Seagull

He spoke to me again this morning. More like squawked to be accurate. I’m assuming it’s he. That’ll be his job. Her job will be to sit on the eggs in the nest. We tried to move them on. We fitted little spikes to the ridges of the building so they couldn’t nest - all perfectly legal and acceptable, done by proper bird people. Mostly it worked. This year we only have one nest on the building and there are fewer gulls squawking and bombing us as we enter and leave the building! But Bob (let’s call him Bob - first name that came into my head), is still here. And he’s squawking. And he’s bombing. His nest is built between the spikes on the roof of the church. HIs wife (not sure that’s the correct term here) is sitting on the nest. Bob has only one job. Bob’s job is to protect the nest. And it appears he takes it very seriously! Bob doesn’t seem to know that I can’t climb the building or that I’m not in the slightest bit interested in taking the eggs. He doesn’t know that his eggs are perfectly safe as far as I am concerned. So Bob squawks at me every time I walk towards the building. And he bombs me when the mood takes him, like last evening as I was locking the building. Someone told me that if you look a gull in the eye as they fly towards you they won’t steal your food. I have no idea if that’s true, but it doesn’t seem to make any difference to Bob bombing me. I tried it. I looked him in the eye. He keeps bombing me. He’s just doing his job. And he’s doing it very well. The chicks, well, they have no idea how hard Bob is working to keep them safe. They have no idea that Bob thinks I’m a threat. They have no idea of how he sits on the apex of the Oasis and watches me as I walk down the road, ready the squawk and bomb if he thinks that’ll scare me off. I spoke to him this morning as he sat there. Didn’t make any difference. He still squawked. Bob is diligent and alert. He’s always watching. He’s always protecting. He’s always ready to spring into a bombing raid. He’s always ready with a squawk. It’s his job. And he’s good at it. Right in the middle of the Sermon in the Mount as we call it, Jesus tells us not to worry (Matthew 6:25-34). I think what he’s doing is inviting us to see the world the way he does: that there is a mighty and powerful Father who is actively watching over and protecting us, one who takes his job seriously and who is very, very good at it, one who has our best interest at heart. I think he’s inviting us to know that with God at the centre, the universe is a safe place to be. Precisely because Jesus understood that deep truth, he could fall asleep in a boat in the middle of the storm. He could confront evil and demons. He could give his life into the hands of his Father and say, “into you hands I commit my spirit” in the moment he died. He invites us to live in that truth too. Bob is annoying. But Bob reminds me of a deep, deep truth that I would do well to remember in this challenging and uncertain world. And maybe you would too.