The Benefits of Hummingbird Watching

Everyday I spend two hours in my backyard after work with Francis.  We play fetch, but mostly enjoy laying on the grass and looking up at the sky thankful to be off of screens.  In being still, I have noticed a life happening around me that due to the hustle and bustle I had missed.  My dad bought a few Hardy Fuchsias and they have been ever so popular at attracting hummingbirds.  Every afternoon when Francis and I are at play the same hummingbirds stop to get their meals.  There’s one in particular who always shows up at the same time and after taunting Francis, feasts on our plants.

It’s funny because at my age I had never seen a hummingbird at rest.  Yet, our continuous visitor likes to sit on our clothing lines and look down upon us.  From below, I get to admire its tiny body as it cleans its wings and yesterday I even saw it catch a fly!  I am no ornithologist so I was surprise to learn that hummingbirds have a diet of plants and insects. It’s beautiful how a tiny creature is so complex and so simple at the same time.  It’s also surprising how much one appreciates from being still.

I always pictured moments of inactivity as passive. In our society rest comes with a negative connotation, but now I see that when we are still we enter into a whole new world.  One of my favorite verses is: “Be still and know that I am God.”  I love that verse because when I fall into a low bipolar period all I want is someone who will be with me in the low valley. Someone who will accept me at my low and who will lay with me and watch hummingbirds at play.  Someone who won’t push me into activity, but who will relax entering into the peace and wonder of God.

During this quarantine, I spend two hours every day outside in my yard with Francis playing fetch, but mostly just laying down on the grass cloud watching.  For a long time, I felt shame that instead of taking on a new hobby I rather be lounging outside.  I too am slowing going through a conversion by looking at these periods of stillness - ones so utterly filled with God as good. Through this private glimpse into His creation I realize how wonderous and magnificent our Lord truly is! And I am learning that being still, truly brings us closer to God.