On Watching Barn Swallows Watching Me

And An Old Friend Visits

I first saw the barn swallows peeking out of a nest in the barn. Then they'd moved to a second nest when they were about to fly. A small flock swept in and out, restless, demanding I leave. Imagine being so close to all that flight, to be in the midst of all that fierce, frantic joy. One hovered for a second right in front of me. I was so busy snapping pictures, I missed when the young ones dropped out of the nest. The nests latched onto rafters are impossible for cats to get to.

I've watched them waltzing with dragon flies weaving in and out of their flight. They seem so full of joy. Or at least what I wish I felt living my life. I wish I could find a sense of play—here as I write, as I walk the dogs, and tend to Morgen. Mostly I feel guilt for what I don’t do. Overwhelm sets in. And I doom scroll because I can’t take my eyes off what looks like western culture’s death spiral. Instead of watching the goodness soaked in the world, like the swallows, and walking and the quiet dog beside me, who sometimes wants to sniff, I am no better than the people bowing before Nebachadnezzer's image.

When I walked this week, the sparrows lined up on the electric wires watching. Even though they are plain, they are the most beautiful birds, with white chests and brown collars at their throats, deep blue almost black backs, and hooked wings, that sweep and dip when they drop into the air. According to Whistler Naturalists, "barn swallows are steeped in myth and legend.  The Barn Swallow is said to have consoled Christ on the cross, and in many areas superstitious farmers believe that nesting Barn Swallows bring good luck to their farm."  All About Birds from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, says, "According to legend, the Barn Swallow got its forked tail because it stole fire from the gods to bring to people. An angry deity hurled a firebrand at the swallow, singeing away its middle tail feathers." The site also notes, "Although the killing of egrets is often cited for inspiring the U.S. conservation movement, it was the millinery (hat-making) trade’s impact on Barn Swallows that prompted naturalist George Bird Grinnell’s 1886 Forest & Stream editorial decrying the waste of bird life. His essay led to the founding of the first Audubon Society."

A few years ago, we rescued a fledgling and set him on a shelf, with meal worms and seeds. We think he survived to fly onto the wire between the barn and the shed. I like to think that he’s brought his family back, that there’s some memory of our kindness in the flock. I imagine I carry enough light for the birds watch me like I'm a parade worth lining up for. But I’m no saint. Just someone who walks the same road, day after day, giving thanks. Or maybe like the legend, they are consoling me as I carry my cross, the sometimes feeling  forsaken. 

I will miss the barn swallows dancing over the fields and in the barn as they flock and fly as far south as Argentina. I hope they make it through the huge whirling blades of the wind mills south of us that are so big we see the blinking red lights from miles away. Their return next spring is something to hope for.

On 9/11 I read how a former student wrote that she remembered leaving my 8 am class. In her next class she watched the second jet hit the tower in real time.  As a dutiful person who keeps going no matter what, I continued teaching that day. If I remember rightly, I let my students talk the rest of the day, or maybe I turned to a grammar lesson. 9/11 marked our cry for safety at all costs and the surveillance state threw out a broad loop we welcomed, a loop that is slowly wrapping around the world. 

Autumn 2024 feels more sad than usual with the corn drying, corn plants that feel like mini forests and friends as I’ve walked beside them and watched them grow from bare ground. I’ve missed the view down the valley, but it was worth it, to watch life take hold, the plants opening to sun, dirt, chemical, and shooting up in praise. I smelled the sweet fragrance of tassels sending down silks making kernels. Now the plants are dying, soon to be slaughtered by combines, turned into harvest. I look across to The Tree and notice a patch of brown leaves, way too early for an oak to turn brown. 

My heart hurts. My father died at 69, and I will be that age in a month. I will have outlived every member of my family. As heart wrenching as their falling asleep was for me, each of them passed during their prime, without the indignity of decline. Bruce and I are sliding towards illness and frailty. We’ve been on our farm for nearly 20 years. Someday we’ll need to leave. One of us will die and the grief will yawn, so wide neither one of us will barely stand it. We live in a culture that that doesn’t value friendship and with no family, well, my heart hurts. Paul Young says not to take up residence in the future. He says God can only be with us in the present. But on this day I can’t help but know that major loss, heart rending grief, pain, loneliness are headed our way. Perhaps there is promise in being a solitary like Julian of Norwich. Perhaps there is promise that Jesus knew these things and worse were headed his way. My heart hurts.

