Least Flycatcher : Recognizing the Extraordinary
This is a Least Flycatcher. It’s a small bird and nondescript. It doesn’t have the awe-inspiring majesty of an eagle. It doesn’t sing like a nightingale. It seems a “middle of the pack” little bird. Last season I saw them all the time. In fact it reached the point that I simply didn’t take their picture anymore. I had plenty of photos of them, and instead I chose to focus my energies on seeing something new, something different, perhaps something more noteworthy. But the fly catchers were always there. And I, the naïve beginning bird photographer, had no reason to think anything would change. They would simply always be there.
Judaism places an unequalled emphasis on the value of every single human life. Partly this results from the Torah interpretation holding that each human life contains a spark of the Divine, and consequently is of inestimable value. There is a related derivation which says that since all of humanity was descended from Adam, each human life today has infinite value because of its same capacity to generate an entire world. Regardless of which interpretation you find more compelling, the fact remains: from the most philosophical to the most practical proof text, Jewish tradition uniquely elevates every single life.
This season I’ve seen these flycatchers only rarely. They’re hardly endangered, but they are also not the constant companions I saw - and ultimately ignored - last year. I am now more awake to their presence. What if this were in fact the very last Least Flycatcher? What if I were the witness to the only one left in the entire world? Surely my response, as is human nature, would be astonished. This month, can we awaken ourselves to people in the same way? Can we recognize in each ordinary person, in each nondescript interaction, the spark of the Divine that makes that person utterly unique in the world? This should be the month when we awaken to the extraordinary hiding in the commonplace, whether it be a Least Flycatcher or all the people around us.