We got in the car this morning, heading down the road to go to Mass, and a little sparrow landed on the outside of the passenger side, where the window comes out. I rolled it up so he couldn't come in - he stayed there while we went down the street. We pulled into a gas station and my brother got out, went round to my side, and the bird was still there. I was just going to say he'd need to take the little one off the car, when he flew into some bushes. He was young and perhaps didn't know what was going on.
Reading Watership Down makes me think (even more than usual!) about how our lives impact the natural world around us, since so much of how we live has little to do with nature.
"Love the animals. God has given them the rudiments of thought and joy untroubled.
Don't trouble it, don't harass them, don't deprive them of their happiness,
don't work against God's intent."
- The Brothers Karamazov, Fyodor Dostoevsky*
*Can you believe this quote from The Brothers was the epigraph to chapter 22 in Watership Down? A connection between two books, both of which I am currently reading.
What a coincidence! I enjoyed reading Watership Down about 15 or 20 years ago, (I can't remember when) realising as I did so that it is definitely not a children's book, at least not a young child's book. People of my elder daughter's age speak about the animated version of the book that was on children's TV when they were young. It had Art Garfunkel singing 'Bright Eyes' as the theme tune. They all speak of the horror and trauma they experienced! I watched some of it with Alice and thought it quite well done, though I hadn't read the book at that time. I haven't read anything by Dostoevsky and I probably won't. I send you best wishes as you read it. :D
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