At a dinner table conversation with my father, he tells me how he’s recently started feeding a lot of birds back home. Half listening to him go on about how the Hadeeth mentions that birds can earn you a lot of grace, bless their helpless little hearts, I think of how poetic it is that his love for animals finds religious sanction so he can now serve them joyfully, without it being a necessity of his profession (he's a vet), or an attack on his masculinity.