Fr. Tony’s Midweek Message
Big-Hearted Hummingbird
December 29, 2021
With the snow and cold weather, the small hummingbird feeder on my front deck has been seeing a lot of visitors each day. During the summers, we see mainly the bright emerald Anna’s hummingbird and the scarlet Rufous. The Rufous is more aggressive, defending its feeding grounds by pecking at and dive-bombing even competitors that greatly outsize it, while the Anna’s seem more inclined to flee or stand only in self-defense. This time of year, the Rufouses have all migrated to the coast of the Gulf of Mexico and the Pacific coast of south-central Mexico for wintering. The Anna’s tough it out here, descending from the higher elevations into the valleys like our own and using feeders abandoned for the winter by their more aggressive cousins. So all of our visitors this week have been green and less inclined to wage hummingbird war. Their visits brought to mind a story I have heard that speaks deeply to me.
In the Pali canon of Buddhist scripture, there is a series of stories about the future Buddha in various incarnations as animals and nature-spirits called the Jataka tales. One of them is about a brave little parrot who tries to fight a forest fire by taking beakfuls of water from the stream to the fire front. The other animals ask why it is so foolish as to risk its life in a clearly hopeless task, to which the parrot replies, “Hey, I’m doing the best I can here!” The parrot, with its great heart of a future Buddha, draws together the clouds, which then produce a downpour that puts out the fire.
This story appears in several world folk traditions, including Mexico, where the hero of the story is a roufus hummingbird. Because of its feisty character, it is associated with the Aztec war god, whose name Huitzilopchtli comes from the Nahuatl word huitzilin “hummingbird.” In this form of the story, Huitzilopchtli miraculously calls in the storm clouds to save the day. Many native American folk traditions, including the Pacific Northwest Shoshone and Haida peoples, tell stories of the hummingbird based on its perserverance and seeming great courage. In other forms of the story, it is the brave little hummingbird’s tears that bring on the rain.
The holidays this year have been hard on all of us, I think. Some of us are mourning family and close friends who have died; all of us are suffering from the uncertainty and fear of the omicron covid surge. And we continue to suffer from the effects of the wildfires last year. So those indomitable little hummingbirds on my deck have been a great sign for me of our need to face the world with all its threats and fears with a brave spirit (hopefully like the peaceful Anna’s and not the feisty Rufous, though either will suit us well).
Many of Jesus’ parables teach the importance of faith and soldiering on in the face of great odds: the persistent widow and the corrupt judge, the visitor at midnight, the seed growing secretly. As we get ready to face 2022 with all its challenges, let’s be brave, do our part—however small and hopeless as it may seem—and expect a miracle.
Because miracles do come for those who trust, for those with big hearts.
Grace and peace.
--Fr. Tony+
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