From the Goldfields:
Feather
From the Goldfields: Feather
by The Revd Elizabeth J Smith | Senior Mission Priest, Parish of The Goldfields
 |
Sometimes in the park I find a big feather, a flight feather, something from a wing or a spreading tail, glossy black or calm grey. More often it is smaller, downy, a puff of breast feather, white, or with a tinge of green or pink to give me a clue about the bird that used to wear it.
I wonder whether the bird lost it through preening, its own beak scratching away at a dusty spot or a biting bug. Or perhaps there was a squabble, with parrots or galahs shrieking at each other in competition or love-making, making the feathers fly.
Each feather, whether fluffy or sleek, is a miracle of nature’s engineering. It is designed for aerodynamics and warmth, waterproofing and dustproofing, and for the colourful beauty that tells the other birds: I’m here! I’m one of your flock! It is proverbially light, just a wisp of near-nothing, yet strong enough to help its owner get airborne.
The lone feather is evidence that a bird was here, not so long ago. That even after dark, or on a hot, hot day, there are birds all around, sleeping in hollow trees or sheltering in the shade. I will never be able to catch a wild bird to look into its shining eye and stroke its miraculous plumage. But I can bend down into the dust and pick up a stray feather, and consider its former owner.
So it is with resurrection. Those folded cloths in the empty tomb were evidence that a body had been there, not so long ago. That somewhere, in the pink and grey light of early morning, there was a man walking in the garden, a man who had died a cruel death but was now alive again and waiting to speak to his friend, Mary.
Mary, and a few hundred others, all those years ago, saw not just the empty tomb and its discarded cloth bindings, but also their risen friend in all his strange glory. I do not see him in the risen flesh, but I believe Mary and those other women, and Peter and Thomas and Paul and those other men, who did see and touch and eat with him. And I look around me every day for resurrection feathers, evidence that Jesus Christ was here, and not so long ago.
Each time I see a flash of hope, colour glinting through a dark world, I know that death is not the last word. Whenever I draw a breath in wonder at a child’s wide smile, at a friend’s generosity, at a joyful work of art, I know that love is stronger than death. When I hear the stories of hard-won change in people’s lives, of their courage to take the right risks, of the sacrifices they are making to be life-givers, I know that Jesus Christ, the Lord, is risen indeed. He may be hidden from us, but the feathers of resurrection are everywhere, for those with eyes to see.Published in Messenger April 2022