His Eye Is on the Sparrow

When I was seventeen and eighteen years old, I spent those two summers in Florida with my grandparents.  Because most of my prior trips to Florida had been at Christmas, spending all this time in Florida seemed like the ultimate gift.  My grandparents were several blocks from the beach, but close enough for the wind to bring in that salt-spray ocean smell right up to the front door, close enough for the soft white noise of the waves crashing to become a permanent background song to everything done outdoors.

My grandparents gave me my grandmother’s scrapbooking/craft room, what used to be my dad’s bedroom.  It was small and tiny with terrazzo floors.  There was absolutely nothing that said my dad had ever lived there, except for the scrapbooks.  I sometimes spent hours looking through my grandmother’s scrapbooks, the ones that told a story, a picture book story of her life, and the lives of her children and grandchildren. 

I can still smell the plastic of the three ring binders she used.  I can still hear each plastic sleeve as I turned from page to page.  I can feel the pages.  Florida is so humid that things like plastic sometimes feel wet or that kind of cool that sometimes makes you think it’s wet even if it’s not.

Every morning, I woke up—not to an alarm—but to the sound of Mourning Doves cooing outside my bedroom window.

Our senses, not just sight, but more so smell and sound are key to memory.

I’m reading a book right now where the detective, as he walks the crime scene, takes a sniff from a jar of lye to help him imprint what he has witnessed to his memory.

The more sensory the scene, the more we focus on things other than just sight, the richer the memory, the more imbedded it becomes.

It’s why I spent so much time as a teacher, teaching my students to write with sensory details.

This scene of Jesus being baptized by John is rich with sensory details in just a few lines.  We recognize the touch of water.  But more than that, I have questions.  Was the shoreline rocky?  Did Jesus’ feet slip across the moss?  Or was the ground silty?  Did Jesus curl His toes in the sand?  I wonder if the water was cold that day or warm like bathwater, clear or cloudy or muddy.  Could Jesus see His reflection in it, the reflection of the sky, of the clouds?  Did He get a sneak peek of the Holy Spirit as it descended on Jesus like a dove.

Like a dove.  Dove-like.

I wonder, did it coo, did it warble, did it sing as it alighted on Jesus?

But perhaps it doesn’t matter, because a moment later, we get our sound detail, when God Himself speaks.

Why are all these details important?

Because they make the story real to us.

They put us there in the moment.

And what a special moment Jesus’ baptism was.

And suddenly all these words on the page become one word.

The Word.

And the Word breathes and is living and dwells within us.

These words give us practice in recognizing the presence of God everywhere.

Yesterday, I felt restless and I stepped outside in the too-hot-for-April weather and breathed in the dampness and let the sun just hold me for a moment.

At the end of my driveway was a muddy puddle, and in that puddle a sparrow was bathing.  This small fluffball of feathers, dunking his head and then shaking all over, showering himself with water.  He was joined a moment later by a robin, who also began to bathe and then a second later, a crow joined the party, standing slightly off to the side, just watching.

And all three birds were kind enough to stay there and not fly away while I ran inside to get my camera.

Because here was a baptism.  All it was missing was a dove.

But here were birds, cleaning themselves in the water, under the watchful eye of the sun.

God was most definitely there.

And because I can see Him there with the sparrow, I can see Him everywhere.

Remember the song, “His eye is on the sparrow and I know He watches me.” *

Amen.

 

*Matthew 10:31, “So do not be afraid; you are of more value than many sparrows.”