The Bird

This past week I found an injured sparrow in our yard. It’s happened before.

I retrieved the cage from the basement. It’s held other feathered friends who ate, drank, and mended behind its slim bars. Some don't mend.

I put my bird in her temporary home. I put her home in a guest bedroom and closed the door.

We have cats.

Cats are predators. Predators hurt birds if they get the chance.

"His eye is on the sparrow..."

There are still almost six hundred children on our American soil who are beginning another month separated from their parents.

The stories are coming out…from the children who have been released.

Physical assault. Sexual assault. Threats of never seeing their parents again. Not allowed to hug a sibling. Cleaning toilets with their bare hands.

Predators. Predators hurt children if they get the chance.

What should be done to the people who inflict these abuses? What would you want done if it was your child? Your grandchild? Your neighbor’s child?

A little girl died after being released from a detention camp this week.  The details are few. 

Except that she is dead.

It seems we live in a country at war with children. Children poisoned in Flint, Michigan. Children kidnapped and abused at our border. Children abandoned in Puerto Rico. No money given to help young people addicted to opioids. No sensible gun laws enacted after children were murdered in our schools.

The GOP – The Gone Old Party – Predators. Predators hurt the most vulnerable if they get the chance. At the very least, they say nothing. Not one word to change one thing.

But it’s going to change. Here we come. The majority. We will change all this. Call it a blue wave or call it a midterm election. Here we come. 

Because children matter, predators need to be removed. Little ones and young people are our future. Why would we allow them to limp or gasp into adulthood, instead of helping them stride purposefully into their lives with everything they need to thrive? Education, health care, protection, love.

Here we come.

My little sparrow lived for three days. She had been badly injured and became weaker each day in her cage. I held her and pet her wings. Then she was gone.

“His eye is on the sparrow…”

I hope someone was holding the little immigrant girl who died this week.

I pray for the parents who won’t be sending their children to school this month. Memories of the funerals are still fresh.

Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me…”

I don’t think he meant for us to kill them to get there.