As a longtime bird owner and breeder, I can’t resist commenting on Mark Leviton’s interview with Jennifer Ackerman [“Bird’s-Eye View,” May 2025]. Her observations of birds’ keen intelligence, personality, and spirit are spot-on. I’d like to share my own observation of birds’ profound grief.
Years ago I acquired an African Grey Parrot who’d been raised almost as a child, going everywhere with her human “parents”: camping, shopping, even to Dad’s workplace. Then her mom had a baby—competition the parrot would not tolerate. Fearing for their infant’s safety, they brought the bird to me.
Separated from her family, the parrot became bereft, huddled in place for weeks and not interacting with anyone, human or bird. After I’d leave her room, I’d hear her launch into a conversation between her former mom and dad. I heard their voices, distinctly male and female, and understood every word. It was a long conversation. If I reentered the room, the parrot instantly fell silent.
I’m grateful Greys live long lives, because it took this girl about a year to open up and be the wonderful bird she truly is.
Mark Leviton’s interview with Jennifer Ackerman was upbeat and energetic, and I’m grateful for her extensive knowledge.
Ackerman says, “A lot of behaviors in birds are in fact similar to human behaviors,” but I think that concept is backward: We need to question how our behavior is similar to that of animals. After all, animals preceded humans by hundreds of millions of years, and we evolved from them. We are just doing what they’ve been doing all this time: adapting to the environment for our survival.
I loved every moment of Hannah Gersen’s “Missing” [May 2025], in which she describes working for the New York City Parks Department in the aftermath of 9/11 while grieving her mother’s death from cancer three months earlier. Perhaps the essay resonated because I spent a good deal of my early childhood in Central Park, and because my mother died recently. Mostly, though, I appreciated how Gersen captured the decency, humanity, and backstories we all carry.
Reading the first sentence of Hannah Gersen’s “Missing,” I thought, Oh no, another 9/11 essay. And it was. But by the end I was moved by the so-called shrines and conflicted about how best to handle them. Her closing paragraph stopped me. Life is so short.
Later I finished reading Sunbeams and admired Heidi Hart’s photo on the inside back cover. I thought, What luck to snap this photo of birds alighting on a statue. Then I looked again—this was not a statue. The look of ecstasy on the person’s face arrested me. There is bliss to be had in the brief moments of our short lives.
I’ve read The Sun for years, but never before has a piece spoken to me like Heather E. Goodman’s essay “Glimpses” [May 2025]. Her family is similar to mine: I had parents who were tied to the natural world, and our conversations about the weather and birds and other forms of wildlife were often stand-ins for saying how we felt about each other. The Pennsylvania Dutch culture in which I was raised frowned upon boasting or talking about oneself, but speaking extravagantly about nature was a different matter.
The day after my father died at the age of ninety-seven, I was in the woods near my house when I heard an owl hoot overhead. Although I didn’t see it, I was comforted by its nearness; owls were my father’s favorite bird. At that moment the lingering hurts and misunderstandings from my relationship with him fell away.
After reading just the first few entries of the Readers Write on “All Night” [May 2025], I found myself in tears. The beauty and wonder of people’s stories make me believe that most, if not all, of us have the ability to pour out our hearts on paper.
I made a New Year’s resolution to submit a piece of writing to Readers Write each month. I was about to skip the next one, thinking my story too mundane, but now I’m inspired to keep my resolution. Maybe, with the right words, I might touch someone, somewhere, just as these pieces touched me.
Finn Cohen’s interview with Randall Sullivan [“Reason to Believe,” April 2025] called to mind when I used to work for my cousin. We got along, but one day after work I was talking to a friend with whom I’d just been on a kind of spiritual retreat, and our conversation naturally turned to God—a central part of our practice. I used the word God maybe twenty-five times. Unbeknownst to me, my cousin Joel was on the other side of the office divider, and that word drives him crazy.
After I hung up, Joel said, “God, God, God! Do you really believe in God?”
I said no.
Joel smiled as if to say he knew I’d been faking all along.
After a moment I added, “I know God.”
Joel asked what I meant. I asked him what two and two makes. He said four. Then I asked, “Do you believe that, or do you know it?”
“I know it,” he said.
“Well, I know God.”
I appreciate why people are atheists or agnostics: We need facts or experiences on which to base our understanding and beliefs, and these people simply haven’t seen proof. I, on the other hand, have seen much.
I was perusing magazines at a bookstore in Durham, North Carolina, when I picked up yours. Though I live a mere thirty-five minutes from your offices, I’d never heard of The Sun. (This remains yet another great reason to walk the aisles of bookstores and pick up physical copies of things.) I purchased a copy and went home to the comfort of my living room.
Finn Cohen’s interview with Randall Sullivan struck both chords and nerves. Like Sullivan, I, too, spent time in Bosnia. I was no journalist. I was a soldier. It was not a happy time or a happy place for me. I won’t labor your spirit with the details.
Unlike Sullivan, I was not moved to faith by my experience there. I saw evil up close, and I saw it manifest in people. It seemed so thick in the air that one might be tempted to hold one’s breath, even till death.
What did capture me was the tenderness and bravery of people in the middle of it all. We stood guard over a group of Easter celebrants once, and, even though they knew it made them vulnerable to attack, they couldn’t restrain themselves from celebrating the Resurrection. I remember thinking, If I ever have their faith, it will not live in the shadows.
I’ve read the interview three times. Thoughts and emotions abound. For now, let me just say thank you. I wish you grace and peace from God the Father and Jesus the Son.
I volunteer as a writing coach for a group that meets at Backstreet Community Arts in Georgia, whose mission is to provide anyone who walks through the door materials and space to make art. Most who come have been sent there by drug court, family court, the VA, et cetera, to work out their community service through self-expression.
Whenever I finish an issue of The Sun, I take it to Backstreet. When newcomers are unsure what they want to write, I advise them to browse an issue, particularly Readers Write, and to write on the topics they find. They’re not there to craft some perfect thing, I say—just to start putting pen to paper. I give them a notebook, set a timer, and let them go. Once the timer goes off, they already have ideas about what they want to say.
The Sun is an amazing resource for people who are trying to find a way to express themselves—and to change their lives.
