pigeons

There is a pigeon that lives at the State and Lake el train stop with only one toe on her right foot.  I noticed this late one night as I sat waiting for the last train to leave the loop, taking me along the pink line south to my quiet apartment.  I sat and watched as this deformed pigeon showed no notice of her own mutilated claw-foot.  She wobbled around at a slightly slower pace than the myriad of other pigeons on the platform, but with the same random intensity and aggression.  I couldn’t help but feel sad as I watched her.  Such a scene should have inspired hope in a being’s ability to overcome obstacles, but instead it just seemed to reinforce the knowledge that pain and heartache exist in this world, seemingly without explanation.

 

I sat and watched this pigeon wander around the platform, looking for a warm place to curl up for the night, and began to wonder how she could have lost two of her toes.  Not being familiar with any “pigeons born with deformity” condition, my first thought was to blame the harsh steel of the brutal el trains that came whizzing through these stations like the locomotives that they are.  How destructive is the human race that we would create cities of concrete and use vehicles of metal to cover up any glimpse of the natural world. 

 

But as I started to sort through the images of this poor pigeon’s foot being run over by such a huge locomotive, I couldn’t help but feel that this maiming was more personal and intentional than I had previously thought.  I all of a sudden had images of a person catching the pigeon and willfully slicing off the pigeon’s talons one at a time before she was able to escape.  As horrendous as that sight sounds, it seemed more plausible in my minds eye.  A huge el train would surely kill the entire bird, or if nothing else, would remove the whole right foot.  How could it possibly be so delicate as to select two of the three talon-toes?  A person, however, would have ample opportunity for catching one of these many birds, these rodents of the air, and wouldn’t think twice before removing a toe or two, especially considering their rampant reproduction and dirty stigma.

 

I was at a loss for how to think about this situation, for how to think about this world that I live in.  To imagine a place where humans saw fit to torture and maim a living creature- not for their own livelihood or personal gain, but for sheer sport… I was defeated.

 

It was a cold December night.  The air was crisp as it whipped across my exposed cheeks and trickled down the nape of my neck, settling in between my heavy winter fleece and my spine.  I sat mesmerized by this courageous and yet hopeless creature.  It took all that was within me not to scoop up the filthy bird into my arms, warming it with my mixture of love and body heat. 

 

But maybe my reaction to this sad situation is what’s most important.  The fact that there are people who love in such a way could be enough; that there exists within me a love that would compel me to cradle a deformed and dirty pigeon in my arms on a cold December evening.

 

Mom would tell me that my irrational love for this creature is similar to God’s irrational love for me- however dirty and maimed I may be.  That God doesn’t see the filth which street pollution and the inability to clean one’s self adequately produces.  And God wouldn’t hold to the stereotypes and stigmas the world places on such creatures like myself.  Instead, God’s attention would be focused on my deformed foot, and would be crushed that I live in such a place where enough evil exists to cause such pain.  God wouldn’t hesitate to scoop me up in his warm fleece and lavish me with his warmth and love.

 

If I would only hold still and allow it.

 

Did the pigeon skirt away from me as I walked near?  Did she imagine her torturer in my approaching footsteps, in my constant gaze?  Do I, likewise, run from God as the perpetrator of my pain and heartache when I should be allowing Her love to warm me against the harsh elements of the night?