What is unusual about this picture? Don’t focus on trying to look into the windows.

You just did, didn’t you! But there’s nothing unusual to see there.

The unusual thing is the concentration of pigeons and doves on the roof. We can see this rooftop from our house. I don’t know if it is unusual to have pigeons and doves sitting together on a roof, so that’s not the unusual thing I am thinking of. No, what’s unusual is that this is usual. You will see this view on almost any day you care to choose. It’s the favourite place for these pigeons and doves to spend their day (they live such exciting lives don’t they?). And what I find more unusual about this is that they only go to that roof, and only to that half of the shared roofline. You can look at any of the other houses in the area and their roofs are pigeon and dove-free. But this one has some sort of Columbidae revival going on (yes that is the generic term for pigeons and doves and I did look it up online). But why are they always there?

Is it that the owner of the house has put some glue on the roof and the birds are stuck there? Nope, I have seen them strutting around there and occasionally some of them fly off – presumably to get food or to tell more birds to come. By the way, why do pigeons have to do the head move when they walk? Do they think it looks cool? Someone ought to tell them that the rest of the animal kingdom is laughing at them. But I digress. They are not glued on.

Perhaps the owner regularly goes up and puts out food for them. I suppose it is possible but I have never seen it happen and they never look like they are pecking at anything. And it seems like a lot of effort to go to just to have some birds sitting on your roof.

Is it possible that the pigeons and doves don’t know why they gather there? Maybe they happened to land there one day and did so the next day and it became a tradition that none of them understand but none of them are willing to break in case there was a good reason.

Maybe (and this is just speculation) this house is not as well insulated as those around it and the roof is warmer for the pigeons and doves. This seems like the most plausible explanation that I can come up with, but if any of you have a better theory I would love to hear it.

Be blessed, be a blessing.

What’s that? You were expecting more? Oh, all right. The pigeon/dove mystery got me thinking about churches, as you would expect. It got me thinking about why people come to church. Do some come because they feel stuck there and feel like they can’t get away? Maybe some come because they get fed: literally and/or spiritually. Perhaps some come because they have always come but have forgotten why. And maybe some come because they like the warmth of the people.

It also got me thinking about why we do some things in church. Do we do them because we are stuck in our ways. Do we do them in the hope that there may be something in it for us? Have we forgotten why we do them but daren’t stop? Or do we do them because there is a good reason?

You’ve already had the sign off, so I’ll just stop now