What the Mick Jagger of Birds Taught Me

Ten years ago, I was fed up with life in general. I no longer liked the work I was doing, and was probably experiencing perimenopause. Regardless, I was grouchy and rather loud about it.

I prayed daily for direction, but got nothing. I became convinced that God was an introvert, and it infuriated me.

I even tried to meditate, which resulted in me thinking about my writing which made me think about yearbook in high school which made me think about my high school boyfriend which made me think about weightlifting which made me think about my weight.

Since meditation apparently sent me into a mania, I just prayed. And unless God was a cricket, there was no response.

On the way home one night, after several months of repeated praying, I screamed a prayer that a religious editor would have rewritten completely. Somewhere in my ranting, I told God – “You don’t send me signs, you don’t answer me, and you need to stop talking in some heavenly whispers because I CAN’T HEAR YOU!!!”

I slammed my fists against the steering wheel and cried. I cursed. I waited for lightning to strike my car, figuring that negative attention is at least attention. I just heard silence. More crickets.

My stampede of pity continued as I got home and slammed around pots and pans. Not that I was cooking, I was just slamming them around for effect. I don’t cook.

I went to bed exhausted . . .

The night enveloped me quickly, sucking me into a weird storyline.

I dreamed about our current house, which we wouldn’t buy for two more years. I walked across our deck to the backyard, and several people were there. I think it was some kind of party.

I went down the deck steps and turned to the right, where I saw a small tree (our house has a dogwood that is in that location). In that tree was a spectacular array of colorful birds, and they were a singing their hearts out in a cacophonous, symphony-tuning-up kind of way.

As I listened, their songs became words, with each bird singing one word. And here was their message:

“Move . . . forward . . . without . . . fear . . . don’t . . . be . . . afraid.”

They repeated it several times as I stood there amazed. At the end of the song, a big, colorful bird that had crazy hair on the top of his head and looked a little like Mick Jagger leaned out of the top of the tree and shouted –

“DO YOU HEAR ME?”

I woke up laughing, realizing that God was a hoot and was letting me know that I had been heard.

I wrote down the message on a post-it note that I still have today.

Even though the dream did not provide a specific roadmap for the future, I did discover that the universe was funnier than I thought and hadn’t forgotten me, which seemed to be enough.

Listen more than you ask . . .

Here are the lessons I have finally learned only ten brief years later: