By Norman Knight
Although there is always something that can be done in preparation for a coming growing season, this can be a sparse time of year for garden activities. Gardeners get particularly antsy during these late winter/early spring months. That is one reason, I suppose, the Trafalgar Garden Club decided to build birdhouses for our March meeting.
The wood pieces were pre-cut and drilled by members who have the tools and are adept at that sort of thing. We members gathered to assemble simple wooden boxes that would be used by our feathered friends. We chatted as we worked and afterwards continued our conversations at a local restaurant. Eating together is an indispensable component to our garden club meetings.
The design of the boxes includes a removable side. This allows the birdhouses to be cleaned out, usually at the end of a season. As we were drilling and hammering our bird habitats someone pointed out that clean-out doors are not something that occurs in the natural world: “When you think about it, birds make nests in the holes of trees. There are no clean-out accesses in the tops of old trees.”
That idea struck me, and I started mentally wandering. Yes, birds don’t worry about those sorts of things, they just let nature take its course. The opening in the box was really a human idea. As I pondered further, I began to suspect birds don’t worry about much of anything. They just fly about their day-to-day, moment-by-moment activities: eat, drink, nest, repeat.
In the Bible, Jesus tells us we can learn something from the birds of the air. He says in the gospel of Matthew that we should consider how they don’t sow or reap or store up in barns, and yet they are fed. He also says we shouldn’t worry about tomorrow; tomorrow will worry about itself.
His continual advice is: Just relax. Chill out. (I am paraphrasing.) This admonition that we should not worry runs throughout the scriptures: “Be of good cheer;” “Which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his life?”
And secular writers have offered similar advice since forever. Back in the 15th century French author Montaigne wrote: “A man who fears suffering is already suffering from what he fears.”
Four hundred years later Mark Twain said: “I’ve had a lot of worries in my life, most of which never happened.” And modern author Dan Zadra suggests that worry is a misuse of the imagination.
Worry seems to be a particularly human characteristic. We clearly are the worrywarts of the earth. Is it because we have an imagination?
Worry seems to work by projecting all sorts of possible events — usually bad — into a future. A future that might or might not occur.
Maybe the gift birds and other creatures have been given is the ability to live in the present moment. Wendell Berry calls it, “…the peace of wild things who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief…” We humans seem to be continually searching for that wild yet comforting peace.
Some suggest that to stop worry, change your mind.
“Stop worrying about what you have to lose and start focusing on what you have to gain.”
Another solution is to get busy. Former House of Representatives member Pat Schroder said, “You can’t wring your hands and roll up your sleeves at the same time.” That seems right. If I am busy, I don’t have time to worry.
And speaking of busy, Becky and I brought our birdhouses home, but we have been so busy we haven’t yet placed them outside. I’m sure we’ll get around to it soon. I’m not worried.
Norman Knight, a retired Clark-Pleasant Middle School teacher, writes this weekly column for the Daily Journal. Send comments to [email protected].
