The Cardinal

A Rock of Remembrance.

When I was a boy, I was fascinated by America.

1970’s V8 muscle. Choppers roaring across the Golden Gate bridge. Bob Hannah holeshotting Anaheim. Big-sky country desert racing insanity. The Bonneville Salt Flats speed demons. Bison, wolves, lynxes and bears. Six-shooters and lever-actions. The Big Apple. Industrial giant steel city Pittsburgh. The Superbowl.

What I could never quite fathom was that, for some strange reason, I was always drawn back to the Mid-Atlantic part of the atlas, around Washington DC and up towards New York then west to Pittsburgh. Little Maryland especially had a pull on me despite me thinking it’s gotta be totally boring there compared to the Western USA. Too civilised, not much adventure surely.

But on rainy days, or whenever else I dragged out our big Collins family atlas, I’d always finish up following my finger busy pottering around the Cheaspeake Bay/Baltimore/DC area.

First call of the atlas was always Tanzania/East Africa. Then anywhere random, mostly wilder places. Mongolia. Morocco. Ayers Rock. But always closing out the session in Maryland/Mid-Atlantic USA.

My family had no personal or historical connections there. I’d never read any famous cowboy stories or furskin trapper tales from Maryland’s neck of the woods. It made zero sense to my 12yr old noggin.

Along with that came an interest in the birds of that part of the world. The Blue Jay caught my eye. So did Woodpeckers, and above all, the Red Cardinal. They became my 3 favorite, most want to see, birds in the world.

Through my last couple years of high school, a bright little Red Cardinal ornament sat on my dresser. A gift from an aunty who’d visited Canada. Later it moved onto my study desk through university. Then onto my bedroom bookshelf. Then into storage during my years in Tanzania. Later still back on my desk while I studied for my masters in theology.

That wee bird was a companion for years.

Before leaving New Zealand for Uganda in 2008, I did a severe de-clutter and decided Mr Cardinal’s time with me was up. Off he went to the op shop less than two weeks before I first met Eden in Karamoja.

At the time I was somewhat hesitant to say goodbye to my little red friend but my older American girlfriend from Texas insisted it would be emotionally healthier to let it go. Break with the past etc.

A year and some later, on Boxing Day 2009, I flew from Auckland to Dulles to spend two weeks with Eden and her family in Maryland on my way back to Uganda. That in itself was cool because, for the first time in over a decade, it had worked out cheaper to get back to East Africa via America than via Asia, so visiting my gal wasn’t costing me extra.

Anyway, about halfway through my stay at her older sisters home, Eden told me to look out the window because there was a Blue Jay outside. She knew I was an avid birdwatcher.

So I did.

Mr bonny Blue Jay strutting about over the fresh snow beneath a small bush. In same bush sat a brilliant Red Cardinal. And just behind them, on the trunk of a nearby tree, a Woodpecker was hard at work.

All three framed inside one small pane of a much bigger lounge window.

I watched them for maybe half a minute before all three moved off.

Then it hit me.

Once, those had been my three most favourite birds.

Now here I was, seeing all three together in the very state that had fascinated me as a boy, long before I had a reason to think I’d ever set foot here.

I remember almost laughing inwardly,

Wow God. You are such a cool Father to me. You had this coming-together moment coming together over so many years.

That was the bit that got me.

Not just that I was in Maryland.
Or that Eden, bred born and raised here, was in my life.
Not the smallish chance of seeing all 3 birds through one tiny window frame.

It was the sense that none of it had ever been random.

Those odd little interests of a dreamer Kiwi kid.

All of it for a brief moment in one small frame. Noting something I had not arranged.

That is one of the things I love about God.

He is not only Lord of the big dramatic turnings.

He is Father.

And fathers who know their children will notice what catches a young heart long before that child has any idea what to do with it.

Sometimes those early desires are not childish fluff to be grown out of.

They are clues.

Seeds even.

And sometimes, years later, God brings them quietly to fruit in a way that leaves a man standing there thinking,

Well... that was You.

Mostly I still don’t see what He’s up to.

Much less understand it.

But every now and then He lets me notice one of these strange little threads running all the way through, and when that happens it’s both humbling and quietly thrilling.

Because it is all God’s doing.

Not mine.