Are You My Mother?: A parable for restless hearts
Monday, January 8, 2024
*Anne DiBernardo
The classic storybook of the wandering baby bird, "Are You My Mother?", by P.D. Eastman, was my favorite bedtime story when I was a little girl. As a young mother, I read it to my children. The vibrant image of the mommy bird with her red and white polka-dot kerchief, looking for food to bring her baby bird, is forever etched in my memory.
What I didn’t expect was how this seemingly simple tale would minister to me during particularly trying times of my life.
For those who are unfamiliar with the story, "Are You My Mother?" is about a hatchling bird whose mother, thinking her egg will stay in her nest, leaves it alone and flies off to find food. Meanwhile, the baby bird hatches. He does not see his mother, so he goes to look for her. He falls a long way down out of the nest, and in his search, he asks different animals and even a boat and a plane until at last, convinced he has found his mother, he climbs onto the teeth of an enormous power shovel, which makes a loud “snort” sound from its exhaust. This giant shovel ultimately carries the baby bird back to his nest just as his mother is arriving.
I sensed that God was reminding me of the story during the COVID shutdown. As I was walking along my street one evening, mesmerized by the canopy of trees which had become a spiritual cocoon for me during that time, I felt as if God was speaking directly to my heart, unveiling a hidden mystery behind the story of the baby bird and his frustrating quest to find his mother.
Photographer: ANNE DIBERNARDO | FC
"P.D. Eastman probably was not thinking about the Catholic Church when he wrote this simple, yet meaningful story. But perhaps it is not so far-fetched to view this story through the most profound symbolism of a baby bird’s nest paying homage to the Newborn King’s manger," writes Anne DiBernardo in this week's Let's Talk blog.
Many of us may identify with the angst of the baby bird. He was immature, impatient and curious. He did not realize he could not fly yet and prematurely left the nest. In addition, he did not even know what his mother looked like, and therefore he walked right by her at one point.
I thought about how frequently we drive by a Catholic Church without acknowledging Jesus in the most Blessed Sacrament. How many opportunities have we overlooked because we were preoccupied or blinded by our sinful tendencies and selfish interests?
Like the baby bird, perhaps we “flew the coup” and left the nest prematurely without “food” for the journey, the spiritual formation to recognize impostors. Perhaps we do not understand how the choices we made when we were younger, which may have seemed meaningless at the time, changed the trajectory of our life, instigating a life full of hardship that God never intended.
Most of us can empathize with the baby bird’s lack of patience and sense of desperation as we search for what seems to be missing in our lives. We ask, we seek, and we knock. Whether we are looking for a job or a spouse, it seems our frantic efforts to pursue that desire can disable our ability to recognize situations that do not serve us. We may feel life is cruel at times. We often get our hopes up when we think we have found what we have been seeking, only to have them dashed.
In the story, the shovel, which gently lifts the bird to its nest, is a mysterious force that rescues the bird when he is at his weakest, most vulnerable. The bird returns to his nest in a manner that he could not have envisioned.
Does Jesus not tell us that his grace is sufficient for us, and that his power is perfected in our weakness? (2 Corinthians 12:9) Did St. Paul not boast of his weakness for it brought him closer to Jesus? (2 Corinthians 11:30)
P.D. Eastman probably was not thinking about the Catholic Church when he wrote this simple, yet meaningful story. But perhaps it is not so far-fetched to view this story through the most profound symbolism of a baby bird’s nest paying homage to the Newborn King’s manger.
In “Jesus of Nazareth: The Infancy Narratives,” Pope Benedict XVI cites St. Augustine’s view of the manger as the place where we find “the true bread come down from heaven, the true nourishment that we need to be fully ourselves. This is the food that gives us true life, eternal life. Thus, the manger becomes a reference to the table of God, to which we are invited to receive the bread of God. From the poverty of Jesus’ birth emerges the miracle in which man’s redemption is mysteriously accomplished.”
The mother bird could symbolize our own Blessed Mother, who always leads us to Jesus, whose flesh is real food. Is it any wonder our mother bird would also be clothed with red and white polka dots to symbolize the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ our Lord — the eucharistic meal that is the “source and summit” of our life? For Jesus tells us, “Unless you eat my flesh and drink my blood, you have no life in you” (John 6:53).
The baby bird’s nest, like the manger, also can be a most humble symbol for Holy Mother Church where the true bread comes down from heaven.
Jesus Christ of Nazareth, who was born in a humble cave in Bethlehem, desires for us to seek him and devour his Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, with that same fierce intensity of the baby bird searching for his mother. And it is through our relationship with his own mother that she brings him directly to us.
