The Wonder Overhead: A Murmuration of Starlings
Just before dusk, if you listen closely to the wingbeats and low calls, you’ll hear a rustling murmur above you as thousands of starlings form an undulating cloud. Before they settle into their roost for the night, their gathering creates wonder overhead. Each bird notices the starlings nearest it and matches their speed and direction. It’s mesmerizing to watch the flock’s smoky ink-colored shape shift, rippling quickly, as if a master choreographer guides their fast sky dance. It’s thought that perhaps the starlings gather for information about nearby food, protection from voracious predators like our hawks and eagles, and warmth. For whatever reason they gather, they astonish us. There’s order. There’s beauty. There’s attentiveness. There’s wonder in the watching.
In a migratory flyway, like the one we live in, this murmuration phenomenon happens again and again in autumn and spring. Aerial athletes team up artistically to create such a spellbinding scene.
The Wonder on the Ground
Our folding camp chairs, water bottles, a bag of snacks, and layers of clothing fill the rear of the car. We head to our grandson’s flag football game. It’s my first time seeing this sport, which wasn’t around when my children were just kids.
The field pulses with a crowd of energetic elementary school boys and patient coaches; we, families and friends, swat no-see-ums while watching the game from the sidelines. Like a murmuration of birds in their shape-shifting cloud, strong legs sprint in one direction, then pivot and swirl in another. Starts and stops. Shouts and sighs. Direction and distraction. Confusion and humor. Murmurs of movement flow.
A Murmuration of a Different Kind
As play after play unfolds, laughter and points for one team mean disappointment and sighs for the other.
I’m mesmerized by what I see and hear. A different kind of murmuration unfurls. Hands reach out to help others up after a stumble. Hands high-five to celebrate momentary victories: a defender pulls the flag from the ball carrier, halting play, or a well-caught pass. Words of encouragement and frustration both drift through the air.
These youngsters are just learning how things work as a team. Many have never played flag football or any team sport. They warn each other about dangers from the opponents. They hand one another water bottles to quench parched throats on this sweltering night, when autumn is here, but the temperature gauge hasn’t caught on.
It’s a fast game, full of agility, speed, and quick decisions.
Yes, they cheer when a score happens, but they also cheer for one another for other reasons: the one who snaps the ball for the first time, catches his first short pass, or sends one soaring. Small noticings. Big kindnesses.
It wasn’t only the players who murmured words of direction and encouragement to one another. Instead of harsh criticism, I hear one coach, then another, appreciate effort, offer perspective, and gently but firmly redirect missteps. Guys from one team spoke kindly to the other team. This field is a place to grow and flow together, so everyone can become a good sportsman on and off the field. It’s the shape of things to come.
The God of All Comforts
As I watched the camaraderie, I remembered a phrase I read during a sleep-tossed night. I thought of 2 Corinthians 1:3: “the God of all comfort.” While this group of young people is new to learning to comfort one another, we have a God who, from eternity past to eternity future, will always comfort us in all things and in all ways.
When we need comfort, God offers it. He is kind and firm, bringing comfort in the daily and in the everlasting. God isn’t stingy with His compassion and kindness.
Whether our circumstances stem from our own choices, others’ choices, or the fallenness of this world, God holds us. As Jesus did at Lazarus’s death, He weeps with and for us. After the Resurrection, Jesus consoles those who grieved His death. The Trinity, all Comforters in different ways, remains near us in every moment of need.
Yet God’s not giving us a comfy reprieve; He’s assuring us that He’s with us in the moment of hardship. He’s not going anywhere. Yet He also reminds me and all of us to keep going.
According to the Blue Bible app, paraklesis, “all comfort,” carries the “idea of strengthening, helping, and making strong.”
I saw that on the flag football field, and I’ve experienced it recently. Comfort sometimes means spurring one another on by urging us to press onward when times are tough.
This month alone, God has comforted my husband and me amid unexpected hardships. God has sent feisty hummingbirds to the feeder to remind us of beauty and the long distances still to be traveled. He’s surprised us with two different sets of friends visiting our area, eager to see us during their lovely travels. Waves and nods of the head, and conversations from afar on screens, are fun and vital, since we can’t travel these days. In real life, though, there’s more that happens. A touch, a hug, tears of sorrow or tears of joy accompany warm in-person moments as we linger at the marsh, at the shore, or over meals. We share our hearts with one another.
God has sent family and friends to gather around us in prayer. He’s offered books and movies that have brought laughter and hope. He’s given rest to the very weary parts of us, in body, soul, and spirit.
We see Jesus comfort the disciples, yet He also charges and challenges them to keep growing and moving forward amid hardships. In John 16:33, Jesus reminds us that tribulations will come our way. Yet He comes our way to remind us that He is the One who overcomes, and He says, “Take heart.”
The Comfort of One Another
How do we comfort one another?
Paul reminds us that we pass on what we have received. Having been so comforted, we likewise offer.
There’s not one among us who hasn’t known suffering. Having known the ache of suffering, we can recall and replay those moments when we felt disheartened, disheveled, or depleted. Yet just as God came, speaking with kindness and offering a bit more to keep us headed toward Him, we can do the same for others.
We do this by holding out a hand to steady or uplift another and by speaking a word at the right time. It’s a coming closer, not a turning away. It’s the murmuration of presence: we who have needed such comfort receive it, then, later down the road, we can turn and give it away to those in the swirl of life’s challenges.
A Murmuration as the Day Ends
This year’s flag football season is short, with only four games spread across our county. As we fold our chairs, gather up leftover snacks, and head for the blessed relief of an air-conditioned car that will keep pesky gnats at bay as the tide turns in the marsh and along the nearby shore, I am grateful for the God of all comfort and the comfort of one another.
All the way home, across roads that ramble by marshy areas that stretch and connect islands, we recount the game’s moments. Though his team lost, you’d never know it from the joy on our grandson’s face as he names moment after moment of goodness and split seconds of hardness.
I look down on the Intracoastal Waterway; the marina below this high bridge is full. In the distance, I see the lovely Savannah bridge. I gaze down on well-worn wooden boardwalks and floating docks lit with tiny white lights that bounce brilliance off the dark waters below.
The sky shouts a hallelujah to the earth in a rosy sunset. All of it feels like comfort, a warm beauty coupled with a firm encouragement to be strengthened, helped, and made strong as the day draws to an end.
In hushed awe, we rejoice, our hearts a murmuration of praise.
