Hawk under umbrella

I was in the kitchen when I heard a wild beating and clattering.  All I could see from the window was a confusion of feathers and very large wings under the patio bench.  Since the feathers appeared to belong to a hawk, I put on my raincoat and gloves (even though the temperature was hovering around 90 degrees), as I have a deep respect for the talons and beak of even an injured hawk.  Thus protected (probably inadequately), I went out and pulled one of the potted tomato plants away from the bench, hoping this would help the bird escape its confines, and then backed away.

Our good neighbors, working on the house across the street, saw the hubbub, and came over.  By this time the hawk was lying still and was panting open-beaked on the hot concrete.  She (at least we called it “she”) looked for all the world as if she were dying. One person suggested that we shade her with an umbrella, which we did.  And since she seemed unlikely to pose a threat at this point, I removed my raincoat and gloves in order to avoid my own heat stroke.

Meanwhile I had called Alachua County Animal Services, and before long a nice young man who knew much more about hawks than we did, arrived.  By this time, though, the hawk had begun to revive, and after a few minutes of sitting under the umbrella and then on the patio wall, gave a great cry and flew into one of our huge live oaks.  She rested there for a while, and eventually disappeared.

Second hawk
The second hawk arrived quietly (unlike the first one) four days later, early in the morning.  I tried to call Animal Services again, but it was Memorial Day, and the office was closed.

Juvenile hawk on patio wall

This time it was a juvenile.  She sat on the patio wall for a while and observed us.  She moved to the driveway, then to the bushes, and from there flew to the roof.  We were relieved that she had moved to a higher realm, because while the hawk was watching us, a large neighborhood cat was watching the hawk. (However, I do think the cat would have gotten an unpleasant surprise had he actually tried to grab this birdie.)

Anyhow, we were hoping the young hawk had flown home, but after lunch, there she was again, on the edge of the carport and later on the railing of the deck on the other side of the house.  In fact, she hung around most of the day.  We put water out for her on the railing, while she mildly kept an eye on us and on her surroundings, seemingly unafraid.

The next day she was gone.

Now let me tell you something strange. The first hawk – the injured one who eventually flew away – clattered onto the patio at a time when a friend had recently moved into hospice to die.  The second hawk – the young one who hung around all day – came without disturbance the day after our friend had peacefully died.

I don’t believe that the dead – or the dying – come to us literally in the form of animals. But this I do believe:

• That everyday life sometimes works in symbols, and that the symbols, if we are paying attention, can at times reveal to us a truth deeper than what our senses can perceive.
• That there is a mysterious communion among God’s holy creatures, living and dead, human or not.  (See “With a Little Help from My Friends” for a quote from Saint Ignatius of Loyola.  See also Romans 8:18-23 for an example of the relationship between humanity and the rest of creation.)

Were the hawks showing us something about our friend, first dying, then reborn in the peace of God?  Or were they just hawks who, without any significance, blundered into our yard? Who can say for sure?  What we can say is that these wild creatures brought consolation and delight in a time of sadness.

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Is it by your wisdom that the hawk soars,
and spreads its wings towards the south?
(From God’s words to Job, 39:26)

As they were growing this year, I noticed that one especially tall plant was leaning precariously toward the sidewalk. I knew I would have to stake it, if it were not to topple over onto the concrete. But I procrastinated, and as it grew and the buds got larger and heavier, I wondered why it was still upright. So one day I walked over to take a look.

What I saw was both simple and wonderful. The nearby cabbage palm had caught the lily in a loop of fiber and held it up – an almost invisible support. (When you see the pictures, you might think that I had tied a string to the lily, but it was all done without any human intervention.)

We have been witness lately, directly or indirectly, to enormous disruption and destruction: war, earthquakes, volcano, a cataclysmic oil spill. Is this disharmony within nature (including human nature) the ultimate reality, we may ask?

No. I am convinced that each small glimpse of beauty or harmony is a pledge of the beauty and harmony at the heart of all things.

“I get by with a little help from my friends,” sang the Beatles. And so do we all, whether we know it or not – even if we think we have no friends. This interdependence, which we human beings (or perhaps more to the point, we lift-yourself-up-by-your-own-bootstrap-Americans) tend to forget, is part of the loveliness of creation.

Saint Ignatius of Loyola might agree with the Beatles on this point: we do somehow make it through life with the help of both human and non-human friends. During the First Week of the Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius, there is an intense awareness of personal sinfulness and also an awareness of the blessed relationship between the sinner and the rest of creation:

Ignatius speaks of “a cry of wonder accompanied by surging emotion as I pass in review all creatures. How is it that they have permitted me to live, and have sustained me in life! Why have the angels, though they are the sword of God’s justice, tolerated me, guarded me, and prayed for me! Why have the saints interceded for me and asked favours for me! And the heavens, sun, moon, stars, and the elements; the fruits, birds, fishes and other animals–why have they all been at my service!

