Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Catholic
The Goldfinch

The Goldfinch

Last updated on: July 26, 2024 at 12:28 pm by Mary Pezzulo

0 Comments

The Goldfinch 2024-07-26T12:28:57-04:00 Mary Pezzulo

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

a goldfinch sitting on a wire

image via Pixabay

The birds took flight as soon as I came back to the garden.

Most every songbird in the neighborhood likes my sunflower wall. There are fat clumsy pigeons who nest in my gutters and cause leaks– I am supposed to hate the pigeons and chase them away, but I like them. They are the bird I would be if I were a bird. There are soft brown sparrows who look too round to fly. There is a majestic red cardinal and a cheeky blue jay. And there is also a goldfinch, a flash of lemon and black. The goldfinch is a very fast little bird. Sometimes the cardinal lets me get close, but not the goldfinch. The goldfinch wants nothing to do with me. He’s always all the way on the power lines above the haunted house before I can get out my phone for a photograph.

I will miss the sunflowers when they’re spent for the year. I will miss the color, and the privacy wall, but most of all the company they’ve brought me. I resolved to get some bird feeders for Autumn if there’s any money.

The birds watched me from the grassy lot across the alley as I fussed over the garden. This is the time of year when it all pays off: just the other day, I brought in a big bowl of tomatoes and made Adrienne fresh pasta sauce. There are at least two pumpkins getting a little fatter every day. And the experimental watermelon vine has one round fruit; it had been the size of a golf ball twenty-four hours ago. Now, it was the size of a baseball.

Everything was just as it ought to be in the backyard. In the front, of course, nothing was right. Jimmy the Mechanic has the car up on the jack with a wooden board under her back tires. The fuel pump came in and he replaced it, which helped a great deal but didn’t fix it. He’s discovered that everything to do with the fuel is clogged with a substance technically known as “crud.” There was crud in all the fuel injectors and in every piece he brought home to clean. He pulled out the backseat of the car to open the fuel tank underneath, and found lumps of crud in among the gasoline like dumplings. There is crud in the catalytic converter, which he’s going to clean just as soon as he gets the chance.

I wanted to go swimming so badly I was nearly frantic. But for the moment, I was trapped, trapped for the fifth week in a row. No lake, no hikes, no church, no shopping except on the bus, nothing.

The birds settled among the sunflowers, singing, as I left.

The mother of the Baker Street Irregulars wanted my help with her summer EBT card. In this school district, all the children get a free one-use food stamp card, essentially a gift certificate for groceries, with $120 on it. One of her children’s cards wasn’t being recognized by the automatic voice at the EBT hotline. I came over and sat on the porch with her, trying my best, but neither of us could make hide nor hair of it. The number on the back of the card kept getting rejected as wrong, but the robot didn’t tell us why.

Eventually, we gave up.

I fumbled for what a normal person would do, sitting on a friend’s porch at a time like this. It’s a result of my autism that I often feel like an alien in normal human interactions. It’s a result of being from a big city and a completely different culture than my neighbors that I feel even more lost than ever. What does a human do, in northern Appalachia on a summer afternoon? They stay right here on the porch. They make small talk.

The mother and I chatted about our children and how they were eager for school, or dreading it. We chatted about going to Raccoon Creek Park to the lake beach just as soon as the car is back to running. The man called Dad has a car now, for the first time ever. Maybe we could all meet for an end of summer picnic, but how could we ever keep the autistic Baker Street Irregular out of mischief? We talked about how irritating it was that somebody was still setting off fireworks late at night, even though it was almost August. The police had been called, but they hadn’t found the nuisance yet.

The goldfinch and three fat brown sparrows waded in a small puddle in front of the house.

“Is that a yellow bird?” said the mother.

“It’s a goldfinch!” I said proudly.

“I never seen a yellow bird around here before. I seen a cardinal and a bluejay but never a yellow bird.”

“I never saw one until I started growing sunflowers!”

The goldfinch flew off as if he were a spark from a firework himself.

When I got home, I unrolled the hose from the house of the man who brought water. We still have that summer-long permission to water the garden with the hose whenever we need it. I soaked the ground around those tomatoes and sprayed a glittering arc of water over the pumpkins to the rose bush.

The rose has a brand new flower, five wide open petals like the emblem of the Tudors.

It felt like a miracle, somehow.

The greatest, most lavish, most impossible miracle is the first one: and God said, “let there be.”

