Feed the Birds
Feed the Birds "Feed the birds, tuppence a bag..." Do you remember that poignant scene from Mary Poppins in which the elderly woman is feeding the birds in front of the cathedral? Sometimes when I see a flock of pigeons in the square that scene pops into my brain. It was no different this morning. "Feed the birds..." was playing in my head as if I were watching the movie again. Only the main character was a man, one with dark skin. He was sitting on a bench in front of the cathedral, reaching inside a plastic bag for birdseed. (It actually looked a lot like dry oatmeal. Maybe it was.) Pigeons–gray, blue, light brown–flocked around him and landed on the bench behind him or beside him. Immediately , my eyes welled up. Was it because the scene reminded me of my favorite childhood movie? Maybe. But there was more to it. There was something pure, something genuine in the feeding of the birds that Mary Poppins had understood. And the fact that this man–like the bird woma...