How Much Are You Being Monitored? A Hummingbird Lesson

July 28, 2020 by JJSJ

How Much Are You Being Monitored? A Hummingbird Lesson

Dr. James J. S. Johnson

Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on an hill cannot be hid. Neither do men light a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father which is in heaven. (Matthew 5:14-16)

Hummingbird at Trumpet Vine blossom (Harold A. Davis photo)

Beware! – you are being watched, more than you know!

In some neighborhoods surveillance is all around—neighbors watching neighbors, using cell-phones to document questionable (“non-essential”) activities, to see if pet dogs are on leashes, and to see if people are six feet apart when talking to others who are out and about. Neighbors are calling the local police on neighbors, to enforce social distancing, travel restrictions, and other disaster protocols.(1)

In short, if you are outside, you are being monitored! But is this really new?

Actually, we are being watched all the time, by neighbors, by family members, by co-workers, at the grocery store, at church, and in many other places.(2)

A birdwatching friend’s recent email reminded me of that fact, when he (Thomas Lane) reported on his home’s avian visitors.

Good to hear from you. I am working from home … I’m also enjoying watching the bluebirds in the backyard – they are raising young and busy gathering food for them. We built several bluebird boxes a few years ago and always have at least one couple nesting here. We also have a couple of hummingbirds that have returned to the feeder, and we are waiting for the rest. We typically have 5 feeders out in various places.(3)

Hummingbirds at feeder (Flickr photo)

As spring blossoms into April (and May), the nectar pantries of bright-hued flowers are “open for business”, ready to feed the voracious appetites of neighborhood hummingbirds — those petite, iridescence-sparkled, blurry-winged wonders with super-sized metabolic fuel needs. Floral nectar is a sweet resource!

Yet, as flowers bloom in spring, such fly-by “fast-food” opportunities cannot be taken for granted, especially if one is an energy-craving hummingbird.

Hummingbirds, due to their speedy, darting movements, and their iridescent green colors, attract the eye. So you see them – zip! – then you don’t. Zip! – then you see them again.

Spring always flows into summer.(4) The summer range of hummingbirds (such as the Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Archilochus colubris) is broad enough that most of us have seen hummingbirds. But, as time goes by, there is no time for hummingbirds to relax — their needle-like bills must sip up nectar wherever and whenever it is available! The business of a hummingbird’s life is so intense, so metabolically demanding, that slurping up available nectar is a lifestyle priority, requiring dietary focus and persistence: “Get nectar, get more nectar, get even more nectar! Hurry, hurry, hurry!” Sugar substitutes are unacceptable for hummingbirds – they must have real sugar to thrive.(5)

What an enormous appetite for such a miniature bird! The calories consumed and burned by hummingbirds, on a boy weight ratio, are comparable to a human eating more than a 1000 hamburgers every day, as body fuel needed for a day’s normal activities!(6) That is high-maintenance metabolism!

Reading my friend’s email (quoted above) reminded me of when I saw, in my own backyard, a hungry hummingbird hovering by brilliant vermillion flowers, as he (or she) slurped up nectar from one flower, then another flower, then another, — without any (apparent) concern for my physical presence or proximity, only a few steps from him (or her).

Hummingbird at Trumpet Vine blossom (Mike Lentz photo)

Why was the buzzing hummer oblivious of me, the birdwatcher so close by?

The hungry hummer was too preoccupied with the pressing business of life, to notice me, a quiet spectator. What a privilege it was, to watch – for a long time, actually – this sparkling-in-the-sunlight hummingbird, darting among the bright flowers.

Yet are not our own lives, at least somewhat, like that busy hummingbird?

Are we not – day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, moment by moment – preoccupied with the ever-pressing business of life (especially when daily routines are altered by changed circumstances—such as pandemic disaster restrictions), darting here-and-there, from this task to the next one, such that we often ignore the spectators, those watching eyes who observe and appreciate our lives – those who (hopefully) see God’s beauty and wisdom imaged in our own attitudes and actions?

Yes, we have audiences we should not be oblivious of. As we live the moments of our fast-paced lives we should not forget three audiences, who watch us much more than we consciously realize.

