Nestbuilder

Recently I was sitting along the shoreline of the Ocean of the Streams of Story, the place where all the stories that have ever been told and many that are still in the process of being invented are found. I was watching the different currents weaving in and out of one another, marveling at its complexity when I was startled out of my quiet by the voice of a mourning dove.

He landed next to me, weary and fatigued and sat for a few long moments before turning to me and saying, “I have wandered the breadth of the entire world and this I know: when the earth is trod our feet are wounded by the harshness of the land.”

His words pierced me as I stared, perplexed, at him. I didn’t know who this bird was or where he had been, only that he wore the look of great victory, the kind that comes as a result of great pain. I sat silent and waited as I sensed the bird had more to say.

“I am a nest builder,” He explained.  

Ignorantly, I asked, “Yes, but isn’t that what all birds do? You build nests, right?”

The bird looked saddened, took a deep breath and began to explain, “You are all so full of longing, full of prayers and hopes. These prayers are placed hanging in our trees for a span of four seasons. In the spring, after the long winter, the prayers are frail and fragile. They have been weathered by the winter wind, and all that remains are tiny strands of wordless prayer, seemingly useless.”

Still confused and not quite understanding what was happening, I asked, “what does that have to do with your nests and how you build them?”

Again, the dove sighed, “These prayers, not the fat unseasoned prayers, whose words have wrestled with the wind are the ones I choose for the building of my nests…nests lined with wordless prayers.”

He stood up shook off his feathers as if about to leave.

Anxiously, I asked, “but, why? Why do you do this?”

He replied, “So that you will know what is seen has been made from things that are not seen.” And he flew away.