Photo by Patrice Bouchard on Unsplash

The tree in the front yard is shivering. 

It’s just one. The other dozen trees I can see from my front window are still. It’s just the mountain ash that’s dancing.  

I pull up the blinds to get a better look. 

It’s happening! It’s robin feast day.

Robin feast day? Yes, and it’s a delight to watch. 

I had no idea this was a phenomenon until we moved into this house. That first fall, sitting in my morning chair, I noticed the same thing I see today – one singular tree is shivering. As I watched, I discovered the reason. Robins. They swoop in, land on the branches, and pick the bright orange berries off one by one. 

There surely is some scientific word for this event, but Erik and I have named it robin feast day at our house. I call out to him with excitement when it starts happening, wanting to share in annual wonder of the spectacle. And quite a spectacle it can be. This morning, there are only a few birds landing in the tree at once. But the first year I saw it, I noticed at least a dozen, wings flapping, seeming to come in a waves, eating until every berry is gone. 

By the end of the week, maybe next, the tree will be bare. All the berries will have been devoured, and the robins will be off enjoying some other treat. 

According to the Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, this is a common sight this time of year.

“In late summer and continuing on up until the breeding season begins in spring, robins form nomadic flocks that roost together at night and feed together by day.”

Together. What a beautiful word. It erases the competitive spirit that seems to drive so much of humanity these days. While so many of us are just trying to save and stockpile for ourselves, not one of the robins seems concerned they won’t get enough. 

None of them hoards a cluster or tries to startle away the others. 

Instead, they seem to call to one another, their delighted chirps filling the air. 

“The berries are ready!” I imagine the first forager calling out. “Come one and all! It’s time to feast!” 

As I watch them, I think of Jesus’ words in Matthew.

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life?” (6:25-27)

How often do I forget these words? How often do I worry not just about what I will eat today, and tomorrow, but about the well of good food drying up? 

This time of year, it’s especially on my mind as the garden has slowed and the home-picked produce, while still coming into my kitchen, is noticeably less than it was just a month or two ago.

Fall is here. Winter is coming. 

The days are shorter. The mornings darker. The temperatures cooler. 

My soul whimpers, longing for endless days of summer, wanting to cling on to what I have enjoyed rather than risk finding joy in something new. But as I watch the robins, I realize they have more lessons for me than about trusting God’s provision. Instead of worrying about the coming cold, when berries will be gone and worms will be hidden in the colder ground, they are delighting on what they have right now. Today. 

Not only that, but they are sharing it with each other, knowing the bounty is too good — too perfect — not to shout about.

Tomorrow, or next week, they will be eating something else, praising God for His provision in some other tree, on some other bush, or hopping along the ground after a rainstorm. 

They live in freedom. 

They live in trust. 

They live together.

That is how I want to continue learning to live.