1KHO 841: Wise People Watch Birds | Kevin Burrell, Considering Sparrows

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Welcome to 1000 Hours Outside Podcast. My name is Ginny Yurich, I'm the founder of 1000 Hours Outside. And I have just read, I don't know if this is how you'd want me to describe it, but a delightful book, a delightful book called Considering Sparrows, What Birds Teach Us About Who We Are, Where We're Going, and The Joy of Following Jesus. And it's beautiful, first of all, it's just a beautiful book. And then with just really deep, interesting content, and the author Kevin Burrell is here. Welcome, Kevin.

**Kevin Burrell** (1:32)
Hey, thank you. Glad to be here.

**Ginny Yurich** (1:34)
So there was a couple of things about it that were kind of like threads of other experiences that I've had. So first of all, it opens with a liturgy from Douglas McKelvey.
And I was able to interview him earlier this year.

**Kevin Burrell** (1:51)
Good.

**Ginny Yurich** (1:52)
And that was the first time I'd ever seen any of his stuff.
All these liturgies for kind of everyday things. And one of the ones was for bird watching. So that was a cool thing. Then as I'm reading this book, I'm noticing all the illustrations. They're stunning. It's like black and white watercolor. That's what it looks like to me. I've never even seen that. And then I realized it's illustrated by Aiden Peterson, who's also been a guest on our show. So I've had a chance to talk with him. And then Will Parker Anderson is the editor.
Who I realized at the very end, who has also been a guest on our show. So there was all of these overlaps beyond the fact that I really enjoyed the book. So Kevin, huge congrats. I know this came out earlier this year. Can you give people a little bit of your background about how you got interested in bird watching to begin with? And then this book is about, I mean, I love it. How God has imbued, imbued all of these-

**Kevin Burrell** (2:49)
Good word.

**Ginny Yurich** (2:50)
All of, I never know if they're right. They come out and I'm like, I don't know if I've ever said that.
How there's all these spiritual lessons, all these things that we can learn can be inspired by through creation and this is a focus on birds. So when did the bird watching bird noticing part of your life begin?

**Kevin Burrell** (3:11)
Yeah, well, first of all, I'll say all those people that you mentioned at the front end, like they're the ones that made this book beautiful, right? I mean, just what a, what a team. When you write, it's a lonely thing. And then suddenly people are on board with you and suddenly you're working on something together and it's just, I'm so grateful for Aidan and Will and, and, you know, Douglas McKelvey gave us permission to use that at the beginning. And that probably gets at it, right? That like, McKelvey's whole concept there is about how every moment is holy and how we need to be looking for God in just the ordinary things of life. And so I would say bird watching for me, it was a college discovery for me. It was my senior year of college. And that doesn't mean I didn't notice birds as a kid, but I think I got, birders talk about the spark bird. It's that bird that you see and it just, you suddenly go, I want to be a bird watcher. Like this is amazing. And I was in Costa Rica, I was a biology major, so I was on a tropical biology study in the rainforest and this toucan flew over me and I could have stared at that thing all day.