We were driving west on Highway 16 from Custer to Newcastle, Wyoming, when Pam and I spotted this magnificent bird along the road. It was feeding on a deer carcass, and as we approached, it sprang into the air and soared off to the south alighting on the branch of a ponderosa pine. It watched us. It waited for us to pass. Yes, it was a golden eagle with a wing span of at least six feet.

The next day, we were surprised and disappointed to see on the front page of our local Custer Chronicle paper a photo of a golden eagle that was found in a ditch along Highway 16 with a bleeding head and broken wing. It had apparently been hit by a passing vehicle. Then we realized, it was the same golden eagle we had seen, because they found it in exactly the same spot.

In Jesus' parable, it is a man tha…