MY WORD IS SPIRIT

It is said that the bullfinch’s red breast was not always red. That once it was as grey as the winter sky. That its color came from an act so small it is almost unnoticed, and so great it is never forgotten.

 

The legend tells that when Christ bore His crown of thorns, a small bird flew down and tried to pull out one of the spikes. It struggled with its thin beak, trembled in the wind, and when it finally loosened one of the thorns, its breast was stained by the blood that flowed.

Since then, they say, the bullfinch carries a color it did not choose. A color that bears witness to the wound of love. A color that shines against the snow when everything else is silent.

 

I often think of that story when I see them. How they appear when winter is at its coldest, when the ground is hard, when the trees stand bare and the world holds its breath. They land in what looks dead and carry with them a color that does not belong to winter.

 

So the Word comes to us as well. Not when we are ready. Not when we are disciplined or composed. But when everything is stripped away. When we no longer have anything to hold up as protection. When we stand in our own winter and expect nothing at all.

 

The Word comes like a bird in silence. Like a voice that carries both wound and love. Like something small that opens something vast. Like a presence that does not demand, yet changes everything.

 

That is where the book begins. In the unexpected. In the stillness. In the red against the snow. In a voice that does not shout, yet is still heard.