American White Pelicans : Life is Looking Up

These are American White Pelicans. They were an awe-inspiring and completely unexpected surprise - while I was walking through my urban neighborhood. I had my camera with me (occupational hazard), but I wasn’t “officially birding.” I was simply doing the same thing that everyone else was on a beautiful spring day. But at the right moment, and it turns out they’re all right moments, I happened to look up. It was the looking up, expanding my awareness in another direction, that made all the difference.

Jewish tradition holds that life is lived firmly within the world. Our greatest sages have had “day jobs” as politicians, merchants, and common laborers. One doesn’t think of Jewish cloisters, and there are no tales of Jewish Stylites. Historically of course, Jewish communities have been segregated from their neighbors, but even in this separation, Jewish life has been part of the world around it. To be the gift Isaiah prophesied, “a light unto the nations,” presupposes being amongst the nations in a visible way.

To experience a full life, a Jewish life, requires and necessitates being aware of the world around us in all its dimensions. That is not to say we must all be experts in every field: scientists and philosophers and physicians like Maimonides, but we all can metaphorically open ourselves to what is around us. Just as we shake our lulav and etrog in the cardinal directions, up, and down, we turn our senses and awareness to the world we’ve been given. A good world. Looking up during the pedestrian commonness of a neighborhood stroll rewarded me with these Pelicans. The world is full of blessings for those who remember to look for them.