For Wilshire Baptist Church
I was pouring myself a cup of coffee when I was startled by a flash of movement in my peripheral vision. I took a quick look out the window and thought I saw a cat wobbling on the top of the garden trellis. But then I put down my mug and the coffee pot and looked again and saw that it was a hawk trying but failing to get a good, steady perch.
The hawk jumped to the ground and in a moment was joined by a second hawk and they started jumping and darting at each other. A third hawk arrived and landed to the side and I thought it must be some kind of mating ritual with the one on the side waiting to see who would be her date. Then the third hawk joined the other two in their jumping and darting, and a fourth hawk came and sat on a pile of brush and watched. And then along came a squirrel and the hawks took turns darting at him as he scampered on the ground and around the base of a tree, and that’s when I understood what I was seeing: it was training day for young hawks.
It was an interesting show on a quiet morning the day after putting our nephew Ethan on a plane for home. For the third year in a row we had Ethan in town for Wilshire’s MusiCamp and every year has been better than the one before. He learned a lot and had a great time reconnecting with Wilshire friends. The show, “Oh, Jonah,” was the best we’ve seen, and hats off as always to Sarah Stafford and all the Wilshire staff and volunteers who once again turned a gaggle of wiggly kids into a well-tuned show in just a week’s time. It truly is amazing.
After the daily MusiCamp sessions we kept Ethan busy with other fun stuff – museum and movie, bowling and billiards, aquarium and water park – and for most of the week I saw the local and national news only in my peripheral vision because a kid will command all your attention. And now I’ve been reviewing in my head all that I said and did with Ethan – how much “adjustment” I provided and whether or not I was too heavy-handed. I give myself a poor grade because Ethan is a great kid and his parents have done a wonderful job of raising him. He doesn’t need any more disciplinary reminders than any other kid his age, but I’m not a parent and I tend to want a 12-year-old kid to behave like a 25-year-old adult and that’s simply asking too much.
But my motives are good because, well, I’ve looked at the headlines again and I don’t like the way I see adults behaving. I won’t say I see “childishness” everywhere in our society because that label is unfair to children. What I see is a lack of patience, kindness, love, respect, humility, balance and the ideal that was taught so well in “Oh, Jonah” – responsibility. My generation has failed in many of these regards, and so I guess I want to help make sure the children who will grow up and lead the world some day do a better job than we have.
Later in the morning I was working at my desk and looked out the window to see that the hawk training day exercises had moved to the front yard and out on the street. And either the squirrels knew it was hawk training day and weren’t too worried, or they were too careless and busy to notice, or it was training day for them too and they were still learning what’s dangerous and what’s not.
But some day soon training days will be over. The hawks will be hungry and they’ll be hunting for real, and the squirrels better get serious about how and when to feed themselves and protect their young. If not, their days of digging for nuts in the sunshine will be over.