Mystery of the Missing Migrants by Charley Harper

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​The God Who Migrates
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How precious is Your loving devotion, O God, that we
​take refuge in the shadow of Your wings!

​- Psalm 36:7

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The Shadow of Your Wings
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Abraham and Sarah migrated to a distant land in what seemed to be, for them, a more promising place to live. Hundreds of thousands of migrants travel long distances with the same hope. Similarly, migratory birds travel thousands of miles seeking a fresh setting. We humans are not the only migrators; birds migrate too, most of them at night.

Our respective migrations, avian or human, nocturnal or diurnal, take place inwardly and outwardly. Inwardly, our migrations begin with longing, a coalescence of desire and imagination. We imagine places we want to live, either temporarily as in the case of birds on round-trip migrations) or permanently as in the case of people. Always, we imagine our destinations out of hope and necessity. We are inwardly driven, sometimes desperately, be a need to be safe.

Outwardly, if we are able, we travel to such places, often over very long distances. The journeys are difficult. We must travel with others, avoid predators, learn to ride the currents, and get rest along the way—all the while yearning to arrive at a place of safety and flourishing. We are drawn by the future as well as the past: a future that does not yet exist but can exist, the call of possibility.

The Shadow of Your Wings

Process theologians propose that as we migrate, we are held within the shadow of even Deeper Wings. These wings cannot be seen with the eye but can be felt in the heart. They migrate alongside us as a companion to our journey, a fellow sufferer who understands, and within us, lure to survive with satisfaction relative to the situation at hand. They speak of these wings as God. God is a companion to migration and a lure to migrate.

Even the winged one, even God does not know if we will complete the journey, The future is not yet decided, not even by God. Some of us will die along the way from the weather conditions, exhaustion, or predators. The journey is not safe.

Also, there may be predators where we arrive. God is also a lure, within the predatorial and otherwise mean-spirited, to understand our need to migrate and to welcome us with wings of their own. Christians believe that God sent Jesus to teach privileged people to welcome strangers with love and understanding, knowing that the messiah arrives through them and in them. In the Deeper Wings of God, there are no strangers, only creaturely kin, only family. We do not live in a perfect world, but we can live in a loving world. That is the only real hope. 

​- Jay McDaniel

Adrees Latif/Reuters

Night Migrations of Birds:
​The Dark Sky Highway

"Billions of birds travel north in spring and south in fall, hundreds of species keeping a cycle of movement, and they do so primarily at night. While some large birds like hawks, cranes, and waterfowl are daytime travelers, most migrants—including the vast majority of songbirds—are on the wing in the dark. The reasons include a calmer atmosphere, guidance from the stars, and safety from predators. Meanwhile we humans by and large have no inkling of the tremendous journeys made while we sleep. 

Imagine a single bird during a spring dusk moments before flight. Maybe an Upland Sandpiper standing on the vast Argentine pampas, ready to launch itself on an 8,000-mile trek to its breeding grounds on Alaska’s upland tundra. Or a Blackpoll Warbler in an orange grove in Colombia, set to make a 6,000-mile journey to Canada’s boreal forest. Or a Yellow-billed Cuckoo leaving the Bolivian plains, bound for the deciduous woodlands of Illinois, some 4,000 miles away. Or a Bobolink, a Scarlet Tanager, a Wilson’s Warbler ...Tonight, conditions seem right.

The way ingrained inside. The script passed down for millennia. The birds will flow through the sky, a living river rolling through darkness, skirting storms and artificial light and a minefield of inhospitable landscapes below."

- Words by Paul Bogard, Reporter, Audubon Magazine

Migrating Sandpipers
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1. Semipalmated Sandpiper: This species breeds in the Arctic and migrates along the Atlantic coast of North America to wintering grounds in South America. Some individuals may travel as far as southern Argentina and Chile, covering a distance of over 9,000 miles (14,000 kilometers) round trip.
   
2. Western Sandpiper: Breeding in the Arctic, these sandpipers migrate along the Pacific coast of North and Central America to wintering grounds in South America, primarily in Peru and Ecuador. Their migration route can span over 5,000 miles (8,000 kilometers).
   
3. Red Knot: These birds breed in the Arctic and undertake one of the longest migrations of any bird, traveling from the Arctic to the southern tip of South America, and even reaching Tierra del Fuego. Some individuals cover distances of up to 15,000 miles (24,000 kilometers) round trip annually.
   

