Contemplate the Songbird

My spiritual director shared a poem with me this week that I hadn’t thought of in many years, “Caged Bird” by Maya Angelou.

This morning as I sat with this beautiful and beloved poem, I was reminded of a song I love — and have never been able to forget — by Oumou Sangare with Bela Fleck called “Djorolen” from a documentary called “Throw Down Your Heart.”

Oumou is a famous singer in Africa who endured great suffering in her childhood in a family without the support of a father. She began singing on the street at an early age to raise money to help her family. Now she supports an orphanage in her home town.

As I listened to the song again this morning in my quiet time, I felt a connection between Maya’s poem and Oumou’s song.

God rescued me from my cage through a journey of healing into freedom. But, like Oumou’s songbird, I’m not free to forget what that cage felt like. I’m not free to forget those who are still in their cages.

A contemplative prayer practice I’ve experienced for many years, especially on nights when I can’t sleep, is to ask God if there is someone I can pray for. He always gently brings someone to mind.

I settle into God’s presence and begin focusing all my love, all the compassion of God that I can feel in me on the person he shows me. I hold space for them in the dark, in the still, in the quiet. I usually don’t know why this person was given to me to hold in my heart, but I trust God’s love and direction.

As I lie in bed, holding the person in my heart, a sense of our oneness in God begins to arise. I may have specific thoughts, visions, or words that I lean into with prayer, but most often I am just focusing on God’s presence with the person, with me, with us.

I typically stay in this space until I feel a release, which is usually accompanied by tears for what I know not.

This morning, the person God brought to my mind was Turkish doctoral student Rumeysa Ozturk who was arrested on Tuesday. I’d seen the short video of her arrest and photos of her smiling face. She reminds me of many young women I work with in my current job where I’m able to build friendship with people from countries, cultures, and religions different than my own. One colleague in particular has the same sweet innocence and precious heart I see in Rumeysa’s photo. Rumeysa’s arrest was a result of co-authoring one article for her school newspaper that was critical of the school’s failure to advocate for victims of Israeli violence in Palestine, which continues to claim the lives of so many.

I began to wonder where she might be, but those details aren’t that important to the task of contemplative intercessory prayer. I’m engaging mystery and I don’t need to know.

This experience can be emotional, painful even, as you “throw down your heart” for another in this way. I would never want to encourage anyone to do anything that is traumatizing for their own well being. But, if you’ve journeyed through healing yourself, then being in solidarity with others in this way probably feels quite natural. When we’ve experienced God’s healing, we know there is nothing to fear.

I would invite you to consider this contemplative practice as a way to not only create blessed space for others, but to learn what God’s compassion and solidarity feel like in your body. You may find that sensation arising more often in your every day life as well.

God loves us. Let’s love one another as Jesus taught us to.

Caged Bird
- Maya Angelou

Source: Poetry Foundation

A free bird leaps
on the back of the wind
and floats downstream
till the current ends
and dips his wing
in the orange sun rays
and dares to claim the sky.

But a bird that stalks
down his narrow cage
can seldom see through
his bars of rage
his wings are clipped and
his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.

The free bird thinks of another breeze
and the trade winds soft through the sighing trees
and the fat worms waiting on a dawn bright lawn
and he names the sky his own.

But a caged bird stands on the grave of dreams
his shadow shouts on a nightmare scream
his wings are clipped and his feet are tied
so he opens his throat to sing.

The caged bird sings
with a fearful trill
of things unknown
but longed for still
and his tune is heard
on the distant hill
for the caged bird
sings of freedom.