Mama barn swallow hates me. I can’t sit on the deck of an evening and watch the sunset without being screamed at and dive bombed. I can’t take trash to the incinerator or dump garbage to the imaginary chickens without being scolded all the way across the yard. She even comes at me when I use the door on the other side of the house and chases me all the way to the garage. She calls in her mate and neighbors to join the protest. Changing sprinklers sets her off and feeding the cats does too.
She’s just protecting her nest, which is above the deck door as it is every year. It may be the same bird, year after year, although there are several other nests under the eaves. But I think she’s being unreasonable. After all, I don’t knock down the nests till after she and her family go south. I put up with the mess she leaves on the deck and windows, and only spray it weekly. I’ve never robbed her nest and have even set fledglings in a tree when early flying lessons failed. I do my best to be a good neighbor. I go about my life and leave her to her own, accepting that sometimes neighbors don’t agree. Until she actually lands on my head and digs in, we will just co-exist.
The whole deal reminds me of the demonstrations and protests that occur around the world. Perhaps if the media didn’t make such a fuss about these events there might be less of them. As with the birds, when the whole neighborhood gets involved, when entities from outside the issue are brought in to ramp up the rhetoric, bad things happen.
The sermon at my church on a recent Sunday was about the Good Samaritan. We were prompted to examine who we consider neighbors, and how we treat them. Sadly, we often choose to exclude people who are different from us in our definition of neighbor. The reasons for this are many, but the bottom line usually involves fear. Fear of change, fear of physical harm, fear of different priorities and lifestyles, and fear of how these relationships will affect our lives. Like the barn swallows, we fear for our families and our futures, and swarm to protect our territory. Like the birds, we call on our friends to help fight off the perceived threat; there’s a lot of hullaballoo and name calling, and sometimes physical and property damage. The media eggs it on, repeating the images and stories to inflame tempers. We fail to realize that all parties pretty much want the same thing; for their families to be safe in the neighborhood.
This reminds me of old-time dances down in the hills. Everyone went; little kids were put to sleep on plies of coats or some bench on the sidelines, older ones hopped around the floor in time to the music, and adults enjoyed dancing and socializing. No alcohol was allowed on the premises but many of the men kept a bottle in their vehicles, so there were usually fellows slipping in and out. When the consumption of joy juice reached a point where joy turned into something else, some fellow would stick his head in the door and holler, “FIGHT!” and most of the males would head for the door to see if one of their cronies was involved and needed help. The differences were generally resolved on the spot and all was peaceful in the neighborhood again, except that the excitement was fodder for gossip until another outbreak of temper fueled by fear occurred.
How about we turn off the media and go about our business? When I ignore the birds, they settle down.