, not because some holy text says so, but because life itself says so.

            But it was just a quail, you may protest. Who cares about a mere quail?

            We said the same about passenger pigeons. Until they became extinct. Ditto for the Beothuk people of Newfoundland. Some people still hunt foxes until they expire of exhaustion, or are torn apart by dogs.

            Within living memory, we humans have treated “other” races, genders, and classes as disposable, dispensable. Foot-soldiers in WW1; Japanese residents in WWII; refugees risking the Mediterranean; Baha’is in Iran….

            We have all come from the same stardust. We are all headed for the same future.

            Despite my opinion of quail in general, that quail was one of my relations. I like to think that my desire to help a quail might model a growing awareness of my kinship with all creation.

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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

Reflecting the compression of time that I wrote about in last week’s column, Bob Rollwagen commented, “Acceleration seems to be the common theme in these events -- in work, in travel, in health, in family life, in world events.  History reminds us of the pace when we were kids and how special we felt when hearing stories from grandparents.  To use money as an example, we have progressed from using big copper pennies to buy a loaf of bread, to the ability of sending billions of dollars in cryptic currency around the globe in seconds for secret or otherwise unregulated transactions. We have accelerated our consumption of resources and our creation of toxic sites to levels our leaders cannot measure or agree on.

            How fast do you think we can go before we crash? I think I once knew what a crash looked like -- I fell off my bike when riding. Now I have no idea what a crash will look like. But, I do love life, every day, because of what I can do for others and what they do for me.

Isabel Gibson called last week’s column, “A lovely, lyrical piece. Not being at home, I don't have access to a passage [about time] from a natural history book I read many years ago.  It was about the evolution of species in response to the movement of the continents. Quite a long perspective!

            “As a conclusion of sorts, the book talked about adding an appreciation of this time dimension to our observation of the natural world, enabling us to see life as a flame -- ever-changing but ever-lasting in some sense, too.”

Tom Watson offered some thoughts about the words I quoted from Isaac Watts' hymn: “I realize the lament contained, but if I give those words just a 25 degree twist they provide cause to reflect not on the passing of sons so much as the changes that the ever-rolling stream of time has brought. I suppose that all change is relative when measured from one benchmark to another, but I suggest that you and I have lived through a time of more remarkable change than any other period in history. Take even the last 30 years and the changes that technology has brought, much of it for the good. Things thought impossible when I was young -- going to the moon as one example, or sending this message to you in the twinkling of an eye for another -- have all been accomplished.

            “Time, in its ever-rolling stream, both bears all things away and bears birth to abundant newness. All we can do is take the precious time that its current wrinkle gives to us, ride with its tides, and be thankful that we're a part of it.”

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PSALM PARAPHRASES

I dislike the way the lectionary carves up artistic genius (like Psalm 139) into chunks. It’s like trying to admire of the grace of a cheetah by dismembering it. Even in these isolated verses, this has to be one of the great psalms, about a truly universal presence.

1          You know everything, God.
You know me inside and out. 

2          You know when I sit down, you know when I stand up;
you can read my mind.

3          Before I take a step, you foresee where my foot will fall. 

4          You know what I will say before I say it. 

5          I cannot get away from you.
Wherever I turn, whatever I do, you are there.
Sometimes your constant presence makes me feel fenced in;
you are larger than life, and I am next to nothing. 

6          I cannot possibly match wits with you;
I might as well try to fly like an eagle, or swim like a seal. 

13        No wonder you know me so well.
Even before my mother knew I existed,
you defined the genetic code of my cells.

14        You created my life. 

15        Wombs and worlds are one to you;
they have no secrets from you;
you are the essence of all life. 

16        As once you shaped the cells that formed my fingernails and my hair,
so you still guide me through the experiences of each day. 

17        Even if I am only a fleeting thought flickering through your mind, I am in good company. 

18        All of creation owes its existence to you, God.
I can no more imagine your thoughts than I can recall every detail of my dreams.
But you are not a dream, for when I wake, you are still with me.

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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TECHNICAL STUFF

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

            To subscribe or unsubscribe, send an e-mail message to jimt@quixotic.ca. Or you can subscribe electronically by sending a blank e-mail (no message or subject line) to softedges-subscribe@lists.quixotic.ca. Similarly, you can un-subscribe at softedges-unsubscribe@lists.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

            I’m leaving out some of the links to other blogs and pages, to see if those links have caused the recent blockages, preventing some of your from receiving the columns at all, and preventing others from sending responses. We’ll see.

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PROMOTION STUFF

To use the links in this section, you’ll have to insert the necessary symbols.

            Ralph Milton ’s latest project is 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 wwwDOTsinghallelujahDOTca

            Ralph’s HymnSight webpage is still up, http://wwwDOThymnsightDOTca, with a vast gallery of photos you can use to enhance the appearance of the visual images you project for liturgical use (prayers, responses, hymn verses, etc.)

            Wayne Irwin's “Churchweb Canada,” an inexpensive service for any congregation wanting to develop a web presence, with free consultation. <http://wwwDOTchurchwebcanadaDOTca>

            I recommend Isabel Gibson’s thoughtful and well-written blog, wwwDOTtraditionaliconoclastDOTcom

            Alva Wood’s satiric stories about incompetent bureaucrats and prejudiced attitudes in a small town -- not particularly religious, but fun; alvawoodATgmailDOTcom 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 tomwatsoATgmailDOTcom or twatsonATsentexDOTnet