First, there are many curious humans who watch our busy lives, especially those who are younger than us. What kind of role-models are we? Hopefully our Christian lives are like the Thessalonian believers whom Paul commended as examples to all of the believers in Macedonia and Greece.(7)

Who is monitoring us? Who is listening? Who is evaluating the message(s) of our lives, comparing our “walk” to our “talk”? Do our lives “shine” as God’s testifying “lights”, such that our good deeds prompt spectators to glorify God our Heavenly Father?(8)

Second, there are non-human spectators surveilling our lives: angels! Angels learn from watching the “spectacle” of human lives.(9) Indeed, the effect of God’s gospel of grace, in the earthly lives of redeemed humans, is something that angels can only learn about as spectators, since redemption is never experienced by angels.(10)

Yet the most important audience we have, always, is the Lord Himself (Jehovah-jireh, the God Who is and sees), our omniscient and omnipresent Creator-God. It is our wonderful Maker Who watches every sparrow’s (and every hummingbird’s) avian lifespan, and we are of much greater value to God than the lives of many sparrows.(11)

As the Lord Jesus Christ’s vicarious death and resurrection has peremptorily proved, for all time and eternity, we humans are God’s favorite creatures. God is caringly concerned with every detail of our busy lives (from creation to ultimate redemption), so let us not be oblivious to our most important Audience.

Do we live our earthly lives as ingrates, ignoring Him and His Word? Or do we live life appreciative of Him and His Word, grateful that He created us and provided us with redemption in Christ?

Accordingly, with these three audiences in mind, as spectators of our busy lives, let us consider the prophet Ezekiel’s serious question: “How should we then live?”(12)

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.(8)

Hummingbird getting nectar at Trumpet Vine (Harold A. Davis photo)

REFERENCES

(1) Declarations of “disaster”, from Wuhan (China) spreading to South Korea, then to dozens of European nations, plus many parts of America and other nations (excluding Singapore), have led to many government-promulgated “stay-at-home” mandates, being enforced by a combination of government and private sector actions. Johnson, James J. S. 2020. Turtles, Birdwatching, and Living through Tough Times. ICR News: Creation Science Update (March 30, 2020), posted at https://www.icr.org/article/turtles-birdwatching-living-through-tough-times . See also Johnson, James J. S. 2020. “Getting Crabby Over Labor Shortage”. ICR News: Creation Science Update (March 24, 2020), posted at https://www.icr.org/article/getting-crabby-over-labor-shortages .

(2) 2nd Corinthians 3:2-3 (“living epistles”).

(3) Email correspondence from Thomas Lane, April 1, 2020.

(4) Genesis 8:22.

(5) Mitchell, Elizabeth. 2014. Our Creator’s Sweet Design for Hummingbird Taste (Answers in Genesis: News to Know, September 6, 2014), posted https://answersingenesis.org/birds/our-creators-sweet-design-hummingbird-taste/ (with a link, in Footnote #1, to video footage of hummingbird sugar consumption). See also Sherwin, F. 2006. Hummingbirds at ICR. Acts & Facts. 35(9), posted at https://www.icr.org/article/hummingbirds-at-icr/ .

(6) Dreves, Denis. 1991. H Creation Ex Nihilo Technical Journal. 14(1):10-12.

(7) 1st Thessalonians 1:7.

(8) Matthew 5:16.

(9) 1st Corinthians 4:9. (Paul is referring to the apostles, yet the indirect implication is that the righteous angels learn from observing the lives of ordinary Christians.)

(10) 1st Peter 1:12.

(11) Matthew 10:29-31; Luke 12:7.

(12) Ezekiel 33:10.

Hummingbird.Purple-throated-Carib-Wikipedia

Purple-throated Hummingbird of the Caribbean (Wikipedia photo)

Busy Spectacles, Oblivious to Spectator Hummingbirds

September 14, 2016 by James J. S. Johnson

Busy Spectacles, Oblivious to Spectator Hummingbirds

Dr. James J. S. Johnson

Purple-throated Carib Hummingbird (Wikipedia image)

So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. (Psalm 90:12)

Two years ago the shoe was “on the other foot”, when I wrote about “Busy Hummingbirds, Oblivious to Spectators”. Yet during the Labor Day weekend, it was I who was the busy “spectacle”, “oblivious” to spectator hummingbirds in my own backyard!

It all started as just another half-day of clean-up in my backyard, in reaction to 4 stormy-weather-caused tree casualties, this year: serious branch tear-offs on 4 different Bradford pear trees. The aftermath involves a lot of branch debris clean-up, for packaging (in yard-trash bags, after my oldest grandson helped trim the arboreal wreckage with his chainsaw) required by the trash pickup service. One of the piles of yard trash was stacked under an oak tree, situated next to an iron rod fence that is heavily draped by a flourishing “thicket” of trumpet vine growth.

Trumpet Vine “wall” (acultivatednest.com image)

In fact, the iron rod fence itself is so enveloped, in the greenery and blossoms of trumpet vines, that the combination of fences and vine-growth resembles a “wall” or curtain of vine growth, green leaves, and bright orange “trumpet” flowers. Next to that fence is a tall and sturdy oak tree, loaded with green leaves. Then I noticed what initially looked like a thick brownish-green insect buzzing about the fence’s trumpet vine blossoms – but it was no dragonfly or damselfly or moth or butterfly – it was a busy hummingbird! (Later I saw another hummer buzz by the same area, collecting nectar from blossom after blossom of the same thicket of trumpet vine flowers.)

