Reading · Back of the Flock

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There is a video I like to watch when I need to cry.

In it, wildlife videographer Robert Fuller shows us the life and times of Luna the tawny owl through his carefully placed nest cam. We watch as Luna and her partner Bomber carefully prepare a nest and then as she lays three eggs. For weeks, Luna fights off would-be attackers and broods over her eggs, day and night. But eventually, it becomes clear that her eggs are not going to hatch; the window has passed.

In the rural area where he lives, Fuller receives a call from a nearby farmer that two orphaned owlets have been found, fallen from their nest, in a hay bale. And so, Fuller hatches a plan. When he observes Luna leave her nest momentarily through the video feed, he quickly climbs a ladder, removes the unviable eggs from her nest and replaces them with the two orphaned owlets. Back at home, he watches with pursed lips for Luna’s return, eager to see if she will accept the two shivering chicks as her own.

And what happens next is the reason the internet was invented: Luna pokes her head into the entrance of the nest, sees the two tiny owls, and without hesitation, leaps in. She coos and clucks as she hops over and around them in an attempt to cover both of them with her entire body, instinctively knowing they needed her warmth. She channels all of her maternal instincts onto the two fuzzy babies, quickly and eagerly mothering them like they are her own.

In the book, I talk about how one of the only mentions of God’s maternal character that I was familiar with before I started researching and writing was Jesus’ poignant words of how he longed to gather Jerusalem under his wings, like a mother hen gathering her chicks. In this section, I talk about the context of Jesus’ maternal words. But here, for just a moment, I want us to concentrate on the feeling of them.

I have a long history of over-anthropomorphizing animals, assigning them human emotions and often human names. So imagine with me, those two fuzzy, muppet-looking chicks. Imagine their disorienting fall from the nest. Their confusion. Their desperate cries as they called for their mother, quieting over time as she never came. Imagine the scratchy hay as they waited. Feel their relentless shivering with cold and lost hope.

Now put yourself in Luna’s talons. Imagine sitting in a nest for what you somehow know is too long on unmoving eggs. Listen to the silence of a nest built for life. Feel the days tick by, one after the other, with no change. Imagine the despair, wondering what went wrong. Feel the cold of all that should be but isn’t.

Now…let yourself feel the delight wash over you as you come back to what you expect to be another lifeless, dreary day only to discover two gaping mouths, their chirps echoing in the surprise you feel pounding in your own chest. Imagine how it feels to gather them, first one, then the other, under your yearning wings. Imagine the togetherness, the sense of everything sad becoming untrue1, every wrong made right, the feathered warmth, the softness of belonging to one another at first sight.

It is to this kind of shelter, this kind of comfort, this kind of belonging, that God calls us to. It is this kind of yearning that Jesus expresses in Matthew 23:37 and Luke 13:34 - a maternal posture and longing to care for us, to meet every need of ours with warmth and welcome. It is our own longing for shelter and fulfillment that we recognize in his words. And I believe, it is this kind of divine delight that God experiences over us, his children as we gather under the wings of the mother hen.

Mothering is such hard and holy work. It is the overwhelming joy of a baby’s first belly laugh and the overwhelming frustration of a toddler’s first true tantrum. It is knowing your kids at the cellular level and letting them go a little bit more everyday. It is despair at the cry in the middle of the night and a delighted face grinning at you over the crib railing first thing in the morning. It is a long marathon of patience and a daily sprint of dinners and dishes. It is hearing your fifty-seventh Mom! of the day and knowing that you would literally throw yourself in front of a bus for your kids.

At its best, mothers offer unconditional belonging.
Warmth.
Rest.
Comfort.
A place to call home.

This Mother’s Day, know that for as much as you love your kids with every fiber of your being, so God loves you. That for each and every way you care for them, from before dawn until well after dark, so God cares for each and every one of your needs. That when you feel lost, cold, and abandoned, so God is delighted to find you and take you under wings of love and coo
You belong. You belong. You belong.

Happy Mother’s Day!
God loves you like a mother.

Watch the short Instagram-length recap of Luna the owl’s moment of discovery here, or treat yo’ self to the whole 50-minute story here.

She Came Back to a Surprise in Her Nest

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