Spirituality Column: The Birds of the House

About 1890, on a small lot on a ridge above Hannibal, Mo., laborers dug a cellar hole. Concrete was cheap because cement was produced locally, so sturdy foundation walls were poured in a square some 24 feet to a side. On them, a four-room worker's cottage was raised around the central pillar of a small brick chimney. Flat-sawn boards lined the interior walls and ceilings. Perhaps the builders splurged on plaster for the parlor in front. In back was the kitchen. A dining room and single bedroom completed the plan. There may have been a sleeping loft above.

Within a decade, indoor plumbing was added by laying pipes on the ground outside the kitchen. A hole was cut through the wall for a door, and a lean-to addition built around it. Presto, a bathroom! Around 1940, a small second bedroom was added at the rear.

I rent the cottage and am presently its principal resident. I speculate sometimes about those who lived there before me. How warm were they able to stay with just a stove in the parlor and another in the kitchen? What meals were made and shared there? Who thought to string clothesline in the cellar so clothes could be dried even when it rained?

The little house, I'm told, fell into disrepair and stood vacant for years. My landlords saved it by updating its systems to today's standards while preserving its rustic character. One innovation was installing guards on top of the gutters.

In the spring of the year I moved in, when I opened the kitchen window to a fresh breeze, I heard a rat-tat-tat from outside. Whatever is that? I wondered, then realized the sound always came after a small bird flew to the end of the gutter. House sparrows were hopping along the guards under the shingles that curled over them. They arrived with building materials clenched in their beaks. Like others before them, they were constructing an addition.

The house sparrow (Passer domesticus) is thought to be the most common bird in the world. Their range is wherever humans build. In a sense, they are truly domesticated, because they almost never appear in the true wild. Their ubiquity earns them little love, and I admit I was better pleased when house finches (Haemorhous mexicanus) nested in a plant I hung from the front porch. Still I welcomed the cheerful sound of the sparrows' comings and goings, and was glad to see them successfully raise their broods in their nest atop the gutter.

Summer turned to fall, and though I hadn't begrudged the sparrows their few square inches, I thought it best to clean the remnants of the nest off the gutter guards. Perhaps they would build another come spring. Perhaps not.

A few days later, I heard the now-familiar rat-tat-tat again. “What are you doing?” I asked the little brown bird when I saw it. “There's no nest there now. It's not nesting season.” It didn't answer. Then more arrived. They were all immatures, visiting the spot where they’d fledged. Maybe they felt some affection for it, I puzzled, something like what stirs in me when, at day's end, I round the corner at Sixth Street and see the snug house on its hill.

“The foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests; but the Son of man hath not where to lay his head,” said the Carpenter of Nazareth. Living is located. Every heartbeat, every breath, every swallow happens in a place with its own texture, its shelter from and access to sun and sky. I take care when drawing morals for human living from the natural world; observing that “nature is red in tooth and claw” is too often used to justify jettisoning the Commandment by those already inclined to confuse might with right. But that even the birds of the air might be drawn to their homes with something that looks like warmth surely raises a question. Should we do unto others as we'd have done unto us?

In the second year of my stewardship of the house and its gutter guards, I left the nest where it was.

The Reverend Doug Job does interim ministry for congregations in transition and keeps good memories and friends made while serving a church in Cape. At present, he keeps his eye upon the sparrows in Hannibal, Mo. You may share your sightings with him at revdarkwater@gmail.com.