Hummingbird at Trumpet Vine blossom (Mike Lentz image)

Why had I not noticed that our trumpet vine “patch” was hosting hummingbirds?

Unlike two years ago, this time I was the “oblivious” one – I had busily ignored those hummingbirds (for months, at least), because I was so busy bagging yard rubbish. So, being a true birder, I promptly went inside our house, to fetch my binoculars, so I could observe the hummingbird activities more closely.

Trumpet Vine in backyard by tree (image credit: WhatGrowsHere.com)

The hummers were obtaining nectar, again and again — then they would flit away into the foliage of the nearby oak tree. On closer investigation I was that the trumpet vine had grown out form the fence — and had traveled up the trunk of the oak tree, entwining itself around various oak branches, so that the orange flowers peeked out of the top of the oak tree! Try to imagine a large oak tree, covered in bright green leaves – yet sporting some orange trumpet-shaped flowers near the top of the leaves! (Now I need to research whether the trumpet vine is parasitically detrimental to the oak tree – or whether it will be okay to leave it as it is.)

So much for being a careful spectator of my own backyard! As the serial crises of summer storms recently ravaged our Bradford pear trees, consuming many weekend hours (and a lot of my attention) I had neglected to monitor other developments in my own backyard. Yet what should I have expected? After all, hummingbirds — if any were to be found in my backyard — would surely be attracted to the vermillion-red blossoms of the Trumpet Vine. “All hummingbirds are drawn to the color red, whether in the form of a flower bearing the nectar that accounts for more than half of their dietary intake or in the colorful plastic petals of a sugar-water feeder.” [Quoting “Hummingbirds and Feeding”, in BIRDS IN YOUR BACKYARD: A BIRD LOVER’S GUIDE TO CREATING A GARDEN SANCTUARY (Birds & Blooms, edited by Robert J. Dolezal, 2009 Readers Digest edition), page 108.] For video footage of a hummer defending his trumpet vine from bee competitors see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_ZfryKJxRd8 .

Maybe that can happen in other aspects of life, too. (Some call this the problem of the “tyranny of the urgent” – where only priorities with hard deadlines get serious attention.) Maybe getting distracted by the various “in-your-face” crises of life, which frequently crash down here-and-there, in one storm after another, can pull our gaze away from other parts of our own “backyards” — such that this of that vine can silently creep up into a nearby tree (a little bit at a time, week after week, month after month), and we don’t notice it.

Trumpet Vine (a/k/a Trumpet Creeper) climbing up tree

Could this habit of being repeatedly distracted (by whatever makes the loudest “noise”) apply to personal Bible study, or personal prayer life, or the forgotten/postponed need for getaway time with one’s husband or wife, or the need to be a vocal witness to an non-Christian friend (or coworker, or relative, or neighbor)? Sometimes it is important to step back, look up, and regain a big-picture perspective. Life continues to flow quickly by, second by second, minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year. How quickly our lives, like money, are spent!

If you love someone, if you care for someone, tell (and/or show) him or her so – do it today! Don’t wait for a “hard deadline”, because the “tyranny of the urgent” may distract you (or me) from doing those important things that have no exact deadline. Don’t be oblivious (like me) to what is happening (or not happening) right next to you!

Hummingbird at Trumpet Vine (image credit: Harold A. Davis)

Notice the hummingbirds in your own backyard, and treasure the beauty that God is sharing in the process. Notice also when vine are sneaking form one place to another – if they are harmful, take action!

So here is my takeaway prayer: may I be less oblivious to what is happening in my own backyard – and may I appreciate the beauty that God provides (such as those colorful and quick little hummingbirds, that I didn’t even know were living in my oak tree, enjoying the trumpet vines that drape my fence), each day, as I live out whatever day son earth that I have left to live (before it’s time to go Home).

So teach us to number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom. (Psalm 90:12)

Busy Hummingbirds, Oblivious to Spectators

October 6, 2014 by James J. S. Johnson

Violet-headed Hummingbird (Klais guimeti) by Michael Woodruff

Busy Hummingbirds, Oblivious to Spectators

“Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father Who is in heaven.” (Matthew 5:16)

Orni-Theology

As the cooling days of September fall from the calendar, like the abscission of colorful autumn leaves, the shelf-life of flower nectar nears its expiry date. For just a few more days, the nectar pantries of bright-hued flowers are “open for business”, ready to feed the voracious appetites of neighborhood hummingbirds — those petite, iridescence-sparkled, blurry-winged wonders with super-sized metabolic fuel needs. Floral nectar is a sweet resource! Yet, as winter approaches, such fly-by “fast-food” opportunities cannot be taken for granted, especially if one is an energy-craving hummingbird.

