The Power of a Tweet

A first-ever youth camp experience connected us to lessons of God’s care for all creatures great and small.

After our summer camp experience, I found this news item kind of ironic: Billie Joe Armstrong, front man for the punk rock band Green Day and a man with more than 170,000 Twitter followers, recently attempted to board a Southwest Airlines flight. Denied unless he pulled up his saggy, baggy pants, he sassed an attendant, asking, “Don’t you have better things to do than worry about that?”

He was escorted off the plane. Then he sent out a tweet to his Twitter followers, saying, “Just got kicked off a southwest flight because my pants sagged too low! [expletive deleted] No joke!”

Southwest quickly tweeted an apology and got him on the next flight. There’s no denying the influence a tweet can have—for bad or for good.

But what if nature could “tweet”? What message would it send?

That takes me back to our summer camp experience. …

Knock, knock. Is this a joke?

Usually an early morning tap at the camp director’s door isn’t a good thing. It was Sabbath morning, and my husband was already gone from the room. Stumbling out of bed and opening the door, I was greeted by daylight and a hesitant counselor.

“I’m so sorry, Mrs. J.,” the counselor said, noting my squint and wacky hairdo, “but there’s a bird in one of the girls’ tents.”

“A bird?” I croaked. “Can you just shoo it out of the tent?”

“It doesn’t look like a wild bird. It’s gray and white with a long tail, and we’re concerned about picking it up. Could you come take a look?”

Minutes later as we trudged up the hill to the campsite, more details unfolded. After waking, one of the girls had reached for her flip-flop under her cot and touched the bird! Thankfully she’d kept her cool enough not to frighten her tent mate or the entire campsite. “She said she’d heard a faint chirping or squeaking throughout the night … like the cot was in need of oiling,” her counselor added. “Now she knows what it was!”

At the campsite

With a single tweet, the gray and white bird gave away its location. As the girls hovered and held back the tent flap, I blurted, “It’s a cockatiel!” Turning my exclamation into a softer, more comforting tone, I picked it up.

“Very cold feet,” I thought worriedly. The girls cooed and petted it and, though exhausted, it seemed to relish all the attention. One camper said, “It’s our Sabbath gift!”

Lighthearted banter enveloped the campsite as the girls collaborated on name choices for our new feathered friend.

I brought our Sabbath visitor into the lodge. The camp nurse cuddled the bird in her jacket. Warming up, it twittered nonstop. Traveling from shoulder to shoulder, it left everyone it touched with smiles, as well as a little birdie residue!

A series of fortunate events

This was a “first” in our camp experience. We notified the camp ranger, who told us of an ad in the local paper regarding—a missing pet cockatiel! The call went out.

While banana chunks and cracker crumbs revived the Sabbath guest, plans were being made for its new home should it not be the missing pet after all. Within an hour, the owner arrived at the camp during our Sabbath hymn sing-along. Concerned about the disheveled state of the bird, she was unsure if it really was hers. Introducing the bird to the caged sibling would be the acid test.

Tweets of delight!

One staff member, in conversation with the owner, explained our Sabbath-keeping practice and how we’d all considered finding this little bird a “Sabbath blessing.”

The owner, delighted with the blessing of finding her pet, went on to say the bird had disappeared from her home six days before. Six days! To add to everyone’s astonishment, she lives in a town seven miles away—over the mountain!

No wonder this was one cold and weary little traveler! This determined little creature flew over a mountain summit, escaping predatory talons and braving chilled nights. How exhausting! How frightening!

Putting it all together

A psalmist wrote of a personally troubling time and compared his destitute emotions to lone birds in the wilderness: “I am like a pelican in the wilderness; I am like an owl of the desert. I lie awake, and am like a sparrow alone on the housetop” (Psalm 102:6-7). But his lament brightened when he acknowledged God’s mercy: “He shall regard the prayer of the destitute, and shall not despise their prayer” (verse 17; see also verses 12-16).

After teaching the substantive life principles behind the beatitudes, prayer, forgiveness and fasting, Jesus told the disciples how much His Father cared for them. He may have pointed to a small sparrow on a nearby tree branch as He explained (Matthew 6:26).

Acknowledging this perspective requires the most elemental building blocks of faith: trust that God has our best interests in the palm of His hand and that He caringly tends to us as to a small, helpless bird lost in the wilderness. “Are you not of more value than they?”

And so we received a Sabbath blessing infinitely larger than the cockatiel itself. We got a glimpse into God’s mercy and graciousness!

“Your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you” (Matthew 6:32-33).

One little twitter from nature.

One powerful tweet!

While refilling her bird feeders, Janel Johnson recommends reading Alex & Me, by Irene M. Pepperberg, for another fascinating story about one of God’s amazing avian creatures.

See these related links:

• Why I Keep the Sabbath
• How Does God Want Us to Pray?
• She Reaches Out Her Hands
• "Casting All Your Care on Him"