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Wisdom of the Sandpiper
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• Dream of Distant Lands: Dare to dream big, especially if things are dangerous where you live.
• Don’t be Afraid of the Dark: Know that you will face unknown or challenging times in your journey.
• Avoid Predators: Watch out for people who are trying to harm you or take advantage of you. 
• Take Care of Yourself: Remember to rest along the way. Get some sleep.
• Trust Your Intuition: Trust your inner guidance and intuition. Know that you have capacities for negotiating the journey inside you, engrained within you, built into your genes.
• Travel with Others: Journey alongside others on your path, finding strength and camaraderie in shared experiences. Foster open communication and collaboration with others on the journey.
• Ride the Currents when you can: Flow with the currents of life, allowing them to carry you toward your destination with grace and ease.
• Adapt to Changing Conditions: Be flexible and resilient in the face of growth and change. You may run into inclement weather. Be willing to change travel plans.
• Be Persistent: Remain steadfast in your practices despite difficulties or setbacks.
• Trust the Process: Have faith in the unfolding of your journey, knowing that each step serves a greater purpose. If you are able, enjoy parts of the journey.
• When you Arrive look for Friends: When you arrive at your destination, look for people and settings that will support you. Even after arrival, there will still be danger.
• Have Faith in Deeper Wings: Trust in the existence of deeper, spiritual protections guiding and supporting you.

I realize the tenth lesson may seem odd to some. By Deeper Wings I mean what open and relational (process) theologians call God. Others might speak of the Wings in different ways: as Allah or Love or Hope or Mystery. The wings are the night sky itself, understood as a nurturant womb in which all things live and move and have their being: human, avian, mammalian, aquatic, and otherwise.

These wings are nurturant and invitational, dwelling within each human being and, for that matter, each animal as an inwardly felt lure to survive with satisfaction relative to the situations at hand. Process theologians speak of them as initial aims. The Wings are also, say process theologians, a companion in the journey, feeling the feelings of the migrants (human and aviary) as they travel. Even when travelers don't survive the journeys, the Wings carry the memories, the hopes, the dreams of the travelers in her heart. A migrant's faith in Deeper Wings is not a faith that all that happens will be good or will be "God's will." It is that, no matter what happens, nothing is forgotten and all is remembered, in the words of Whitehead, "with a tender care that nothing be lost."

- Jay McDaniel

 
Night Migrations

in music and poetry
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NIGHT MIGRATIONS
by Hannah Fries

We sleep,
stumbling
through doorless dreams,
while over our rooftops
sky shivers with wings --
warblers, cuckoos,
herons and sparrows --
waves rising
on night’s cool breath.

We sleep
as they follow the stars
(hummingbird and wren)
high over shadowed earth,
trees clinging to rock,
cities curled in grief.
We close our windows,
bury our faces --
we sleep
and they speak:
buzz and whistle,
secret names
through air
tying each to each.

We sleep
as they fly
(imagine being lifted)
by moon and magnet,
over undulating sea
toward a place
(remember)
that echoes
in hallowed clearings,
in hollowed bones,
the song that pulls them
home.

Scholarly Discussion of Bird Migration
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In a programme first broadcast in 2017, Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss why some birds migrate and others do not, how they select their destinations and how they navigate the great distances, often over oceans. For millennia, humans set their calendars to birds' annual arrivals, and speculated about what happened when they departed, perhaps moving deep under water, or turning into fish or shellfish, or hibernating while clinging to trees upside down. Ideas about migration developed in C19th when, in Germany, a stork was noticed with an African spear in its neck, indicating where it had been over the winter and how far it had flown. Today there are many ideas about how birds use their senses of sight and smell, and magnetic fields, to find their way, and about why and how birds choose their destinations and many questions. Why do some scatter and some flock together, how much is instinctive and how much is learned, and how far do the benefits the migrating birds gain outweigh the risks they face? With Barbara Helm, Reader at the Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine at the University of Glasgow; Tim Guilford, Professor of Animal Behaviour and Tutorial Fellow of Zoology at Merton College, Oxford, and Richard Holland, Senior Lecturer in Animal Cognition at Bangor University. Producer: Simon Tillotson.