One day last spring, I noticed that a mature pine behind our house had lost its bark. I quickly learned how easily a disaster could occur when the tree fell the next day, nearly missing our neighbor’s house. Rather than take the risk of another lightning strike (or diseased trees falling on their own,) my wife and I had the ancient pines and oaks felled. In their place, we planted new trees and shrubs, a “garden,” a place which quickly attracted a variety of birds and small animals. A pair of robins built a nest at eye level in a young maple. At first, all activity in the nest came to a standstill whenever I walked by. But slowly, the mother robin and I learned to tolerate one another as she sat on her eggs. I was not a predator. She also tolerated me as I watched her fledgling robins learn to feed themselves and fly. I was part of the cycle, one which lasted just over a month.
What did I learn? 1.) When possible, shut out the noise. Shut out the constant din of death tolls, economic inequality, racial injustice, and political polarization. 2.) If a mother robin can tolerate “the other,” so can I.
