The Bird Cage

There is a birdcage that attracts attention in my living room. People will often ask if I plan to put a bird in it.

No I do not.

Why does a birdcage hang there if it isn’t going to ever hold a bird?

It is a fairly large wooden cage, not elaborate, but that is the point of it. Inside it is an envelope that has remained unopened for 4 years. Will it ever be opened again? I don’t really know.

Coming out of a dark period of my life a counselor said to me that to make an altar marking points on the journey is important. I pondered that for a while wondering what symbol would reflect the darkness, the bondage, the hopelessness, the dying of the inner music and then the slow gentle reviving. Sparrows had played a life giving role in singing me back to life, literally. This birdcage became the altar, or marking of a change. The door of the cage is never closed. Birds were meant to fly, to sing, to be free, to feel the wind and move into it. They were never created to be caged and kept away as ornamental. Neither are you or I. We are designed to feel the wind of life, to push through in, and wrestle in the adventure of it. We are designed to know the whisper of The Spirit of God and to step into that wind and go where it takes us.

The letter in the cage is life giving Words from my Abba.

When I moved a couple of years ago from the prairies to the coast, the birdcage was once again hung in the corner. Curled up in my “prayer chair” one morning I looked at the birdcage and spoke to Abba about parts of the journey it represented. He whispered that the birdcage was to have an additional meaning. Writing about it I understand that the expanded symbolism of my altar of marking the journey was the redemptive part of it. It had symbolized the bondage, the voicelessness and the insignificance that my soul had felt for a long time. Now that place of emptiness was to symbolize a place of refuge. Abba explained that this cage also represented His heart, and His arms. The door was always open and I could run to it, into the safety of it at any time. It was not a prison, it was to represent the safe place He offers me, the refuge. I choose to go there when I need the safety of His arms, but I am free to fly whenever I wish, to sing any song written inside and let the wind of His Spirit be the arms that lead me into life's dance.

Somehow, with infinite tenderness, an exchange took place. The darkness was exchanged for the healing Light of God’s presence. It was an exchange of an internal dying for the dance of Life. It represents my mik-dawsh (Hebrew for consecrated place or thing).

Thank you Bobbie for your birdcage today, that reminded me of my own, for the reminder of sanctuary. And Elizabeth, thank you for your reminder of sacred space. Daily time in our own mik-dawsh has me saying again to Abba - “draw me into the intimacy with You. Into-me-see Abba so I can love you more oh Lover of my soul”.