A Counsel Against Self-Condemnation–From a Bird
I awake to a clatter at the back door. Erratic rapping on glass. I come down to investigate and find a scarlet cardinal sitting on the railing, then flying beak first into the all-glass door. A flutter and crash, regrouping on the railing, head cocking this way and that, then attacking the glass again, and again.
The morning sun had created a perfect looking glass in our back door, and the cardinal was attacking his own reflection. It didn’t help to chase him away. He just came back for more self-abuse. There were skid marks on the glass, saliva smeared and flecked with down.
At first glance this looks like a typically bird-brained thing to do, until you realize that it’s a very human thing to do. In our attempts to lash out at others, we are attacking ourselves. We know about autoimmune diseases, where the body’s natural defenses mistake healthy tissue for invading destructors, and thus self attacks self. The same phenomenon happens spiritually or psychically. Our worrying-anxious-insecure self sees threats that are actually projections of our own shadow—all the dark, unexamined, fearful stuff that teems just below everyday consciousness. It sees the menace and flies face-first into battle.
Mostly for me this happens when I am alone and talking to myself, having full-on arguments with people who are nowhere in sight. “As if you didn’t know!” “A lot of nerve you have!” “Hung me out to dry!” And so on. My heart rate jumps, my blood pressure spikes, my breathing turns shallow. That assault on my own body comes not from an enemy out there, but from me.
This tendency to turn on ourselves is an old, old problem.
Plenty of people love John 3:16. I love John 3:17. “For God sent the Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him.” Why did the Son not come to condemn us? Because he knew we needed no help in the condemnation department: we were not just pretty good at condemning ourselves—we were really, really good at it.
Think for a moment about all the people who come under your condemnation. These are the ones who regularly come up in those soliloquies of seethe. Every time you go after them, even silently in your mind, you are going after yourself. This is why Jesus kept saying, Judge not. He knew every time you pass judgment on someone, the sentence and penalty is charged to you.
Just moments before I read this, a small female cardinal stunned herself on our storm door. I found her lying on her back on the front porch, and I gently picked her up and held her in my hand, barely stroking her head for about 15 minutes before she flew away. I knew at the time it was a sign, and now I really know it.
That’s a serendipitous moment for sure!
We become our worst enemy.
Loving, forgiving and forgetting has been the most powerful metamorphosis in my life. Thanks for the post!
So true—thank you for sharing your experience, Steve.
Thank you David! So meaningful right now.❤️🙏🏼
Beautifully stated! What a great reminder.
Thank you David. I read it as my bay window was being attacked by a cardinal. You as always take the peculiar things in and give the wonderful meaning. I feel so fortunate to have you in my
life. Peace and love. RickL
Love back at you, Rick!
This reminds me of a female cardinal I once observed who did rather better than your guy. I saw her fly through a sizable hole in a hedge – big enough she could glide right through it. On the new side, from which I was observing her, she picked up a dry stem on the ground, presumably for nest-building. When she turned around with the long stem in her beak and tried to fly back through the hedge, the stem proved too long for the width of the hole. Undeterred, she tried several times, equally unsuccessfully, to carry the stem through the hole in the hedge. But then, after these several tries, she flew, stem still in her beak, up and over the hedge. I was impressed with her tenacity, however doomed to failure, in continuing to try to return through the hedge with her prize – and then fascinated by the sign of cognition in her solving her problem.
Good stuff David. I think about this a lot. For me, so much of religion is about giving these thoughts priority seating for the rest of the show. Hard to do but so worthwhile and rewarding for everyone. Thanks for sharing!
That was so enlightening. We all need to consider this.
Thanks David,
Linda
Thanks for the beautiful reminder David. For as we condemn ourselves, let us remember to forgive ourselves.
So the cardinal attacked its reflection in the window; not an actual cardinal, but one that the cardinal thought was real. And that is often the case with self-criticism. What we perceive about ourselves (and then criticise) is what we “think” we are about; more often than not something we treat as “real”, rather than what is true and actual.
Exactly—-it’s a classic case of projection. We project all our unconscious darkness into someone else—and then attack them. And, gosh, it sure looks real at the time.