If you stand patiently and quietly where chickadees gather, with an open palm of sunflower seeds, they'll land on your finger, very small and vulnerable, take a seed and then fly off. Seven out of ten chickadee fledglings die each winter. Jesus tells us that when a little bird dies and falls to the ground, God knows. And if God knows what happens to a tiny bird the size of a chickadee, how much more does God know about me. (Matthew 10:29-31)
My life matters! Many people don't believe that about themselves, and so they go through life sad, hateful, degraded, inwardly lonely, resigned to a sense of failure. But it doesn't have to be that way.
Some people don't live very deep lives. We can stay on the surface of things, self-absorbed in trying to remain young, notable, sexy and comfortable. But Saint Francis wants nothing more for us than that we would know and love Jesus in the Gospels. And central to that Gospel is the teaching that God's got his eye on the little bird. This has got to be the most blessed assurance in all of religion!
