A Row of Birds

Mary’s Monday Musings to Quilt Encouragement
A Row of Birds

An unusually long row of birds perched side by side on the phone line that ran beside the highway in the countryside. Our car whizzing past didn’t disturb them. They were comfortable that they were high and safely beyond our car. They looked like they were all the same bird species. They made me think of the old saying, “Birds of a feather flock together.” These birds demonstrated the truth of that saying. Does that saying apply to people as well? Probably. We do enjoy other people who are interested in the same things we are, or people who have the same philosophy of life we have, or share the same values we appreciate. But we would benefit from expanding our contacts, especially resisting the draw to stick with people who look like us. We profit from learning other people’s philosophy and expanding our friendships to include who don’t look like us. Even if our insticts are to stick to our own types.

God made an interesting world. Just as he made a wide variety of animal species, He made people with a wide variety of appearances. While we all have noses, eyes, and ears, no two sets of these important features look exactly alike. Even identical twins have small differences that enable the discerning, well acquainted eye to tell the difference between them. Our life impacting backgrounds also contribute to differences in our outlooks on life. As a result of our different experiences, each person sees things from a particular point of view. Some of these viewpoints are helpful and others not so much. Regardless, it behooves us to take the time and interest to try to understand where we each are coming from. To understand the hurts, the bumps in life that have formed the invisible creases and lumps in each person’s thinking, may not make us best friends, but will go a long way to giving us compassion for one another. We aren’t likely to change another person’s lumps and creases, but we can see the love God has for each of His creations just as we hope others can see the love of God in us. We can demonstrate God’s love by our approach to others.