By: Jim Taylor

Acting in unison


[It’s holiday time, and I’m visiting Sharon and Katherine in Edmonton. So I resorted to the “old column barrel” for this one, which first ran in January 2000.]


A flock of Bohemian waxwings descended on our mountain ash tree. Though I’m not sure that “flock” is the right word. “Flock” sounds so pastoral, so placid, so sheep-like. These birds showed up more like sharks feeding. Or like tow trucks converging on a highway accident.

        One minute, the tree was loaded with bright red berries. The next, it stood bare naked and shivering in the winter wind. The waxwings left two – count’em, two – berries on the whole tree.

        And then, just as suddenly as they arrived, the waxwings lifted off en masse. They circled in the sky a couple times. And they were gone.

        The strange thing, to me, was that they didn’t seem to have a leader. Granted, one Bohemian waxwing looks pretty much like another from a distance. And I didn’t have much chance to get into conversation with any of them. But it didn’t look as if one bird landed on the tree, and then called to the others, “Hey, come on, you guys! This stuff is good!” They all arrived at once; they all left at once, as if a single mind motivated them.

        When they left, they swirled around in the sky, forming and re-forming the constantly changing patterns in a kaleidoscope. First one bird was in front, then another. But they all wheeled and turned together as if they weren’t thirty, or forty, or fifty separate birds at all, but one bird, governed by a single collective mind.



Single-minded strength

 One of my favorite biblical passages comes in Paul’s letter to the Christian church at Philippi. “Let the same mind be in you,” he wrote, “that was in Jesus Christ.”

        Put in more colloquial terms, he was saying, “If Jesus is the head of the church, then all his followers should be so much like him that you even think like him.” We would all be like-minded.

        Paul might be a little dismayed if he could see today’s Christian churches squabbling with each other. Some battles involve actions that matter in people’s lives today. Others, unfortunately, simply rehash abstract points of theology from past centuries that make no difference to anyone standing in a line at the only grocery store cashier who’s open.

        I don’t suggest that all members of a faith group should become little robots, mindlessly listening for instructions from their master’s voice (like the RCA terrier seen on old vinyl record labels). Bland uniformity can be as boring as vanilla pudding.

        But think of the impact that a group could have on society if an entire group could act quickly, decisively, and consistently. Compare the effect of one person alone… with a congregation of a hundred people… with an entire denomination of a million… with an international body of a hundred million…

        With a true collective consciousness, we could act more like that flock of waxwings. No, not stripping mountain ash trees. But sharing the same ideals, the same values. And then changing the world.

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Copyright © 2007 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
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