“But ask the beasts, and they will teach you; the birds of the heavens, and they will tell you; or the bushes of the earth, and they will teach you; and the fish of the sea will declare to you.” (Job 12:7–10)

“who teaches us more than the animals of the earth, and makes us wiser than the birds of the air?’”
(Job 35:11)

Noah loved birds. It was an recurring focussed interest of his. He memorised the contents of about a dozen bird guides when he was 8-10 years old and for a while we carried around this stack with us everywhere we went until many volumes became tattered and too worn to use. I’m not sure what it was that drew Noah to birds specifically. He wasn’t one to share his inner thoughts in most cases, and I suppose he probably simply wasn’t really that bothered to know why they interested him, only knowing that they where a creaturely friend of great variety and interest that made for good and quiet companions.

I think it is fair to say that Noah had something of an affinity with these winged creatures and that they shared some modes of existence. Noah was often one to land softly on something and then only stay long enough to be noticed and then he’d quietly lift off again. He preferred to to dwell in a flock, always asking when we’d have another opportunity for a large family gathering.

In the biblical literature, which was also an interest of Noah’s (think here of another stack of bibles he loved to have us carry around in public when he was a bit younger), birds play a special role. The Psalmist writes that God knows birds intimately: “I know every mountain bird by name; the scampering field mice are my friends.” (Psalm 50:11). In a moment of desolation, the Psalmist reveals his own penchant for bird-watching and notes his affinity to specific birds in his suffering: “I am like a desert owl of the wilderness, like an owl of the waste places;
I lie awake; I am like a lonely sparrow on the housetop.” (Psalm 102:6–7) Birds are also harbingers of death, repeatedly referenced as agents who restore landscapes that have been battlefields of their corpses (see Rev. 19:17 for a particularly vivid portrayal of this agency). The bible is full of reports and predictions of violence, but this is only a reasonable reflection of the ways that many humans choose to be violent people in spite of our better natures.

But this morning the birds are singing loudly outside: a layered song with many different voices each distinguishable from the next yet complementary in their cacophony. I sit with them in gratitude for their willingness to carry on with their work day after day, providing us with wisdom in their comportment and care for one another. Like the Psalmist, at least for now, I am also the lonely sparrow on the housetop, caught up in silent thoughts of loneliness and loss.