A feather on the sheltering wing of God

 

My friend Annie spent some time on a continent far from Minnesota several decades ago. She went there as a brave young woman, eager to help people whose need was evident, deep, and beyond imagination. The people in the camp had come from a country where living was not only dangerous, but now would mean death. They were trying to find refuge in a new country where living was still dangerous, but at least held possibility.

The camp had almost four times the safe-for-health number of residents, with few supplies, little food, too few tarps for even covering beds let alone for any community or health center covering. The people arrived after long journeys with almost nothing. It was rainy season for much of the time Annie was there, and nothing was ever very dry—there seemed no relief from dripping undergrowth and tree-top canopies, no relief from a constant worry about food for the thousands there, no relief from the constant worry about what happened to additional groups of their people that had had to flee.

It was from there that Annie sent her photo, one of the most meaningful I’ve ever seen. A hen chicken, wings held out and somehow cupped both broadly outward and downward. Beneath her wings, a pile of chicks: some sitting down, sheltered heads nodding in sleep; some with only little tail feathers evident, indicating heads tucked into the soft feathers of their mother’s breast; and two peeking out from underneath the hen, one looking to one side, one the other.

There was mud around them, but the hen had found as dry a spot as possible on top of a completely worn smooth and partially cut up car tire. A nest that had been fashioned held her up from the mud, and with her wings outstretched she was protecting her chicks. Seeing the photo at first I saw only the front-and-center hen and chicks. But looking at it longer, I noticed at the very edge were a woman’s feet in homemade rubber-sandals. And standing on those feet? The toes, feet, ankles of a little child. A place of refuge, given little feet.

It took the story from Annie to give the photo even more meaning. Returning to Minnesota she told of “Mama Ina” whose sandaled feet and child were in the photo. Mama Ina had told the story of her group of people stumbling upon the camp, and surprisingly being welcomed instead of being turned away, even though the shortages were already so great. Looking over at the hen and pointing, Mama Ina had said, “those who welcomed us were doing like God tells in the Psalms: How precious is your steadfast love, O God! All people may take refuge in the shadow of your wings” (Psalm 36:7).

And then Mama Ina added to Annie, “And you now, you too are a feather on the sheltering wing of God. God gives us light in darkness.”

How I wish I could find that photo to show you! It is somewhere, nestling safely on a book shelf or in a photo album. But neither the steadfast love of God nor word of God stays hidden.

This Sunday many churches across the world will be reading and singing Psalm 36…let it be reminder that when you find someone in need of safety, be a feather on the sheltering wing of God; and when you need refuge from the dangerous and lonely and difficult times of life, may you recall the precious steadfast love of God, and find refuge in God’s care.

Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This month our contributor is Pastor Kris Garey, Trinity Lutheran Church, Hovland.