Copy-cat

We have an Africa Grey Parrot. The newest addition to the Mozley menagerie. and when i call it a menagerie i am not even exaggerating. Not even a little. We have a ridiculous number of animals in our house. Anyways. This grey parrot was a very exciting addition. My mom and i have been wanting to get one since we moved here. However, the only person this parrot seems to tolerate is my dad. Go figure. Birds just tend to do that in our house. This parrot, whose name is Nooma(shout out to Rob Bell), likes to bite anyone else who comes near her. very anti-social. Its slightly annoying. Anyways, one of the cool things about grey parrots is that they can learn to talk. Or more accurately, to mimic whatever they hear around the house. Our bird has begun to test out this ability. So far she can mimic our puppy whining, luke's very loud scream (she can do this one perfectly. There have been a couple of times that ive gone into the living room to tell Luke to stop screaming and its the bird), the cat crying at the window, some form of hello, and the fart machine.

Yes i did just say that our parrot can mimic the fart machine. How sad is that? Maggie owns a machine that makes very convincing farting noises, activated by a remote control. We made the mistake (or maybe it was on purpose...) of putting this fart machine near the bird cage. And she is very talented at mimicry(?), what can i say. Thankfully (/dangit), shes only made the lovely noises a couple of times.

So the other day i was thinking about how accurately she mimics things. Which made me consider how amazing it is that she can fully sound like Luke screaming. To the extent that i mistake it for him. And then i thought about how much of the stuff i do is just an imitation of what ive seen other people do. Nooma doesnt really have her own noises. I mean a couple, but the older she gets, the more stuff she will simply mimic. And that made me wonder, how much of who i am and what i do is me, and how much is other people that i try to mimic? Do i do stuff because its who i am or because it looks or sounds like someone else? Or simply because i know that whatever that stuff is will allow me to be liked or admired? Thinking about this was a little dissapointing. Because I started to realize that a lot of the stuff i do, ive gotten from other people. And im not saying that all of it is bad. Im just saying that im not sure if its me, or a copy of someone else. And should that bother me? Probably, at least a little.

But then there's the other side. Is it possible that i could mimic my Jesus that convincingly? To the extent that Nooma mimics Luke for example. How cool would that be? Could i mimic His love, His patience, His ability to see people's hearts rather than their faces or attitudes, His grace, His beautiful way of hanging out with the hard, often fallen, 'fishermen' of a society and influencing them without being influenced and without seeming at all pushy or religious? Cause i want that. And all those things I said i want to mimic about Christ is all that im not. At least not in my heart.

So my grey parrot has made me seriously ponder myself. and how much im like her. hah. sorry reading over that last line was funny. So i think im ok with mimicry. As long as i mimic the right Person. But i have a feeling this process is going to take awhile. AnD it will probably be hard. But i think thats ok. Im gonna have some growing pains for awhile.
love