Northern Mockingbird : The Parallel Path

Northern Mockingbird

This is a Northern Mockingbird.  Today I walked a new trail.  My usual park’s stewards have carved this new path as a firebreak in anticipation of a controlled burn.  It runs parallel to other trails I’ve trekked countless times, but it’s offset just enough that it provides access to new perspectives, and perhaps more importantly, new angles of illumination.  Walking this new path, I encountered a bird I’ve known for decades all around me.  Seeing an old bird on a new trail is a reflective opportunity.  More so even than a completely new place and a first-time trail, there’s something special about a place you know well but seen from a new vantage.  Well-traveled spaces seen in a new light enrich in a different way than far-flung trips and expeditions.

In a recent class, my Christian student asked about Jewish perspectives on the Holy Trinity.  I confessed that the concept was so far outside my ingrained understanding that I found it hard to grasp.  Then, slowly and together, we explored our respective traditions, finding where they’re similar and different.  Each of us came away with more insights into the other’s way of seeing the Divine.  Perhaps even more importantly, this discussion led to greater appreciation of, and perspective on, our own fundamental beliefs.  The “compare and contrast” approach made explicit things that a lifetime of familiarity might otherwise have relegated to a background assumption.  Learning about Christianity made me a more thoughtful Jew.

We are often encouraged to chart our own path or blaze our own trail.  There are certainly times I’ve taken that advice and been amply rewarded.  That element of distant horizons can be an intoxicating experience.  This morning, though, I’m reminded of the value of adjacency, the insightful revelation that comes from just a slight tweak to a familiar approach.  Our understanding of ourselves can often be made deeper and richer by spending a little time on a parallel path, one that while new also shares key similarities.  Subtle adjustments to light and perspective made this photo of the Mockingbird revealingly beautiful.  Exploring appreciatively the theological perspectives of our cousins does the very same thing.