How does one see a tiny hummingbird nest in a huge liquid amber tree? Only by grace.

Yesterday morning I was leaving for work preoccupied by my habitual failings and on the brink of descending into an internal slough remembered that self-compassion would be more helpful. That’s when I spotted the little beak near the tree’s trunk where it usually wouldn’t be and saw the hummingbird flit to a nearby branch. I later discovered the nest, so tiny it had been hidden from my original vantage point by a single leaf.

Last night we celebrated the Feast of the Supper of the Lord, one of my favorite days in the church year. This is the night Jesus said, “Take my body. Take my blood. Remember me.”

The disciples must have been mightily confused. That’s pretty far off script for a Passover Seder. Two thousand years later we’re still repeating those words, and I probably don’t understand them any better than the original disciples did. Yet there is something essential for me about Eucharist.

When I give Eucharist to others and say, “The body of Christ,” I hold a state of mind that they are receiving what they already are, that something about our communal consecration amplifies and reveals Christ already within each of us.

We need a lot of reminders of this reality of who we are, from the glory of the hummingbird’s nest to the weekly gathering at table. It’s so tempting to think we are just about anything else and are here for just about any other reason. But only participation in God’s love, in the evolutionary force of existence will do.

All creation is groaning to be born, St. Paul writes to the Romans, “even until now.” All creation is participating in this feast, in this being and becoming Christ, each of us in our own way. The hummingbird participates by building its tiny nest. If we pay attention, we’ll learn how to build ours.