Rose-breasted Grosbeak

Collisions with the glass ceiling of progress

For a moment I felt like I couldn’t breathe. A dear friend of mine had forwarded me a news article. Its title made a claim that was simply too gruesome to be true. Too morbid.

“Nearly 1,000 Birds Die After Striking Chicago Building”

I was vaguely aware of the fact that flying into a window is a common cause of death for unlucky city birds. But a thousand of them? I couldn’t imagine that the windows of just one building in Chicago could be the cause of such a massacre. I imagined a local collective of environmental activists must have kept a logbook over the years of the dead birds they found underneath the building’s shiny windows. The idea of a group of people undertaking all that effort to testify against this injustice brought some light to an otherwise overwhelmingly dark picture. Like a firefly attracted to that shimmering of light, I read on.

“At least 961 birds died in one night in Chicago after crashing into the windows of the McCormick Place Lakeside Center during the height of the fall migration.”

In one night. In one bloody night one thousand birds had assumed that the fall foliage that was so beautifully reflected in the windows of the McCormick Place Lakeside Center was a safe passageway. Unaware of the devilish trickery at play, they flew right towards their own death. Overcome by anguish I fall down the rabbit hole of window collisions and find that, in the United States alone, an estimated 988 million birds die every year by flying into a window. Thinking they fly into a safe haven of illusionary foliage or open sky, they meet their sudden end. I read it all, and I can’t help but wonder: how many birds have I killed?

In Surah An-Nahl, The Bee, the 16th chapter of the Qur’an, God proclaims “And God has given you your houses as places of rest” (Qur’an 16:80). The word used for ‘rest’ in this verse is sakanan which has the same root as sakinah. Sakinah is a word many Muslims will know as referring to a divine sense of tranquility, serenity, and peacefulness. The Qur’an explicitly mentions that this sense of tranquility can be found in a loving marriage (Qur’an 30:21), and under the cover of the night (e.g. Qur’an 6:96). In my view, it would be lazy to assume that this refers simply to a state of rest, comfort, or sleep. After all, marriage is hard work and the night comes with many trials and tribulations.

The Qur’an teaches us that sakinah is found in our hearts and is intimately connected with iman, faith (Qur’an 48:4). Beyond rest of the body then, sakinah is rest of the heart; peace of the soul. But how can our hearts rest and our souls be at peace when our homes are a source of death? Romans were the first to incorporate small glass windows into their homes, in order to let natural daylight in and keep unwanted visitors out. Historically, windows have been small, because glass is a great conductor of heat and cold, and too much of it would leave homes either too hot or too cold depending on the natural environment and season. The invention of insulated glass in the 1930s changed that, and drastically changed the course of modern architecture. Add to that the invention of contemporary air-conditioning and heating and voilà: skyscrapers of glass arose all around the world. But as we were busy raising up tall pillars of shiny glass, we failed to notice the birds falling down.

In the same verse of Surah An-Nahl connections are made between our dwellings and the natural environment: the hides of animals give us tents; their wool, fur, and hair give us furnishings and goods; the mountains give us shelter, and clothes made from natural fibers and fabrics cover and protect us (Qur’an 16:80-81). It is much easier to recognize our interconnectedness with nature when cooking on a campfire than when pressing a button on a microwave. Both of them, however, ultimately go back to the natural resources of creation. For ultimately, the Qur’an reminds us, we are nature. In fact, the Qur’an does not even speak of ‘nature’ or ‘culture’. It simply speaks of creation. This is contrary to how many of us think about our homes and the natural environment: as polar opposites; ‘inside’ and ‘outside’, ‘us’ and ‘them’, ‘clean’ and ‘dirty’.

Turning back to the massacre in Chicago, many of the birds that flew to death that October night were Warblers: small songbirds with beautiful yellow accents in their feathers. These songbirds have now gone silent - is that our meaning of sakinah? Amongst the victims were also some Rose-breasted Grosbeaks: beautiful birds of black and white with a majestic red chest and a song of rich, whistled phrases. “You pick up a Rose-breasted Grosbeak and realize, if it hadn’t been for a building in Chicago, it would be spending its winter in the foothills of the Andes,” said David Willard, one of the people who was involved in the counting of the deceased birds, in an interview with Audubon.

David Willard and a handful of other Field Museum staff members patrol McCormick Place every morning during bird migration season to take note of the number of birds whose autopsy reports state ‘death by window’. There’s my light in the dark. I read more about David Willard’s work and programs by Audubon for Bird-friendly Buildings and their Lights Out campaign. Turns out that even for buildings with massive windows, such as McCormick Place, simply turning off the lights at night could reduce the number of bird deaths by fifty percent. Homeowners and renters can also make a significant contribution to preventing bird collisions by making their windows bird-safe. This includes limiting artificial light at night or closing the curtains and blinds, creating patterns on reflective glass surfaces, moving interior plants away from windows, and placing bird feeders with suction cups on the window surface (I highly recommend! Lots of fun!).

“But what about my beautiful big windows? This will ruin my view!” a voice proclaims in protest. Ask yourself: is it your windows that give you sakinah? Or do you like them because you enjoy looking at ‘nature’ that is ‘outside’? You don’t need big glamorous windows to be connected with nature - you are. So protect it. Protect yourself.

Death is a part of creation that we cannot erase. But unnecessary death does not bring peace to any soul. Maybe if we remember the value of every part of creation, and our ethics inform our esthetics, we will see what truly makes buildings and dwellings beautiful. Maybe then we will realize that we have reached the glass ceiling of what we can call ‘progress’. And there’s no breaking through this one - just birds colliding with it. Maybe then we will take a step back to truly progress. Maybe then our homes will be a true source of sakinah.