How are you mockingbirding?

Courtesy: http://www.fotopedia.com/items/jeans

Mockingbirds have come up several times lately.

In Georgia, my niece, Katie, is being slowly driven crazy by a mockingbird who lives outside her bedroom window and who has–according to her–a six song cycle, one of which is a car alarm.

Then I came across this quote in the book Character:  Profiles in Presidential Courage by Chris Wallace:

A mockingbird imitates robins, jays, redbirds, crows, hawks–but he has no individual note of its own.  A lot of people like that.  ~Harry Truman~

He’s right, we are like mockingbirds.  But are we mockingbirding in a good way or are we like Katie’s mockingbird that is copying the sound of car alarms?

Proverbs one points out the way of the mocker:

 ²⁰ Out in the open wisdom calls aloud,
she raises her voice in the public square;
²¹ on top of the wall she cries out,
at the city gate she makes her speech:

²² “How long will you who are simple love your simple ways?
How long will mockers delight in mockery
and fools hate knowledge?

But we ARE called to imitate.  We’re called to imitate those around us who are good examples in Christ as Paul exhorts us in Phillipians 4:9:

Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.