The first miracle is that things are, instead of not being. That flowers and pigeons and goldfinches, friends and neighbors, the Appalachian mountains, and useless people like me exist. That somewhere, in the eternal now known as “the beginning,” was a Being so psychotically hopeful that the Being said “let there be,” and we came to be.

I think I am going to be all right.

Mary Pezzulo is the author of Meditations on the Way of the Cross, The Sorrows an d Joys of Mary, and Stumbling into Grace: How We Meet God in Tiny Works of Mercy.

Steel Magnificat operates almost entirely on tips. To tip the author, donate to “The Little Portion” on paypal or Mary Pezzulo on venmo

Previous Post

July 23, 2024

Something You Ought to Know about Hallow

Next Post

July 26, 2024 On Vance, Catholicism, and the Childless Cat Ladies

Recent Comments

0 | Leave a Comment

"Thank you for bringing so much goodness into the lives of so many children.Ran across ..."

alwayspuzzled

The Passion of the Red Oak

"This current administration has had me reflecting on the Nuremberg trials and the like, for ..."

axelbeingcivil

On Traditionalist Bullies, and the Death ..."

"You're talking about supercessionism, the idea that Christians "replace" the covenant that the Jewish people ..."

Alex

Yes, the Old Testament is About ..."

"Oh I'm sure it did."

Mary

A Televised Execution is a Moral, ..."

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category abortion Abuse Advent America American Christianity angel angels Annunciation Appalachia apparition apparition chaser apparition chasers apparition culture art art review babies baby baby Jesus Bad Lip Reading bad statue contest bath beauty Bible story blog blogkeeping blood book review Brandon Sanderson breastfeeding bus Catholic catholic conspiracy alarmism Catholic Oppositional Disorder Charismatic Renewal Charlie the Cat chastity Christ Christian idenitity Christianity and Judaism Chronic Illness clean clothing COD piece comedy compassion conscience conspiracy theory conversion cop-on-black violence Crucifixion cry of the poor culture Daesh Daily Saints death death penalty devotional diaconate diaper diapers dirty disability Donald Trump Dorothy Day dream drugs Eastern Catholicism Eastern Christianity education election election update Elsewhere on Patheos empathy environment Fear feminism film review fish flashback fluffy buns food Franciscan University of Steubenville Friendship Room fun Gabriel gardening gospel hair-splitting Heaven hell heresy Hillary Clinton history Holly the Witch Holy Spirit holy war Homeschooling homosexuality horror human dignity humor Icon idol immigrants infection inter-religious dialogue Interpretation of Scripture Islam Jesus Jihad Joseph joy laity and lay vocations lamb dinner laundry lent lgbtq literature love manners Mary Medicine and Science Meditation mercy mess milk misogyny Missouri monasticism monster motherhood mourn with those mourn movies movis music mystery nature neurodiversity New Pro-Life Movement news nonsense nostalgia O antiphons obituary objectification Ohio Valley Ordinary Time ordination Ordo Amoris parable paradox Passover peanut butter personal beliefs pets philosophy Planet Charismatic poetry politics polls poop Pope Francis Pope Leo power in the Church prayer prayer request prayers preferential option for non-violence president presidential election priest primary private revelation pro-life prophecy Public face of Catholicism Pure Flix Q and A race racism random rape rape. sexuality reader's request Reckoners refugee religious trauma ressurrection Right to life Saints saints and celebrations same-sex same-sex marriage satire scandal secular feasts seder Seven Joys Seven Last Words sex sexual ethics sexuality silencing six months skid row slavery social justice Speculative fiction spiritual abuse spoon stain story suffering suffrage suffragette Sunday Gospel temple Tenebrae Responsories Terror the exorcist The Friendship Room The New Pro-Life Movement Things I Learned on the Internet tin cup traffic true story tv review Uncategorized USCCB vice and temptation violence Virtue virtue and vice war Way of the Cross whimsy whole life women's ordination work of mercy Year A

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 December 2024 November 2024 October 2024 September 2024 August 2024 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 April 2024 March 2024 February 2024 January 2024 December 2023 November 2023 October 2023 September 2023 August 2023 July 2023 June 2023 May 2023 April 2023 March 2023 February 2023 January 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 September 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 January 2022 December 2021 November 2021 October 2021 September 2021 August 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

Who was the mother of Samuel?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Sarah Mary Deborah Hannah