Thursday, June 30, 2005
Why Hitchcock Never Had a Solitary Bird
“I lie awake, lonely as a solitary bird on the roof.” —Psalm 102:4; 5; 7
There’s a scene near the end of the movie, The Birds, where Tippi Hedren is ravaged by the constant peck of bird’s beaks. It took a week to shoot the scene. The birds were attached to Tippi’s clothes by long nylon threads so they could not get away. It was a harrowing scene. Who can forget all of those birds pecking and the way Tippi cried for some far off mercy?
The scene that the psalmist depicts is different than Hitchcock’s movie. The psalmist had a solitary bird’s eye view of loneliness. Frederick Buechner says, “To be lonely is to be aware of an emptiness which it takes more than people to fill. It is to sense that something is missing which you cannot name.”
Attempting to name loneliness only identifies us with detachment, which is the inner need to put emotional distance between us and others.
We create our own mini-hells by refusing to open up to new possibilities, by placing the “Do-Not-Disturb” sign on certain emotions because we are afraid of becoming vulnerable.
So when we subject ourselves to loneliness, we feel that somehow we are avoiding the pain.
On Sundays when I was a pastor, I faced vulnerability. It overtook me and told me that I’d fail and become a fool before my congregation. I have stage fright. I trembled and shuffled my feet on the thin carpet beneath the front pew.
I wanted to put a “Do-Not-Disturb” sign on this moment. My mouth was dry. My insides churned. Then it was time to preach, and I turned loose of the pew and wobbled behind the pulpit, only to have something mysterious, something so other worldliness—so unlike me—take place. God used my vulnerability.
Each week when I witnessed the lightning flashing from the faces in my congregation, I knew we had been with God. I realized that the place of my loneliness became strength when placed into God’s hands.
Being vulnerable before God translates into the power to overcome. “Each time (God) said . . . ‘My power works best in your weakness.’ So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may work through me” (2 Cor 12:9).
You may be pushing opportunities to be used by God away by clinging to your loneliness, by choosing the view from a solitary roof.
Maybe God is calling you to take the “Do-Not-Disturb” sign off of the door of some emotion that will lead to love or a new beginning.
Maybe God wants you to open up and become vulnerable. Maybe He wants you to step out like Gideon did when faced with his own weaknesses. “Then the LORD turned to him and said, “Go with the strength you have and rescue Israel from the Midianites. I am sending you!” (Judges 6:14)
God doesn’t ask us for power, he only asks us to be willing to follow.
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Something New. Read one of Robert's novels in progress. It's a sweet and tender love story that appeals to the romantic in all of us. Click the link: http://ablogofregrets.blogspot.com/
© 2007 by Robert Stofel