City Flickers by Sharon Heagy

                                             Photo by Paul Crook on Unsplash

        RAT-A-TAT-TAT! My head snapped up and my eyes scanned the rooftops to my left. The reverie of my morning walk was broken and the culprit or culprits had to be on the roof of one of the buildings beside me but I saw nothing. A few steps more and RAT-A-TAT-TAT! Drawing a hand across my brow, eyes straining and squinting at the top of the buildings, I expected to see construction crews. Imagine my surprise when I realized the noise was caused by birds. And not just any birds, city Flickers! The Northern Flicker, well established in the city of Calgary, had made all that noise.

            “Crazy birds,” I called. “You won’t get any bugs for breakfast bashing your beak on that metal. Find a tree or a nice patch of grass.” Ignoring my sage advice they hammered on incessantly.  With a bit of a harumph, because I was quite obviously ignored, I shrugged my shoulders and carried on. 

            City Flickers. Down on the farm Flickers are too busy foraging for food to satisfy their enormous appetites to be bothered with such nonsense as pecking on metal. But maybe it’s just because we don’t have the multitudes of birds like the city. In Calgary, they are so plentiful that they once considered giving the Flicker the honour of official city bird. But I can see why they hesitated as these birds pursued such a seemingly useless endeavour as trying to get a big fat nourishing bug off the metal sheeting on the rooftops.

            Are we humans like Flickers? How often do we relentlessly ‘rat-a-tat-tat’ on some path, making an abundance of noise while God is trying to get us to head in another direction. Do we keep our heads down, exhausting ourselves in useless pursuits when all we have to do is take one lovely, long minute, look up and listen? It’s in the pause that the hands of God can reach down behind us and, as loving Father, gently guide His children to see the better way. 

            Writers can benefit from the same pause. We can get doggedly determined, head down trying to plod our way through the muck with Biblical persistence, which sounds like a good thing, and it can be, but only if it’s a God thing. Otherwise, we just spin our tires. Do we take time to look up from our work. To pause and take one lovely long minute to wrap ourselves in God’s presence and wait for His revelation and direction for the work being done in His name?

            And not only for the work but for directions in general. He is the guardian of our time and the breath to our life. Writing is a solitary endeavour and we tend to shut ourselves away. But if we listen, God may have other plans for our moments. He may want us to stop and hug a child or a spouse, call a friend who needs encouragement or visit a shut in. He may want us to take a walk outside with Him in His glorious creation to hear His voice and renew our perspective.

            From my perspective, the Flickers were absorbed in the absurd but further research exposed the reason for their bizarre behaviour. They are declaring their territory, keeping other Flickers away. Perhaps as writers we need to consider the prayer of Jabez, with which I am sure many of you are familiar. That little prayer in the middle of the family tree in 1 Chronicles 4 (verse 10). In the first line of the prayer, Jabez cries out to God and asks Him to bless him and increase his territory. Do we need to increase our territory as writers for God? It could mean we need to pause and write a letter to lift someone up. It could mean having the courage to allow others to read our sacred creations. Or, scarier still, to enter a contest or send a manuscript off to be considered for publication. Perhaps it would mean re-organizing our 24 hours to give more time to pursue the passion that He has instilled within. 

            I was wrong about the Flickers. I found they had a purpose in their noise other than to annoy people. Had I done the same with people I had met?  Making surface judgements instead of looking deeper, past the noise to see the hand of the Creator upon each and every beautiful soul? 

            City Flickers have taught me many lessons since the day I witnessed them drumming on the rooftop and I don’t think I am done learning what God wants to show me through these feathered creatures. All because one day He got my attention and made me look up for one long and lovely moment in time.