As a child I spent many hours sequestered on a hillside, under a tree, in a bedroom, reading fables. I liked the ones that clearly detailed the moral to the story at the end. I think that was because they seemed so nicely complete to me, and that they were usually so far out of my grasp to understand. This meant that I was promised to have so much more to learn in this great wide and ready-to-be-explored world.

In today’s post I’ve written just such a fable about my unending curiosity over the tiny featherweight giants that buzz through our world known as the hummingbirds. You will find a moral at the end of the tale, but I know it won’t be too high for your understanding. It will simply be illuminating about an ounce-weight little bird and what his God-given neon colors of light can teach us:

Once upon a time there was a regal hummingbird named Renaldo the Resplendent. In all the field guides of the land of Buzzburgh it was said that he was the most highly-stylized in coloration, that his bill was the envy of all the great sword-designers of the kingdom, and that he was dubbed the most truculent of warriors due to his monumental size, being that he was only an inch and a half long. His type was that known as the Fuchsia-Tufted Star Throat, and as you will see he easily fit his description, and more, as he used all the weaponry available to his species to overcome a foul foe.

Renaldo was also known as a quite protective father, although as a warrior he was not overly indulgent with his little son Reny II, since this would be unseemly for one so valiant.

One day he saw Reny hovering over a brilliant zinnia patch. He watched his son’s aerial maneuvers, and marveled at the silly youngster wasting all his energy just displaying his flight talents rather than harvesting the energy necessary to his very existence that resided in the beckoning flower-patch. Reny somersaulted with high-bounding dives only to swing back up into the ethers, inscribing hummingbird calligraphy all over the heavens to the delight of his gemlike bird audience.

Soon his father saw Reny drop to a flower stem to rest his magnificent flight muscles after his grand, but dangerous, display. Then, immediately, Renaldo spotted the ever-so-present danger to his flight-happy son. Right below him on the zinnia branch was a massive praying mantis, who was know as Gorgon the Shapeshifter--gigantic, and most terrible of all the fright-monster insects of Buzzburgh.

The creature could mimic himself as just another branch of a plant, and he could even add the lush look of a leaf to his disguise. The other trait that the beast was known for was that he enjoyed hummingbirds for his dinner, when he could catch them, which was rare since they were usually much faster than he was. Today though Reny was not that fast, as a matter of fact, he was exhausted and winded just below the head of the most brilliant of the fuchsia-colored zinnias.

Gorgon’s leaf like massive arm reached-out for the entirely spent Reny. Renaldo darted to the aid of his depleted son and parried Gorgon with his swordbill, but the monster hurled him back to an adjacent ditch. Renaldo was not used to such degradation, but from his dismal landing place he saw a flashing beam of dazzling sunlight playing off the fuchsia hues from the bloom over Reny’s tired head. He easily saw the resonance in this spectacle with his own gorgeous feathering, as he too had a star-like spot of fuchsia on his throat.

Quickly he surveyed the situation and realized that his ounce-weight could not come against the mammoth Gorgon no matter how great his fencing skills were. But Renaldo also knew how to use light to attract (This was how he had won Reny’s mother.), and he knew how to use it to distract, as well. He calculated the distance that he would have to fly and hover to triangulate the sun’s flow off of his stunning throat and through the perfectly colored zinnia-head. He sped to that point. The light was like an explosion of flames all around the confused and bewildered Gorgon, who fell from his clever hiding place into a puddle of mud. The Shapeshifter was now nothing but a mud-blob, and was having no small amount of difficulty extracting himself from the gooey mess.

The permanently color-blinded Gorgon decided upon a dinner of foliage that evening, after he regained his vision from the flaming encounter. From that day on the monster could only eat the vegetation along the low-lying ditches of Buzzburgh!

Renaldo and Reny swerved and angled off to a nearby lilac bush where Reny learned the lesson of reflected light from the grand and brilliant Renaldo, and he only wanted to become as wise as his great pilot-father, at both harvesting nectar, and just being entirely lovely for the delight of all the citizens of Buzzburgh.

From that day hence Reny was always faster and wiser than Gorgon, or any of his ogre-like brothers, and one day he was even named Renaldo II for all the sparkling lights that he dazzled throughout the entire land with his shining plumage. Applause filled the heavens for how the sunbeams played off Reny’s daytime star-throat. He loved being a light-dancer even as he fed upon the nectar that had been placed there just for him and his dazzling family at the rainbow colored zinnia-garden.

MORAL OF THE STORY: When choosing weaponry against an enemy who wants to take your life, remember the wise use of the power of light.

The Scripture says it in such a wonderfully direct way in Romans 13:12 (Amplified Version): “The night is far gone and the day is almost here. Let us drop (fling away) the works and deeds of darkness and put on the (full) armor of light.”