Goldfinches, Lilies, and Elections

Last updated on: December 24, 2014 at 3:37 pm by Margaret Rose Realy, Obl. OSB

Goldfinches, Lilies, and Elections 2014-12-24T15:37:38-05:00 Margaret Rose Realy, Obl. OSB

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I’m really not very political and just barely politically correct. But still, I wonder what the results will be of the upcoming presidential and state elections, and also the local proposals. I try to make informed decisions but tend to give up about half way through the learning curve, feeling less illuminated than when I started. I have found over the years that after an election, what I’d hoped was accurate information was advertising in the name of game and gain.

Truth is important to me. Not the appearance of truth or relative truth, or a proposed truth stretched so thin it becomes transparent. Is it so because everybody wants it to be? Or is it so because it is claimed true in the name of God? Does anyone really carry the full light of truth? I doubt it. So…how do I weigh truth?

I remember a couple of months ago several Goldfinches rocketing across the backyard. I wondered if there was a disagreement about whose yard it was. Typical of these lively little birds, they are unconcerned about my purpose or presence in what they have claimed as their territory. They continued to dart about and I wondered if it was a sort of Goldfinch-game. I watched them flittering and listened to them titter from the lower limbs of the Sunburst Honeylocust tree.

That day was a yellow day. Yellow is pure, a primary color and according to research evokes energy and illumination, and brings awareness and clarity to the mind. Besides the yellow finches, the narrow leaves of the locust were vivid chartreuse, flowering nearby in light-gold the Rudbeckia ‘Irish Eyes’, and the Lemon Drop daylily was in all its glory.

The little birds continued darting about the yard; one of them repeatedly landed on the top of an empty daylily stalk and reached for the seed head of a nearby grass. The stalk looked as though it was strong enough to bear the weight of the tiny finch but was too weak to do so. The little bird rode the not-so-sturdy stalk downward, and then flew off to a tree branch. It looked at the frond of grass seeds, flew again to the daylily stalk beside it, and again rode it downward. The truth is, no matter how often the finch comes to the stalk, the daylily stem will not bear its weight.

Reflecting on that yellow day I now wonder… How often do I latch onto something too weak to bear the weight of truth? Do I continue to land in the same place in hopes that the more I try, the better my chances are of the situation changing?

I’d like to think I’m smarter than a goldfinch. But I can see that sometimes a simple truth is evident in the smallest of things. Just because I want it to be so doesn’t mean it will hold up under the weight of reality.

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