hungry sparrows

I'm on the Scottish isle of Iona, and a little earlier I was watching some sparrows. There were a pair of them hopping around near my feet, picking up some bread crumbs that I had dropped, and I sat watching, closely. I could feel their trepidation as they approached me: fearful to get too close, and yet at the same time, hungry and yearning to peck at those crumbs.

Watching them a curious feeling came to me. The feeling was something like: I am just like them. There was a great simplicity in it. And seeing that I too am sometimes wary, sometimes a little fearful, or having some trepidation, and at the same time, I am sometimes hungry for something: food, silence, spiritual inspiration, sex. There's really a simplicity in all of this: our hunger, our fears, and our courageousness too. For we as humans do also find the courage to peck at some crumb that we see lying before us.

But the overwhelming feeling in me, as I watched these sparrows, was this one of simplicity of being. And in me there was a great joy in the simplicity. I rejoiced in the fact that both the sparrows and myself are simple beings. So often we humans complicate life. We live complex lives, and we create great dramas where none is needed. And somehow these sparrows reminded me that, underneath all that human story, we are simple. And it's beautiful: that simplicity of being has a tremendous nobility in it.

So I give thanks to those sparrows, for reminding me of my simplicity.