Steely-vented Hummingbird by Wildstock Photos

Hummingbirds are famous for their (males’) jewel-like throats, their hovering and multi-directional flying, and their ability to change directions — stop, go, up, down, left, right, backward, forward, — using high-speed wings that whip figure-eight patterns faster than human eyes can follow, producing a humming sound (that explains their name) that almost sounds like a contented cat purring. Hummingbirds, due to their speedy, darting movements, and their iridescent green colors, attract the eye. So you see them – zip! – then you don’t. Zip! – then you see them again. The summer range of hummingbirds (such as the Ruby-throated Hummingbird, Archilochus colubris) is broad enough that most of us have seen hummingbirds, though it is unlikely that we ever see one relaxing! No time to relax — their needle-like bills must sip up nectar where and when it is available!

Volcano Hummingbird (Selasphorus flammula) by Ian

The business of a hummingbird’s life is so intense, so metabolically demanding, that slurping up available nectar is a lifestyle priority, requiring dietary focus and persistence: “Get nectar, get more nectar, get even more nectar! Hurry, hurry, hurry!” Sugar substitutes are unacceptable for hummingbirds – they must have real sugar to thrive. See Elizabeth Mitchell, “Our Creator’s Sweet Design for Hummingbird Taste”, with a link (in its Footnote #1) to video footage of hummingbird sugar consumption. (Obviously hummingbirds are a living exhibit that refutes “natural selection” mythology — see Frank Sherwin, “Hummingbirds at ICR”, Acts & Facts, 35(9), September 2006 issue.

It is no surprise, therefore, that a hungry hummingbird hovered by brilliant vermillion flowers, in a garden spot I casually visited, as he (or she) slurped up nectar from one flower, then another flower, then another, — without any (apparent) concern for my physical presence or proximity, only a few steps from him (or her). Why was the buzzing hummer oblivious of me, the birdwatcher so close by?

Fiery-throated Hummingbird (Panterpe insignis) by Raymond Barlow

Yet are not our own lives, at least somewhat, like that busy hummingbird? Are we not – day by day, hour by hour, minute by minute, moment by moment – preoccupied with the ever-pressing business of life, darting here-and-there, from this task to the next one, such that we often ignore the spectators, those watching eyes who observe and appreciate our lives – those who (hopefully) see God’s beauty and wisdom imaged in our own attitudes and actions?

Yes, we have audiences we should not be oblivious of. As we live the moments of our fast-paced lives we should not forget three audiences, who watch us much more than we consciously realize.

First, there are many curious humans who watch our busy lives, especially those who are younger than us. What kind of role-models are we? Hopefully our Christian lives are like the Thessalonian believers whom Paul commended as examples to all of the believers in Macedonia and Greece (1^st Thessalonians 1:7). Who is watching us? Who is listening? Who is evaluating the message(s) of our lives, comparing our “walk” to our “talk”? Do our lives “shine” as God’s testifying “lights” (Matthew 5:16), such that our good deeds prompt spectators to glorify God our Heavenly Father?

Black-chinnedHummingbird (Archilochus alexandri) by S Slayton

Second, there are non-human spectators watching our lives: angels! Angels learn from watching the “spectacle” of human lives (1^st Corinthians 4:9 & 11:10). Indeed, the effect of God’s gospel of grace, in the earthly lives of redeemed humans, is something that angels can only learn about as spectators (1^st Peter 1:12, since redemption is never experienced by angels.

Yet the most important audience we have, always, is the Lord Himself (Jehovah-jireh, the God Who is and sees). Our primary audience, always, is our omniscient and omnipresent Creator-God. It is our wonderful Maker Who watches every sparrow’s avian lifespan, and we are of much greater value to God than the lives of many sparrows (Matthew 10:29-31; Luke 12:7). As the Lord Jesus Christ’s vicarious death and resurrection has peremptorily proved, for all time and eternity, we are God’s favorite creatures. God is caringly concerned with every detail of our busy lives (from creation to ultimate redemption), so let us not be oblivious to our most important Audience. Do we live our earthly lives as ingrates, ignoring Him and His Word? Or do we live life appreciative of Him and His Word, grateful that He created us and provided us with redemption in Christ?

Accordingly, with these three audiences in mind, as spectators of our busy lives, let us consider the prophet Ezekiel’s serious question (Ezekiel 33:10): “how should we then live?”

By James J. S. Johnson

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Tag Archives: Oblivious

How Much Are You Being Monitored? A Hummingbird Lesson

Busy Spectacles, Oblivious to Spectator Hummingbirds

Busy Hummingbirds, Oblivious to Spectators

Busy Hummingbirds, Oblivious to Spectators

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