"Seen any pileated woodpeckers?"

An encounter with a sacred other

Not too long ago, I took a walk in a woodsy nature preserve near our home. Forest bathing, as some might call it; friluftsliv, perhaps, to others—that is, free-air living.  

(For anyone interested in all things friluftsliv, by the way, I thought The Open-Air Life by Linda Akeson McGurk was a lovely book.) 

As I was rounding a corner, I saw the most gorgeous bird standing on the ground, enthusiastically pecking at a dead, fallen tree. Black and white, with a radiant red head and a red stripe near his beak. (I say “his” because it turns out that only males have that bright red stripe.)

The pileated woodpecker (I learned his name when I went home and searched Google for the bird I had seen) kept at his log-pecking endeavors as I slowly stepped closer and closer. I had seen his kind way up in the trees before, but not on the ground. 

I was so close to him. Not close enough to get a good photo with my phone’s camera, but close enough to behold his glory in detail with my eyes. I kept watching him, stunned by his beauty. 

Not a good photo of the pileated woodpecker, but that didn’t keep me from trying! Look about halfway up the photo, to the left of the path, by the moss-covered log.

Eventually, I needed to walk by him on the trail, and as I walked forward, it was too close for his comfort. He flew away. 

The encounter was the highlight of my walk, and I thought about the pileated woodpecker the next time I walked on that same trail, a week or two later. I wondered if I would see him again.

This time, in the spot where I had seen him before, he was nowhere to be found. But a few minutes later, on the last leg of the trail, I heard a distinct high-pitched bird call. I looked up, and there he was (okay, he or one of his brethren): flying toward a dead tree, attaching himself to it, pecking away, way up high. I watched for a minute and then moved on.

I felt lucky to have seen him again, even if from afar. 

Here’s what the male pileated woodpecker actually looks like. What a bird. / Photo by ifer endahl on Unsplash

The strange thing on that second walk, though, was what happened toward the very end. 

As I neared the end of the nature preserve, where the trail ends and a street begins, a man and a small child (let’s call him the man’s grandson) had just entered. The small grandson stared at me. I smiled and said hello to them both.

The grandfather said, “See anything interesting?” 

At first, I thought he was talking to the grandson. Then I realized he was looking at me. 

I thought about whether I had seen anything this man might consider interesting. No barred owls. No majestic blue herons. No tiny salmon making their way through the creek toward the salt water Sound. (All very real possibilities, none of which I saw that day.)

I replied, “Nothing too dramatic.” 

Then, after a beat, I added, “Well, some birds…”—just as the man began to say, in an almost pointed tone, “Any pileated woodpeckers?”

I kid you not. 

My eyes grew a little wide, but I mostly played it cool. “Yes, actually!” I replied, while inside my brain screamed, What???

He said, “Ah I’ll keep my eyes open, then.” And we all moved along on our way—me, out of the preserve; he and his grandchild, further in.

I had been writing, that morning, about the sacred other. About how my view of strangers has changed over time, as my religious beliefs have changed. Reflecting on what it might look like to see each stranger we encounter as an embodiment of the divine. 

I thought about that, when this stranger on the trail asked about the pileated woodpecker. It might seem small, but it felt like a sacred moment to me. 

It was certainly a sacred moment on my first walk, when I got to see the stunningly gorgeous pileated woodpecker up close. And for a stranger to randomly bring that up? 

Sure, maybe he heard and recognized the woodpecker’s call as he was walking into the preserve. Maybe he had seen one there before, too. 

It was just such an unexpected thing to hear him say out loud—as the pileated woodpecker was very much on my mind, but very privately.

As I reflected last week, I did not need to tell this stranger about Jesus. I did not need to invite him to church. I did not even need to make friends with him. I might see him again on that trail; I might not. 

I can simply let the interaction be what it was: Brief, but striking. Friendly, but not intimate. Worth pondering. Holy. Sacred—like the pileated woodpecker himself.

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I wonder: Is there a story that comes to mind for you, when you think of strangers as the sacred other? A brief interaction with a stranger that sparked some sense of joy, grace, wonder, or other sorts of sacredness? Comments are open and I’d love to hear.

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If you need more…

• Yesterday, Feminism & Religion published some of my reflections on bell hooks as a theologian. In the comments, one person thanked me for keeping bell hooks’ work alive. I love that…I mean, if keeping bell hooks’ work alive is something I could contribute to in some small way, then all my writing is worthwhile, really…

• Earlier this month, Christians for Biblical Equality published a piece adapted from a part of Nice Churchy Patriarchy that was near and dear to my heart—but which I had to cut from the book, in order to keep the whole thing from spiraling into a 500 page monster. It’s about some of the complexities of my experience as a young woman in ministry at a church that wasn’t about that, and it’s about how gendered double standards often impact women’s experiences of seminary and church work. 

• Christian Feminism Today recently reviewed Nice Churchy Patriarchy, and the review contains delightful tidbits like “I feared that 336 pages on patriarchy in the church might get, well, boring. I was dead wrong.” So, whatever else Nice Churchy Patriarchy might be, rest assured that one reader considers it…not boring 🙂.