Bobby

“There is more beauty in the truth, even if it’s a dreadful beauty. The story tellers at the city gate twist life so that it looks sweet. This only strengthens infirmities and teaches nothing, cures nothing, nor does it let the heart soar. ” 

-John Steinbeck, East of Eden

This spring we got the most unexpected gift, literally delivered straight to our front door. A mother robin decided to nest on top of the door wreath. I think she must have been either utterly desperate or fiercely defiant, because despite the constant flow of noise, movement, and bubbles created by two toddlers, she held her ground and created a beautiful nest with four blue eggs. 

Over the next few weeks, our lives revolved around the little bird family. Every morning before breakfast, the girls would bound outside in their pajamas to check if the eggs had hatched. After waiting for nearly two weeks (a year in toddler time), the girls watched in pure wonder as four babies struggled and broke free from their miniature porcelain prisons. 

Every morning after the eggs hatched, we would sit down in a strip of sunlight under our maple tree. While I sipped my coffee, the girls would eagerly tune into the latest episode of the robin family reality show. They cheered every time mama caught a large worm and giggled when the babies frantically jostled for the first bite. They decided that the largest was a boy, and named him Bobby.

After approximately twenty-two episodes of this kind of slow-moving, mesmerizing drama, it finally happened. Bobby took flight. The girls erupted with joy as he landed just a few feet in front of them. We watched with awe as the gangly little bird experienced the world for the first time. He hopped and flapped his way around our yard and then slipped through the fence to visit the neighbour. 

After a few minutes, a large group of adult robins converged on the neighbour’s yard and began to YELL. If bird vocabulary contained the equivalent of four-letter words, I imagine that they employed compound variations with maximum emphasis. I ran to the fence and instantly felt my stomach drop as I saw two puppies curiously sniffing a little bundle of feathers. Instinctively, I joined the flock of robins and began to scream at the dogs.

Before I had time to contemplate doing anything else, it was over. 

I felt a massive lump building up in my throat as the girls ran over to see what had possessed their mom. As I looked at their concerned little faces, I tried my best to disguise the mix of grief and anger boiling up in my chest, and quickly fabricated a story about how Bobby found a perfect little birdie home beside the neighbour’s shed. 

Today I read these words in Hebrews 11:1:

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.”

As I reflected on Bobby, I imagined a blank canvas. Life draws us many outlines in the form of friendships, marriages, careers, ambitions, and precarious robin nests. Our imaginations often work overtime to fill each outline with colour, creating a kind of paint-by-numbers blueprint of how it should turn out. We often may not be aware of this projected design until reality swoops in like a giant brush and changes it.

It is hard to step back and take an honest look at a reality: the achingly beautiful world God created, and heart wrenching ways it can go wrong. How can these things coexist? Even now, when I think about Bobby, something deep inside of me wants to protest. It’s not right. This is definitely not the way it was supposed to be. 

How do we make sense of this kind of painting? Some of us avoid looking at the ugly strokes, as if denial will make them disappear. Others might tend to do the opposite, gradually losing sight of beauty and viewing the whole canvas with a cynical eye. Many of us might turn to a new canvas, desperately hoping that this time, reality will behave and stay inside the lines. 

When I read Hebrews 11:1, I wonder if living by faith is somewhat like the practice of taking an honest look at the “dreadful beauty” on the canvas in front of us and then surrendering the paintbrush. Learning to absorb every mark of beauty with a heart of gratitude, as a gift from a beautiful Creator. Finding the courage to view the ugly and torn bits with an honest eye and bringing God a heart of lament. And regarding the unpainted parts with a heart of surrender. 

Inevitably, walking by faith will lead us back to the cross, the ultimate place of “dreadful beauty.” The place where a King was spit on, a Friend was betrayed, a Son was abandoned, a Healer was wounded, and a Saviour was killed. Jesus came face-to-face with every ugly facet of sin and He did not flinch or turn away. He was held firmly in place by a kind of faith and unconditional love that defies human understanding.

As we form a practice of gratitude, lament, and surrender at the foot of the cross, faith begins to take substance, as concrete as oil paint flowing across a canvas. When we continue to turn to Jesus in every season, He begins to emerge, not only around us, but also inside of us. And this image is not only beautiful; it is made to last forever.