Of Mallards and Easter Eve

I could not believe my eyes.  Glancing out a back window I saw them strolling through the grass-the male with his glistening green head and the female a few steps away blending into the grass with her mottled light brown feathers.  Why would a pair of mallards be in my backyard?  Cautiously, under the watchful eye of her mate, the female moved beneath my bird feeders and began to eat the seed on the ground.

Days later it was all my two grandsons could do to sit still on the swing as the female landed in the grass by the lilac bushes.  When she felt safe, she began to feed.  We watched in wonder as her beak gobbled up the seed and slight shivers in her neck sent the food down to her stomach.

This Saturday morning, the day before Easter Sunday, I spotted her as I picked up the morning paper.  She was sitting on the peak of a neighbor's house-a living weather vane.  I gave her little thought until the afternoon when I saw the empty feeders.  Scooping out the seed from the quickly emptying 40 pound bag in the garage I filled them.  It costs a lot to feed birds, let alone a mallard duck!  It wasn't long before the picky birds were back, searching for seed they liked and flicking the rejected seed to the ground.

It was then that she silently swooped in, her shadow brushing over my face.  Her eyes, black pinpoints in a feathery brown body, watched me.  Looking at her left me wondering what she was thinking.  I did not pick her, she picked me.  Uninvited she doesn't sing in the morning or at dusk.  But she needs to eat too.

On this Easter Eve, in the first moments of Easter Day, my thoughts are drawn to Jesus who was a 'God-bearer' who came to feed all people with the promise of love, life, and community.  Jesus didn't sort out who got to eat with him or listen to him or walk with him or even die with him.  He simply put love out there, even on a cross.  I did not pick him, he picked me.  It occurs to me the Church (myself included) is often more like me than Jesus.  I want to decide who can feed in my yard.  What do we do with the uninvited?

Easter is about what to do with the uninvited, the ones we do not pick to love but who still need to be fed.  On this Easter Eve I hope I am helping a pair of mallards watch over eggs bearing the promise of new life.  On this Easter Eve I pray I am helping the too often uninvited to be loved that new life might stir for them.