Some birds blend into the background. Sparrows. Wrens. Female cardinals.

But some always startle. Goldfinches. Indigo buntings. Baltimore Orioles. Male cardinals.

And bluebirds.

Driving through the midsummer Midwest countryside, a flash of that distinctive Microsoft blue flitted at the side of the road. In the ditch.

“What is the bluebird of happiness doing in a ditch?” I asked before I thought about the implications.

That’s where some people’s bluebirds of happiness hover.

My empathy quotient spiked. People all around me are trying to make it through life with their happiness factor flopping around in the weeds along the edge of the road.

That’s not where bluebirds are supposed to linger. They’re not ground-dwellers. And neither are we. We were created to soar.

For writers: No matter what genre you write, does it offer hope? Even if it explores the litter along the side of the road, is there a flash of hope?

For readers: I wonder if God would want to rewrite the “pursuit of happiness” portion of our country’s early documents. What if it read, “and the pursuit of holiness coupled with the pursuit of the happiness of others”? Now, wouldn’t that be an interesting quest? And wouldn’t that make it more likely we could stay airborne?