In my 26 years as a pastor, I've had these special experiences with people, through the ups and downs of life. These moments are out of the ordinary and therefore long remembered. I'm very grateful to be able to share intense experiences with people. I bring my empathy and my love of people to this. I remember one very unusual experience in particular.
A few years ago, I was a pastor in a church on the outskirts of Lübeck. One of my daily priorities in the church's life was working with older people. So, one spring day, I was leading a senior citizens' afternoon at the church hall. For that afternoon, I had prepared a guessing game: I owned several records with professional recordings of bird songs. From these records, I had selected a selection of the songs and calls of well-known and lesser-known birds from our gardens and forests. I had deliberately kept some of the bird songs very simple so that everyone in the group could experience a sense of achievement. Of course, pretty much everyone recognizes a cuckoo or an eagle owl. Among the bird songs I selected was the melodious song of the nightingale. After I had finally answered all the bird songs in this bird song quiz, one participant said with some sadness that she had never heard a nightingale in real life in her almost 80 years of life. Then I told her that there were indeed nightingales in our neighborhood, but they really preferred to sing in the middle of the night. This conversation spontaneously led to a wonderfully crazy arrangement with the old lady: If the nightingale sang at night again this spring, I would call her, pick her up from my home by car, and then we would both drive to the right place to listen to her singing. On a mild and completely windless spring night in May, the moment finally arrived. Late one evening, I first made sure that nightingales could indeed be heard in our neighborhood. Shortly before midnight, I called the old lady: "It's time! Can I pick you up in my car?" A little later, the old lady was sitting in the passenger seat with me. We quietly went to a children's playground surrounded by hedges and, at a distance, by trees. There, we sat on a bench where parents sit during the day to watch their children play.
Now the two of us sat here alone on a warm May night in the dead of darkness. There were no distracting everyday sounds around us. In the trees all around us, four nightingales were actually singing, competing to win the most! Listening to the birdsong was a very special experience for both of us, a truly magical moment! The woman was truly touched. I was touched too, because I had been able to help this woman from my community have a truly unique experience of nature. We listened to the melodies of the feathered singing acrobats for a good half hour. Then I took the old lady back to her apartment. This special "night shift" created a special bond between the old lady and me for years to come.
Sitting with an elderly woman in a children's playground in the middle of the night to listen to nightingales—that was truly wonderfully crazy. Sharing such an experience with someone requires openness to another person's wishes and desires and the willingness to engage with them. In this case, it meant getting going at an unusual hour for me.
