Yesterday late afternoon I sat in the car with Laura in my driveway, chatting away about this and that. We had just come from serving communion to a lovely woman in our congregation who is now very sick.
In mid-sentence, Laura exclaimed,
Is that an eagle?
Where?
Over there, she pointed.
And there she was.
In this land of a trillion birds we call home, there was a lone bald eagle, brown-bodied with the telltale white tail feathers and white head, languorously flying up and down the path below made by Crab Run just before it empties into Bullpasture River.
For a few moments that stretched into eternity, Laura and I sat transfixed, trying to spot her among the trees behind which she sought her prey.
Finally she flew past the church and beyond our sightline.
Still we sat in quiet, each marveling at the great good gift we had just received.
Even when our silence was broken, she left her stamp as we spoke of eagles and other birds we had seen before, along with the usual tales of the rapscallion squirrels and racoons who would destroy the many bird feeders put out to lure our flying friends into our orbit, if only for a while.
To anthropomorphize just a bit, squirrels and racoons are the humans of the natural world in these parts, taking what isn’t intended for them, hogging more than their share, and destroying what doesn’t satisfy them in fits of pique, as when they find the bird larders empty, apparently forgetting that they themselves had eaten the last lot of seeds placed for another.
Above it all, at a remove from such mundanities, flies the lone eagle, looking for what only she can see, seeking the prey peculiarly suited to her, so ungainly in posture when land-bound but so amazing when in flight, balancing nature in such purposeful glory.
