By Ed Chinn

My wife loves birds. She has feeders all around our deck. So that area is often a blur of flapping wings and choir of bird chirps. What on earth would these creatures do without Joanne?
I recently found out. When she went out of town for a few days, something slowly dawned on me: I did not see or hear birds. My great detection powers soon revealed that the feeders were empty.
And then I noticed something even more significant. No dead birds.
Apparently, they found other sources of food. Maybe Jesus really meant what He said about His heavenly Father feeding the birds of the air (Matthew 6:26). Let's face it: the whole earth is a pantry for birds. Joanne is a miniscule part of that provision. She is not vital to their sustenance. The bird feeders are really for Joanne, not the birds.
In the same sense, most human agencies - governmental, private, religious - exist for themselves, not those they c ...