Bell’s Vireo : Old Beginner’s Joy

Bell’s Vireo

This is a Bell’s Vireo.  He’s visible but obscured.  In my now three seasons at my usual park, this is the first one I’ve encountered.  Bird people make a big deal about a “lifer,” a new bird never seen before.  I understand the excitement, and there’s something especially gratifying about seeing a new bird in your old place.  Of course I would see new birds if I traveled to the other side of the globe, to a completely different habitat, in an unexpected season.  But to have a new encounter in a place to which we are intimately accustomed, where our expectations of newness are vanishingly small, that’s something altogether different.  Today’s “new bird” excitement also recalled happy memories of all my early-stage discoveries.  I felt a beginner again.

Much of the Jewish liturgy remains consistent week to week, holiday to holiday.  There are of course variations in the Torah reading, in the sermon, and in special additions that are made. But largely our service is purposefully repetitive.  And at a certain point in life, I can sympathize when people question, “What else is there for me?  What do I hear or learn or think about that isn’t already part of me?”  Like all existential questions, it’s challenging to offer an answer that isn’t glib or that contains more meaning than, “Do it because I said so.”  There is a very real tension between mastery and exploration.  Familiarity, a positive thing, can easily slide into rote repetition.  Comprehensive understanding can obstruct new discoveries.

I write in my middle years.  My youth was a series of new experiences, inevitably so.  I am blessed to have experienced and learned many things.  And so, each day, I have a choice to make.  Will I now anticipate that because I have always had new experiences, I will continue to have new experiences?  Or will I instead anticipate that I have “used up” all the new experiences, and my life’s remainder will be at most variations on a theme?  Thinking of old men I know, the vital ones - the enviable ones - have coupled their accumulated knowledge with a maintained sense of wonder and inquiry.  They still embrace the questioning and learning of their youth.  May we all experience the joy of the new - Vireo or spiritual insight - even in our most accustomed places.

Be Grounded.  Fly High.