Quoth the Raven

“Quork!”

This pronouncement startled me on my walk to work. A raven, thirty feet above, flew across my path. I watched as the raven tucked in its wings, shoulder blades triangular like those of a bat hanging from a cave, and did a barrel roll once over. In no time the raven passed over the road, a field, and finally out of sight.

I was quite pleased because, of course, I thought the raven did its little barnstorming maneuver just for me. Certainly there must be some lucky omen in it all. Maybe I had experienced a sign that I finally belonged. I had only three weeks before I would begin to teach at Deer Park High School, just north of Spokane, Washington.

On reflection, I cannot but laugh at my vanity. I also cannot but wonder about how my perception of God’s plan for myself and for this raven has dramatically changed over time.

I become downright disoriented when I think about how the sun once revolved about the earth, and we were given dominion over the animals. Then, Copernicus and Galileo shifted our perspective, putting us not only into orbit, but a spinning orbit to boot. Today, the physics of our cosmic dynamism can only be perceived and calculated by apparatus. When I try to grasp light years, neutrinos, and black holes, I need to reach for something to quiet my motion sickness.

Yet I have faith that everything is a part of God’s plan and, try as I might to perceive quantum mechanics, God’s plan is even more interesting and beautiful than anything people like me will ever imagine.

If I return to my vanity, I may not achieve God’s understanding of the universe – I think Babel sheds some insight on such a project – but I might receive a different, if not better understanding of my barrel-rolling friend. Bernd Heinrich, raven scientist extraordinaire, tells the story in Mind of the Raven about a raven who called, alerting a woman to the presence of a stalking cougar. Like me, the woman thought the raven was speaking to her. Heinrich points out that, more likely, the raven was trying to lead the cougar to an easy kill from which the raven could benefit.

From Heinrich’s perspective-shifting insight, I wonder about the stories of St. Francis preaching to the animals. I’ve always been drawn to Francis, as much by his almost heretical teachings as his selfless modeling of Christ’s example for the Middle Ages. Old school Christianity might preach that St. Francis was so inclusive that he wanted to extend Christ’s grace beyond the vanity of just you and me. Maybe so, but I also think Francis was interested in modeling again and again Christ’s example. If Christ preached to lepers and children, Francis could preach to the animals. I am in awe of his total devotion to “the first will be last and the last first” dictum (Matthew 19:30). Though it is not a part of Francis’ story, I imagine him washing sparrow talons.

So, how should this raven and I relate? Maybe, through a new relationship, a new wrinkle in God’s plan?

In this spirit I might be so faithfully vain as to translate “Quork” into “semper reformanda” – the “always reforming,” the engine of change, the cauldron of Christian Reformation. Such a translation is as full of fun as my feathered friend’s barrel roll. I have faith that God’s plan is full of barrel rolls, too.