students of jesus

Once there was an aviary. Mornings there were spectacular. Each day sunrise brought forth songs of unimaginable beauty. Larks, buntings, vireos, and mockingbirds sang from the heart—or instinct, or whatever it is that causes birds to sing in the morning.

One morning a Common Loon joined the aviary and added her voice to the Morningsong. Her mournful wailing voice cut across the celebration with sadness and lament. “Not like that” cried the other birds. “We are greeting the sun!” The loon had more than one song, so she threw he head back and let forth a crazy laugh-sound. It was distracting, but the other birds decided they could work with half-crazed laughter and allowed the loon to stay, even though they privately made fun of the loon’s song.

Soon a turkey arrived in the aviary and waddled into the mass of morning singers. His guttural gobble was not only ridiculous, but he simply walked along the floor of the aviary and made those silly noises. “What kind of bird is this?” asked the warbler. “He’s big and fat, he couldn’t fly more than a few feet if he tried, and he has the nerve to strut while he makes that god-awful sound? I refuse to call it singing!” The other birds settled the warbler down and—though they admitted the turkey was a truly ridiculous bird—found a place for the tom to strut and gobble. "Strut and gobble" became a funny insult among the cool birds.

Anyone could’ve predicted it: before long an ostrich showed up and began to run the length of the aviary during Morningsong. She spread her useless wings and ran surprisingly fast, but added no sound at all to the group. “Someone has to draw the line somewhere,” demanded the canary. “This, this, thing can’t sing, can’t fly, and can’t stay in the aviary!” Bold talk from a canary! She demanded that other birds show the ostrich the door, but really—who is to be able to throw an ostrich out? So every morning the great bird ran the floor, flapping its worthless wings, pretending to be a part of Morningsong. The other birds dubbed him the Great Pretender.

Morningsong was ruined. And it became steadily worse: other so-called birds continued to crash the gate: birds with no feathers at all, who claimed to be able to “fly” underwater; birds so tiny you’d miss them in a blink, and even though they could fly they made a mockery of flight by moving backwards through the air. They beat their wings so fast it created a humming sound, but everyone knew they had forgotten the words.

In the aviary there were some strange birds, indeed. Amazingly, Morningsong continued: deeper, louder, and longer than ever before. It became a riot of sound, a rush of color, a blur of motion. What was scandalous one month became normal the next, because after all, the song was in each bird, one way or another. Though one bird looked down its beak at another, the song continued.

Beyond notice of the birds the curator of zoo came morning after morning. He sat with his coffee and enjoyed the unpredictable show. The curator wondered what the song could be like if each bird actually liked all the others.

Morningsong continued in an endless parade of days.

One day, the sun did not rise. Instead the MorningStar Himself arrived, and every bird stopped in stunned silence for about half an hour. Then, as if a glorious conductor gave the down beat, Morningsong sprang forth in true speandor with a beauty intended from before time began. The music, the color, the motion found its true audience at last. The rush of sound did not sound like any one bird. Their songs, their dance, even the bright colors of their wings, all combined into a truly new sound--a sound never before heard in the aviary. Each bird forgot its own song, its own preference, its own rules and focused instead on the bright and Morning Star.