When I pray for people who are grieving, I pray for the Lord to be present, because He offers a fellowship of suffering. Somehow grief is easier if someone is sitting with us, even if that Person sits with us by faith. He has wiped away my tears here and now. I pray for tears when they are needed. I pray for comfort when it's needed. I pray God sends friends to listen and to shoot the breeze.

In a recent podcast, “God is More Exciting than Anything”, Chris Green talks with Dr. Jill Williams about suffering. She says, “But I think so many things strike me about, it says at Fathers and Mothers, one is that they don't undertake asceticism for its own sake. It is a form of spiritual warfare. They recognize that the world is fallen, and there are things that work in it, which need us Christians to stand against.

“And so they are great prayer warriors, allowing themselves to enter into real furnaces of temptation and places where they have to, the only way they can resist is by absolute commitment to concentrating on God and not thinking about themselves. So, I mean, that sense of being willing to enter into the furnace on behalf of the world, again, a very particular calling, don't let's all feel we have to do it. Don't do this at home.”

Like I said,  I'm not saint material. But this idea of prayer, of spiritual disciplines as standing against the powers of darkness, strikes me like bell. That maybe saying no to something as trivial as Diet Coke might mean more than just abstaining from a favorite drink.

For a few days night time has pinched off sunlight. We wake to light that looks like we might get rain but it’s only the sun not topping the horizon. One more thing. On the way home from church, I cussed as we dropped down to cross the tracks. Bruce kept driving. On top of the railroad crossing gate sat a rough looking owl. By the time Bruce stopped, he dropped off and flew behind the sumac. He too said something like the swallows. What I don't know. 

An Old Friend Comes to Visit

Funny, right after I wrote the woe-is-me Ghosted piece and posted it, many people responded with kindness, with I’ll be your friend on Facebook. And then I felt overwhelmed, when would I have time to start these new friendships?

Our new neighbors stopped by and visited with us for a few hours. We have similar interests and like us they are working on making an older house and its land more itself. They are inspiring me to maybe invite our neighbors over because it’s important to know our neighbors.

On Facebook, I saw Linda was headed this way from the badlands. Since we live close to 90, I gave her a shout and suggested she stop and see us. She would be here in six hours.

 Linda showed me pictures of high school friends, some of whom looked the same and others who looked wildly different than how I remembered them.

She said we were on a bus going somewhere, though I don’t remember what trip it was because I never went on those overnight trips and I was talking about my faith. The cute, popular guys were all arguing with me. “How could you believe the virgin birth?” 

Linda said she never forgot how I did not back down even though there were five against one. I was like that back then, taking stands for Jesus and conservative politics. I know I wrote their names on my list and doggedly said prayers for them. 

 One of the things that scares me the most is that I won’t take a stand for Jesus when the time comes. And I think that time is coming.  

I remember the question: What would you do if someone came to church and asked if you followed Jesus. If you said yes, you’d be killed. I was about three years old.  To this day I worry about how I’d answer. During the pandemic, Pastor Rub said he worried about the same thing. I’ve never heard a pastor share this worry. He shared the story Corrie Ten Boom shared about how her father said he’d give her the tickets when it was time for her to ride on the train but not before. Jesus himself has said not to worry about what we say, that the Holy Spirit will give us the answers we need. So maybe Linda’s memory that I stood up for Jesus, is a promise that I will hold fast when the time comes. Maybe our prayers, our hospitality, even loving our spouses and walking our dogs and mucking out stalls and watching swallows swoop and wheel are quiet ways of holding fast.

In the mornings the sun shines just right and reflects off water in the sink. It throws a dancing reflection on the wall. I like to think the light of the water is not just sunlight catching water in the sink, the angles just right. What if science isn’t the only story. What if it’s the living light of Christ and the fountain of living water, flashed up on the wall.

Works Cited

Cornell Lab of Ornithology. "Barn Swallow." https://allaboutbirds.org/guide/Barn_Swallow/overview Sept 15, 2024

Gotz Max. "Barn Swallow; Hirundo Rustica" https://www.whistlernaturalists.ca/single-post/barn-swallow-hirundo-rustica Sept. 15, 2024