On paying attention, and the bird God feeds anyway.
September 15, 2026
by Richard Yung Chung
So … the other day I was in the mall where I usually go for my afternoon coffee and writing session, and I saw a crow flying around over the food court where I was sitting.
Nobody noticed it. It was flying up high, over the food court, away from where people were sitting and having their meals.
And I probably wouldn’t have noticed it either, if I hadn’t been listening to a podcast and letting my eyes wander around, up and down; like when you’re listening to something serious, and you let your eyes stray, not focusing on any one thing or direction.
When I write, I put in earbuds and play background music, and I am totally focused on writing and not paying attention to anything going on around me. I can tune out everything. Every movement, every noise. Stealth mode. Tunnel vision. I can stay like that for about three hours at a stretch, every time.
But this time I let my eyes roam without any particular focus. And out of my peripheral vision, I spotted a crow flying over the food court ceiling. Side to side. Landing at one place and then another. I was quite surprised to see it. And looked at other people, but nobody seemed to notice. Or bothered by it.
And I am wondering … did people know there is a crow, flying above us, in the mall? If they did, why didn’t they look up; like I do? Maybe they are so busy eating and chatting that they didn’t notice or surprised by this lost bird above, high up in the ceiling of the food court.
So this crow is flying here and there, landing here and there, without any particular landing spot, but mostly trying to get out.
It kept flying toward the glass panel, seeing it was glass, stopping just an inch from it, and landing near the glass. And it kept repeating the same routine.
It looks aimless. But it is trying to get away from this strange environment.
I have no idea how it got inside the mall. Through the main entrance? There are no open windows in the mall, that I know of, where it or any other bird or insect could fly in. Unless it came through a cracked door? I did find that one of the main entrance doors was ajar for a while.
After a few hours, I found it sitting right in front of the glass, looking outside, wanting to get out and having no idea how.
Before I left, I told a mall cleaner about the crow.
I don’t know what happened to that crow. Whether it got away and if it did, how. Did some animal control person come and capture it and release it? That would have been a very interesting rescue mission. Did they use a net, or a tranquilizer? Without injuring it?
Or did it get away by itself?
Not sure. But the next day when I went, I didn’t see the crow. So, I figured it got out.
Well — since we’re on the subject of crows.
Elijah was alone and hungry in a cave, and God provided him with food via raven like a modern Uber food delivery.
Crow (raven) was the one got released from Noah’s Arc when the floodwater receded, and it never came back.
Crow (raven) is a scavenger. An unclean bird in the Bible, but the First Nations people revered it as a sacred bird.
And Jesus said … Consider the ravens: they have no storehouse, no barn, and God feeds them.
There was one doing it in a shopping mall, over everybody’s heads, and nobody looked up.
Richard
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Prior Newsletters from Slow Wisdom :
If It Makes You Taller … September 8th
The Look On My Daughters Face … September 1st
You and Your Tongue … August 25th
The Secret To My Vegetables … August 18th
Me and My Rabbits … August 11th
The City That Forgot Me … August 4th
The Day Jesus Was Rude … July 28th
My Fifty Dollar Titanic … July 21st
I Shouted At The Prime Minister … July 15th
I Told My Church I Ate Grasshoppers … July 7th
Thankful For The Hospital Food … July 1st
My Goal Was To Finish and Not Die … June 24th
The Wedding Afro … June 17th