We sat at the kitchen table eating breakfast and the window was just above eye level. Two feathers suddenly appeared at the window, walking about completely upright without any visible body and obviously fully in control of themselves.
If we did not know what was outside our view, we would have been mystified but we knew exactly what was happening because we knew what was out of our sight-line. We knew what the two feathers were and what they were doing.
They belonged to two fairy wrens and they were eating the prepared food we had scattered on the window ledge earlier. We fed them there several times a day and, because we had spent time at the beginning of our involvement with them, we knew their habits. We knew exactly what kept the two walking feathers aloft.
Our understanding was based on our knowledge and Jesus reminds us that we need to take time and involvement to understand what he wants us to see.
When he explained events to Cleopas, Jesus did not pluck a couple of feathers out of thin air. He started at the beginning of the books of Moses which are Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy. Then he then went through ‘the whole of scripture’ so that Cleopas could understand what was happening.
Jesus insists that the only way we could understand the things of God is to start at the beginning.
Elizabeth Price