Consider the birds of the air

Consider the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?

-Matthew 6:26

A long time ago here on the blog I used to open my posts with a quote of some sort, especially if something was heavy on my mind.

I'm worried about this world, and all the people in it. I'm worried that in my nearly 54 years the amount of people who have been killed by cops who happen to be black is astonishing. And yeah yeah yeah I know. I know white people are also killed by cops. I know cops are killed by people. But if passing a counterfeit 20 dollar bill is enough to get your windpipe crushed, there's more than a "jeesh somethin's goin' on here" kind of vibe.

I feel like this happens every few years, and there are riots and demonstrations. Black people express their dismay, white people express their solidarity, and everyone has some tears. And then nothing changes on either side of the issue. Nothing.

Mostly I am feeling paralyzed and helpless. I also feel like I have no one to talk to. Most of my white friends are either business as usual, this does not impact me. And my black friends are so hurting that even if I try to be supportive, it sounds like a hollow empty clanging noise and my heart feels like I'm doing wrong.

This morning, after writing my 2am post, I got to sleep finally. I woke up at 7 and took the dog out, again, went back to sleep, and managed to really sleep. I told my boss recently that I do my absolute best sleeping between 6am and 9am, and would rather just start working 10-6 if that's at all possible.

He said that if it works for me and I feel I can do that, I should. We may revisit that.

Anyway, after some incredibly detailed dreaming, like, going on a rampage with my friend Bree (my only indigenous friend, and she's very much so) where we found roadside lawn signs with the Washington Football Team's logo on them saying 'We support Black Lives Matter." We took the signs and busted them up screaming.

Really wild dream for me, but very on brand for Bree. Very kind of "If you're going to throw a spaz about something you're absolutely passionate about, I'll come with and use my white privliege to not get arrested and I'll bail your ass out."

 I think she'd probably approve. (EDIT: I shared this with her and she thanked me for being willing to bail her out. Which was what I wanted to hear).

After I got up, I got some coffee and went out onto the porch to enjoy the second storey being put on my neighbor's house, and the other neighbor who started cutting his cement driveway with a power saw at 7am.

A few weeks ago, I had cut some taller grass from around a rock cropping that we have beside our staircase. It's impossible to lawn mow and Doug didn't want to use the weed whacker on it as it is at a weird angle. It had grown up very tall, about a foot, and was just unslightly.

So I got the pruning shears out, and cut the grass down. I piled it up, and then did nothing with it. I just left it there. Every day I said, I should go out there and grab that and take it to the back corner of the yard or something. But I didn't.

Sitting with my coffee, I watched four small birds swooping into the pile of dry grass, and picking at it to find the most choice building materials. They pecked at each other and chirped loudly of their annoyance, and each grabbed the long strands and flew off in different directions to wherever they were making home. They found a use for my castoffs, and it was probably a banner day for them to get all of this grass.

There is still plenty out there, but I know that they are provided for and we are provided for. And my worries about this world are also the worries of God. And I will not say it's all going to be okay, I do not believe it will be okay ever again. But there are shiny spots. There are shiny spots.