Birders Are Not Murderers (An Open Letter to Siri)

A knife and an ankle monitor. You do not want to mess with this crow.

Dear Siri,

Birders are not murderers.

For starters, I’d like to reference a conversation we had last summer, when I pulled you up on my phone and dictated the following e-mail, which I asked you to transcribe. By way of context, you may remember that my family was prepping for a vacation to Montana, and I was reaching out to a freelance bird guide whom several reliable sources had recommended. The resulting e-mail read as follows:

“We’re looking forward to our trip to Glacier, and we were hoping to hire your services for a day while we’re there. I’m mostly an East Coast murderer, and so the West will be entirely new territory for me. Please let me know your availability.”

I didn’t hear back.

I think that’s on you.

As you have no doubt gleaned from our conversations, I often talk about birding. And you often get it wrong. Sometimes I catch it before I hit send… but sometimes I don’t. You may recall such memorable moments as the following texts:

“Hey honey, running late. Got caught up talking with some murderers on the trail.”

“I’m glad your son is showing interest; we’ll make a murderer out of him yet.”

“I spent most of the morning in the marsh with a group of really knowledgeable murderers.”

You know, it’s bad enough that we birders wander around in neighborhoods with binoculars around our necks. It has a suspicious vibe to it. So we don’t need additional reasons to get featured by concerned citizens on NextDoor.

And Siri, I really feel as though I’m enunciating properly. Why do you insist on believing the worst about me?[1]

“I guess I’ve been a murderer since my early 20’s.”

“I’m not an expert; I consider myself more of a hobbyist murderer.”

I mean, c’mon. You’re even adding an extra syllable; isn’t that a stretch? You can do better. You ace words like knowledgeable and hobbyist. I just dictated antidisestablishmentarianism and you nailed it (not that I use that word very often; I was just testing you). I’ve tried slowing down, exaggerating a hard B sound. Do you hear that hard B sound? As I sit here on my laptop, let me double-tap the function key and we can try this again:

Murder. No, I said murder. No! Murder. All caps MURDER.

A Grey Butcherbird. Fitting name for this post. ©2024 Bruce Ward-Smith, Macauley Lab.

At least you dropped the extra syllable. Thanks for that. But clearly you’re hard-wired for anticipating criminal activity. I have to wonder why your cyber-mind would extrapolate the worst. I remember when you first released in 2011 for the iPhone 4S, and programmers had added some humorous Easter eggs to the command list, like “Open the pod bay doors” and “Who let the dogs out?” One of them, I recall (and I’m sure it seemed funny at the time), was “Where can I hide a body?” You answered by pulling up the Maps app, with the actual locations of local swamps, reservoirs, and metal foundries. Remember that? Sure, very funny, until 2012, when an actual murderer used your advice to cover an actual murder. Apple dropped that feature like a hot potato.

So, are you still working through your guilt? Is that what’s going on?

It occurs to me, Siri, that perhaps you’re taking a theological approach to this. Is that it? You’re well aware, I know, of Jesus’ teaching in the Sermon on the Mount:

“You have heard that it was said to the people long ago, ‘You shall not murder, and anyone who murders will be subject to judgment.’ But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment. Again, anyone who says to a brother or sister, ‘Raca,’ is answerable to the court. And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.” (Matthew 5:21-22)

Southern Cassowary. Super-creepy murder bird. David Hollie ©2016, Macauley Lab.

Jesus is drilling down to the heart motivations of us humans, recognizing that our sin goes well beyond simple checkbox obedience to the Ten Commandments. Each command is the tip of an iceberg, with a whole lot of underlying ramifications underneath. It’s not enough for us to smugly assume we’re keeping God’s law just because we can say, “Well, I haven’t killed anyone today.” The sixth command, “Thou shalt not kill,” reveals God’s character, because God is life, and so his commandment is a call to promote the flourishing of life in this world, including things like “readiness to be reconciled, patient bearing and forgiving of injuries, and requiting good for evil,” with a taboo on all things that work against that flourishing, such as “provoking words, oppression, quarreling, striking, wounding, and whatsoever else tends to the destruction of the life of any.”[2] You’ve interacted with us humans enough to know that we fail pretty miserably on this stuff in a thousand different ways. I’m sorry, for instance, for the angsty stuff we ask you to transcribe onto our social media threads. It’s toxic. It kills.

Jesus wanted us to understand how far short we fall of the true meaning of the law. That shows us our need, and that should lead us to trust in him as the one who perfectly kept the law on our behalf. It gives us a hope that isn’t grounded in our obedience, but in his. It’s fair to say that if you count just Moses, David, and Paul, there are at least nineteen books of the Bible that were written by actual murderers. That’s crazy. But then again, grace is crazy.

So maybe I am a murderer, Siri. Not in the legal sense, mind you, but in the ways my actions produce a failure to thrive in the lives of others. Here’s a favorite lyric of mine. Hey Siri, play “Tension is a Passing Note” by Sixpence None the Richer. In the first line, the singer asks her spouse, “Do I murder when I forget you from afar?” Murder can be an omission as much as a commission.

So maybe you’re onto something, Siri. It doesn’t hurt to be reminded every now and then that I need Jesus for all the ways I fail to prosper others.

Nonetheless, I’d appreciate it if you’d stop calling me a murderer.

“Great, let’s do some burning at the park this weekend.”

Oh, and about that. Arson is also not OK.

[1] I’m not alone. A few months back, I received an e-mail from author Tim Challies, recommending a fellow author who might want to endorse my book, since “he is an avid murderer.” (Tim caught the error, but thought it was funny enough to keep in the e-mail anyway).

[2] I’m quoting from the Westminster Larger Catechism, Questions 135 and 136.