Raven Power

Who provides for the raven its prey,
    when its young ones cry to God,
    and wander about for lack of food?

                         Job 38:41

When we visited Iceland a couple of years ago we visited a spot where glacial ice had flowed out to sea along a river then was pushed back onto the beach. Not only was the contrast with the black volcanic sand striking, I caught this raven in flight.

I am quite taken with crows, ravens, and other corvids including jays. They are smart, opportunistic, and can thrive just about anywhere on the planet. It appears that ravens have a sense of humour which you have to admire.



I enjoyed a recent CBC interview with the Raven Master of the Tower of London, Christopher Skaife, who seems delightfully raven-like himself. He reckons that he has the best job in the world, one which he alone can claim, apparently. He finds the birds fascinating and says that he learns from them, even as he provides care. Their presence is traditionally believed to protect the British Crown and the tower. The legend is that "if the Tower of London ravens are lost or fly away, the Crown will fall and Britain with it"

Of course there are ravens aplenty in the bible, at least in the Older Testament. The first bird mentioned by species in the bible is the raven of Noah's Ark and ravens feed the prophet Elijah in the wilderness. When God speaks to Job out of the whirlwind God reminds him in the form of a rhetorical question that God feeds all creatures, including the young ravens.

In Haida culture, the raven is the most powerful of mythical creatures and is the Trickster. Bill Reid's 1980 sculpture of The Raven and the First Men depicts the story of human creation. According to Haida legend, the Raven found himself alone one day on a Haida Gwaii beach (also known as the Queen Charlotte Islands). He saw an extraordinary clamshell and protruding from it were a number of small human beings. The Raven coaxed them to leave the shell to join him in his wonderful world. Some of the humans were hesitant at first, but they were overcome by curiosity and eventually emerged from the partly open giant clamshell to become the first Haida.

 

I figure that this is a time for the church of Christ to be raven-like in our playfulness and willing to explore new possibilities for the community of faith and all of Creation. It's the reason my personal letterhead has a raven in flight and the verse from Genesis which says  ^"and [God] sent out the raven; and it went to and fro until the waters were dried up from the earth." Even if we aren't the ones to experience the fullness of a new way of being, we can be "ravenous" in our commitment to God's intention.