Just look at that raven... I know I've never seen it with a bag of seed tilling up the soil and planting crops. I'm pretty sure it doesn't even know what a sickle is nor could it use one if it did. And I've never seen a raven counting up what it's got left in it's storeroom, because I've never seen a raven's storeroom. They don't have barns. They don't have anything to put in barns. They're just ravens.
Yet our Father feeds them.
The wind shook the loose window panes. We sipped thick tea and her eyes watered over. A deaf mentally disabled man made inhuman noises and bowed before the TV. A twisted cat lept up and started padding the wooden bench. We shook the still warm bag of fried potatoes in order to spread the spice around. And she began...
My mother and father told me to go to the temple and I wouldn't they became angry and said I wasn't respectful, forgot who I was...
My young brother hates who I believe and always tells me that I should stop, and never do this anymore...
My friend smokes and drinks and I told her it wasn't good for her body and she told me that if I stop believing and become Tibetan again maybe she would stop drinking...
My older brother became angry when we told him about who we believe and said it's only a story how can you believe a story?....
The pressures and lies advanced on every side cackling like victors, the room became darker and a waitress turned on a bare swinging bulb overhead. She put her chopsticks down, unable to eat any more now slightly congealed meat dumplings, and took up rubbing her hands together and blinking back tears.
It took me a long silent moment pregnant with grief to respond.
And the only response I had was a story. It was a story about a little bird, so small. About how that bird had no way to protect itself, no way to make it's own food, no way to survive in the thin air all alone... but our Father loved that so small bird. Loved it so much that it was always safe before Him, always provided for, always near Him. That small bird was free to go on being a bird with reckless abandon because the Father cared for it so. And aren't you worth much more than the birds? I asked her.
Isn't she?
We left the tea house arm in arm and walked home under a watchful night sky crowded with stars and were enveloped by the scent of peach tree blossoms obscured by the dark.
Conviction was waiting for me like a cup of hot water and a moment of silence when I arrived back to the apartment. If I can trust our merciful Commander of Hosts to protect and embolden this small sister of mine against all the forces of evil that have raged against her people and culture for centuries then why do I lack enough faith to walk in confidence towards a blurry unfocused future for myself by His hand?
The ravens do it, and they lack nothing... am I not worth much more than the birds?
Oh soul, on behalf of my sisters and myself... consider the ravens...
