“When you show compassion and love for something that you don’t have to – that’s an act of greatness. Even when it’s a tiny little bird.”

Terry Masear

Last week was a hard week for a lot of people.

Maybe you count yourself among them.

Maybe the new year has already done you in. Maybe you started off like an Olympic sprinter hearing the shot of the pistol, except a year is more of a long-distance haul, so now you’re huffing and puffing before making the first turn of the track.

You can’t even stick to your resolutions for a week, so why bother? 

Then there are those who had a true Christmas vacation. I’m thinking specifically of staff and students returning to the hallowed halls of learning for the second semester. Whether you’re in a pre-K class or a college biology lab, getting back into the groove is a shock to the order of the universe. 

When we’re out of our routine, we tend to get lazy. We stay up late binging a favorite show, which leads to sleeping in well past the time the sun has broken the horizon. We either canker over with bed rot, or else sprout green shoots from our lumpy couch potato selves.

You could say we’re just practicing for the springtime, which seems like another two years away. January is a dark month. Where I live, we didn’t see the blue sky at all last week. The gray and misty weather was not good for hairdos or happy moods, headaches or hammertoes.

Oh, and need I mention the news? Forget hearing about anything positive. In fact, there were some pretty horrible events, ones that I don’t care to recount right now. But there was nothing I could do to affect or improve any of the situations directly, and watching more about them would only put me in an even more nasty state of mind.

So what did I do? I made a cup of chamomile tea, and I turned to Channel 10.

That’s the local Public Broadcasting Station, and Nature was just coming on.

The first scenes contained up-close and personal clips of hummingbirds, along with a woman named Terry Masear who has made it her life’s mission to rehabilitate injured hummingbirds in her hometown of Hollywood, California. A retired UCLA professor, Ms. Masear now takes calls from concerned citizens at all hours of the day and night, especially during the spring and summer months, when hummingbirds take up residence in southern California.

I watched her care for Jimmy, a spunky little brown hummingbird who tussled with the other “boys.”

There was also slim Mikhail, who had grown extremely close to fluffy Alexa, his cagemate. Each was a different species, yet they got along just fine. 

Then there was Cactus, who had arrived at Ms. Masear’s with cactus spines protruding from her tiny body. There was little hope that Cactus would recover from her injuries, but Ms. Masear’s “physical therapy” helped Cactus learn to fly again. 

Ms. Masear even raised two tiny baby hummingbirds, ensuring they were strong enough to survive after being released. One of their lessons? They had to learn how to fight. 

Fighting is everything to hummingbirds, explained Ms. Masear. They fight over their feeders, they fight over territory, they fight over mating. Yet Ms. Masear didn’t hold their fighting nature against them. 

She explained, “When you show compassion and love for something that you don’t have to – that’s an act of greatness. Even when it’s a tiny little bird.”

She rejoiced over their tiny victories, and she mourned over the ones who didn’t make it. She expressed frustration over the care that some of the birds had received—care from people who just didn’t know any better, all the way to blatant disrespect from those who had treated the tiny creatures as disposable toys.

But when those little lives—most no larger than a thumb—arrived at Ms. Masear’s sanctuary, they received specialized attention, depending on their needs; she fed them by hand, gave them ample sunlight or shade, and worked with each one to aid the recovery process. 

When the time came to release them, they all flew away, each a miracle in its own way.

So then, I wondered: does God sees us as Ms. Masear sees the hummingbirds?

• Poor things. Bless their hearts. Somebody’s got to help them.
• All they know is fighting, fighting, fighting. They can’t help it.
• Forgive them, for they know not what they do.
• I wish they could see each other the way I see them.
• Beautiful and unique.
• All of them worthy of compassion and love, even Jimmy.

Miracles still happen. Despite all the bad news, there are Terry Masears everywhere doing the Lord’s work.

It’s the right kind of fighting.

And just maybe, whatever it is that you’re doing is helping more than you realize.

Don’t forget that.

Maybe this week will be better. At least the sky was blue again today.

And if the news gets to be too much, there’s always public television.

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If you want to see something uplifting, here’s a link to “Hummingbirds of Hollywood,” the episode of Nature referenced in the post.

It won’t be long before our little hummers are back, too!