The spiritual exercises of St. Ignatius, trans. by Louis J. Puhl, S.J. (Chicago: Loyola, 1951) [60].

The deeper reality at the core of creation is not our sinfulness, nor the very real pain and disturbances that can shake us to the core, nor the sorrows that can weigh on us until we feel we must break apart – but the beauty and harmony of God, as experienced in the communion of God’s holy creatures.

We get by, in spite of everything, even in spite of death, by the grace of God – and like the lily, with a little help from our friends.

Am I no longer young, and still not half-perfect? Let me
keep my mind on what matters,
which is my work,

which is mostly standing still and learning to be
astonished.

Pensacola is yet another hurricane-ravaged city, still recovering from Ivan which hit in 2004. More than two years later, the devastation is still visible in some neighborhoods. Many trees are dead or nearly defoliated. The house Sister Rosalie and I stayed in was heavily damaged by the storm, but has been recently repaired. The two houses on either side of us there on the bay were virtually destroyed. One is being rebuilt from the ground up. The other is best described by the reaction of a deliveryman who came to our door and exclaimed,

“That house is nothing but garbage!”

This is true, the house is mostly rubble, flanked by huge piles of debris. The deliveryman was astonished, but not, I imagine, in the way Oliver intends in her poem — with rejoicing and gratitude.

What do we do with the sorrows and horrors of the world as we stand before the manger this Christmas season? Can we stand still and learn to be astonished? And what do we make of our astonishment when faced with storms, war, poverty, cruelty, disease, and death? Or is it possible that we are no longer capable of astonishment, either at suffering or at the numinous, when the song of the angels is so regularly drowned out by news reports of violence and corruption or by bombardments of the terminally trivial?

It is tempting to forget that the cross is always implicit in the nativity scene. The gifts of the Magi, for example, are more than a welcome source of revenue for a young couple with a baby. Gold was the kingly gift; frankincense an offering for God; and myrrh… ah, there’s the rub. Myrrh was used for embalming. This kingly, godly child was going to die — like every child born into the world, but with a difference. His death would be an execution, premature, shameful, and expressing the love of God who emptied himself for us.

Nevertheless, if the cross seems to hang over the manger, as it does in this woodcut of the Nativity by Durer, so does the promise of the Resurrection. Since we know the rest of the story, we also know that Jesus was raised from the dead and brings us into his own divine life.

Our work, like the work of the poet, like the work of Jesus Christ, is “loving the world” (see John 3:16). So this Christmas season, fidgety and distracted though I am, I try to stand still before the mystery of the Incarnation and let myself be astonished:

astonished at the mercy shown me in God become flesh; and astonished at the mercy I am called to show others;

astonished at the presence of God — Emmanuel, “God-with-us” — in the most ordinary parts of life: “The phoebe, the delphinium / The sheep in the pasture, and the pasture” (Oliver, “Messenger”) — and in the birth of a baby in the midst of the pain and rubble of human existence;

astonished at all I don’t understand about life, human or divine (or human and divine);

astonished at my own powerlessness; and astonished to hear God say, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9);

astonished at the evil that seems to triumph in our world; and astonished that despite all appearances to the contrary, goodness is victorious.

_____

*”Messenger,” from Thirst (Beacon Press, 2006)

A favorite activity was looking at mail-order catalogs. Even an ordinary catalog was filled with marvels. I can still hear Juanito’s voice, filled with wonder, exclaiming: “¡Mira, Rosa, Mira!” (Look, Rose, look!) And I was led to see for a moment with his child’s eyes.

The Wise Men must have had something of a child’s eyes to be able to see the remarkable in the commonplace. After all, babies are born every day, and this particular birth was not outwardly extraordinary. The family was not prominent; the surroundings were poor. To exclaim, “¡Mira!” and fall down in wonder before such an unexceptional scene: this required eyes open to what was not readily visible. Yet it was at this ordinary scene of a family with a newborn that they knelt, then presented their royal gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

Today the Risen Christ is always with us. The goodness of God is all around us and within us. Not only does every newborn share in the glory of Christ, but also the struggling teenager and the elderly person approaching death. Each star, each sunrise, the people we meet, our meals, our computers — before all of these do we not hear the voice of the Spirit whispering, “¡Mira! Look!” and calling us to gaze in wonder?

Wonderful God,
grant me the eyes to look with wonder on your world
and to see myself and all creation
with the heart of Christ.

In the time of King Herod, after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea, wise men from the East came to Jerusalem, asking, ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews? For we observed his star at its rising, and have come to pay him homage.’
(Matthew 2:1-2)