Inter Alia
By: Brad Odilo
Tags: Life, Pigeons, Christmas, Lessons Learned, Covid 19

Inter Alia

[Painting Credit: “Inter Alia" by Charles Yates]

Merry Christmas!

Have a happy time celebrating whatever this day means to you - many are the versions and suggestions on how you ought to do so. My recommendation: make it introspective on the irrefutable birth of Jesus with its implications on your life and do so either alone, with people you know or those that you don’t. For today, 25 December 2020, this is the main thing amongst the many other things in this life.

This past week, as I killed time waiting to meet a friend, a stranger came to sit beside me on the park bench. He had a full back pack. As he opened it, thrusting in his whole arm, he unravelled plastic bags full to the brim with bread crumbs. He was a bird-feeder. Well, maybe not entirely, but in that moment it was clear that he had come to do some feeding. On scattering the crumbs, a flight of pigeons flocked to their generous human. They must have been about 150 of them. They continued to pick peck on those crumbs, rather delightfully in a manner to express gratitude. Then, on the other side of the park, a photographer working on taking that perfect still-shot of his client, started throwing bread crumbs to “call” the pigeons to swarm so that they would be in the picture – what manipulation! Almost instantaneously, about three quarters of the about 150, fled to the photographer. I learnt that pigeons only follow the food, it’s nothing personal. I’m sure humans do the same too.

Meeting up my friend was refreshing to say the least. Ours is one of those relationships where we may take months to see each other (we actually argued when last we had seen each other) but then compensate it with a great catch up session. We got straight into talking about the current Covid-19 vaccine and its intricacies. Key to our debacle was how particularly this vaccine “seems” to be a bigger agenda than just helping people to be immune. We were exploring this with an exchange of facts, opinions, truth, speculations, the Bible and the apocryphal book of Enoch and all sorts. Then there was the catch up on where we are in our lives personally and where we are wanting to be. All this just reinforced the condemnation of my procrastination in starting a podcast. Our lives are full of lessons and we should share them.

Deciding on taking up a holidays’ temporary job relieving a permanent Cleaner just to get the extra income has been insightful. Particularly, the insight has been centred on the principle of work and its dynamics. When you are used to smart work over manual work and getting income by moving your fingers on a laptop and cross referencing your mental, there is lots to learn about yourself. Humility does not come humbly, you learn it through experience and through the tutelage of Holy Spirit, if you allow for it. But then again, reward oftentimes if not all times, pushes you to endure that which you may consider lowly. But, your worth is not in your work, your worth is verified simply by being human.

Then, I saw the dead body of a motor-biker, lying regrettably lifeless on the road intersection covered in reflective and shiny material. His blood trickled down the tarmac in a little red stream. People stood in the periphery, police vehicles and an ambulance had their emergency lights flashing. I had not witnessed the accident but fragments of the motorbike, a scattered shoe, a damaged vehicle, told all that had happened. As traffic was being redirected, I could almost sense the sobriety of the scene for the passer-by drivers. Seeing the now deceased biker with his curled hand poking out of the reflective material, I got reminded that life is fragile – its fragility demands that we live it simply and gratefully.

On top of this all, COVID-19 continues to take lives, and now even at a more alarming rate.

There are countless things that surround us to tell us their stories. It’s up to us to learn, apply their lessons and be grateful for each breathing moment.

Once again, Merry Christmas, dear reader!