Northern Cardinal : The Beautiful in the Mundane

This is a female Northern Cardinal. She’s so common as to be frequently overlooked. But something about the warmth I saw in this one, in the midst of winter, struck me. The key to bird photography is capturing the moment when the light falls on the little beast just so. Rarely… magically… the flow reverses, and you feel the bird radiating light outwards, illuminating everything around her. We see her inner beauty.

Genesis recounts (part of?) the instructions Abraham gives his servant on finding a wife for his beloved Isaac. Surely the bride for the first Jewish wedding must be a special woman indeed. The servant prays for a sign: that she should draw water for his camels and him. This mundane, hardly even noticeable gesture, this is the sign of the perfect match? The hallmark of this epically special woman, destined to be a Matriarch? Mustn’t there be more?

My lesson from meeting Rebecca is to see the beautiful in the mundane. Rebecca’s true beauty - her inner light - radiates out not when she puts on her golden arm-bands and rings but when she shares the caring nature of her soul. Birders too easily confuse the exotic for the special, the rare for the meaningful. We would all profit by peering more deeply, taking the extra moment to appreciate the Inner Source of light that elevates a common Cardinal or a Matriarch’s humbly kind gesture.