LET ME OUTTA HERE!

This morning as I usually do upon getting my day started, I opened the garage door and put bird seed in the bird feeder that is located in my flower garden. I went back inside and poured myself a cup of coffee and relaxed by doing a crossword puzzle. When I returned to the kitchen to refill my coffee cup I looked out the window and saw several birds feasting upon the seeds I had placed in the feeder. As I tend to do at times I just watched them and thought to myself just how free those birds are. Able to fly and soar so freely in the sky. How wonderful that must be I thought to myself. As I continued about my morning my mind left the birds and centered on other thoughts for the day ahead. A couple of hours later I walked out the kitchen door and stepped into the garage. As usual I had left the garage door open. When I stepped out several birds who were gathered around the feeder and on the ground made a quick exit when they saw me emerge from the doorway. Their flight instinct to run when they sensed anything or anyone coming toward them I suppose. I then thought to myself, if they only knew I was responsible for giving them the food and would not harm them in any way, would they still have taken off with such urgency? Yeah, probably so I imagined. After all it is their basic instinct to flee from anything they deem as being a danger to their well being.  So maybe a bird isn't quite as free as I had imagined only a couple of hours ago. While deep in my thoughts I heard a bird chirping rather anxiously from inside the garage. I walked to the rear and looked up and the bird was sitting atop one of the rafters looking distraught. Seems he had flown under the garage door but now could not find his way back outside. Even though the garage door was open for his escape route, as long as he stayed up high on the rafters, he could not see the five foot opening. He began to flit nervously from rafter to rafter remaining up too high to escape. I thought to myself, all he has to do is come down about two feet or so and he will then see the opening and his path to freedom. Knowing my presence was only making him more nervous I sat down on the steps by the kitchen door. I continued to watch as he kept on chirping and flitting along the rafters in the ceiling. The only thing standing between him and his freedom was for him to go against his normal tendency to fly upward when he found himself in danger and to instead try something different and fly real low. That made me think of how us human beings are at times so close to our absolute freedom but then we refuse to try anything different and instead choose to remain caged in one way or another. If only we were not so afraid to realize that we don't know nearly as much as we think we do. Maybe that's why we never realize that our freedom is always so close at hand at all times. Instead I think we had rather keep on doing things we think we know than to take a chance to do things differently. And like the bird, even if we do learn to fly, that doesn't mean we have to fly in the same direction we are most comfortable with. Because again, like the bird, sometimes our comfort zone will only serve to keep us from truly finding our freedom. I got up from my seat and went back inside. About an hour later I went back out and found that the bird had indeed finally managed to escape out the garage door. I did not see him leave but I can imagine that when he did find that opening he flew as high and as fast as he could to get away from his place of torment. Will he come back tomorrow to once again eat from the feeder? I have no way of knowing. Hopefully his fear of being "caged" will not keep him from returning. If he was a human being though I'd bet he would never return to this spot because of the fear! Just because that is the way most of us react to our own personal places of torment.  My hope for all of us today is that we can and will choose to look for new avenues to find our own personal freedom. And along the way in our search may we all be good to ourselves and even better to others! I leave you with thoughts of perfect love, perfect peace, and perfect understanding.