Dear —
As I write this, geese are flying overhead, one of several flocks that have passed by in recent days. I seem to be living on a major migration route, and my heart joys to hear their calls as they pass by — a friendly greeting from the heavens!
I have always loved birds, ever since I was a little boy, when I would go with an elderly lady to Ashtead Common in southern England most weekends, binoculars in hand, ever hopeful I would catch sight of a kestrel hovering, ready to swoop on its unwitting prey beneath.
This lifelong love of birds is expressed in my books too. In Obama's Dream, the two angels who appear at the start of the book reappear as sparrows who entertain the family in the White House Master Bedroom. (I doubt they'd get such a kind reception today.)
In Elijah, ravens famously sustain the prophet when in hiding from the murderous intents of Queen Jezebel, but I also imagine an angel appearing twice before the Man of God as a robin. And a robin also appears in my short narrated story, The Awakening, where birdsong is translated into poetry.
Finally, in The Christmas Tree, the angel Gabriel perches in the branch of our tree as a messenger sparrow to bring comfort to the protagonist of my story.
But...
Iit's not just geese I hear overhead. There is still occasional disturbance from a jetplane leaving Manchester Airport, despite the Covid-inspired reduction in airtraffic.
These observations alone express the contest now underway between Nature's wonders and mankind's destructive impulse. That is why I regard Covid as our Champion Pathogen, an invincible activist for planetary reform akin to the plagues Moses unleashed against Egypt to free an enslaved population. That monumental chapter in human history closes with the death of Pharaoh in the Red Sea, drowned by his own hubris.
Of course, the contention between prophets and unrepentant leaders is as old as civilization; it is in play today, and it never ends well for the leaders, any more than when Elijah told an ailing King Ahaziah at the king's bedside: "You shall not leave the bed you lie on, but shall surely die" (2 Kings 1:4).
Make what inferences you will!
Until the next time I "unclasp a secret book..." (To quote Shakespeare, as I often do.)
Abdiel
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