Why is Christianity so unhelpful on the very ethical dilemma that most concerns ordinary people in our everyday lives? Why does Jesus have nothing helpful to say about the ranking of obligations?
Last weekend, digging a huge hole in the ground to receive a gargantuan granite trough I’ve just bought, I was about four feet below ground level and wielding a pickaxe when, with a panic-stricken tweet, a fledgling coal tit fluttered down into a puddle in the depression. There were high winds on Saturday and I suppose the bird had been blown from its nest somewhere.
This one managed to half-fly, half-hop to the water’s edge where it stood tweeting desperately and trying to fluff out its wings to dry them. It could nearly fly, but not well enough for the required vertical take-off. I watched for a while; the bird was not quite viable, I thought, outside the nest — yet so close. Maybe when dry it might be able to flutter away. I left it there in the hole, safe from the wind, to check later on its success.
But when I returned it was still there, looking more unsteady on its little legs. It had given up tweeting. I fetched a box and placed the bird in it with a jam jar-lid of water and some moistened bread and millet. The bird felt very warm in my cupped hands. I put the box on a slightly-warm radiator, covering the top with a book by Bruce Chatwin. If this bird pulls through, I thought, Chatwin’s writing will have proved of some use to man or beast.
But the bird perished. When I returned the fledgling was lying with eyes shut and claws heavenward: dead, but not quite cold yet.
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