Tuesday, January 14, 2014
"The wings of the ostrich flap joyfully, but they
cannot compare with the pinions and feathers of the stork. She lays her eggs on
the ground and lets them warm in the sand, unmindful that a foot may crush
them, that some wild animal may trample them. She treats her young harshly,as
if they were not hers; she cares not that her labor was in vain, for God did
not endow her with wisdom or give her a share of good sense. Yet when she
spreads her feathers to run, she laughs at horse and rider." (Job
39:13-18)
I was going to try to explain the fuller story of the
ostrich, but I don't think I can get into it all now, as it is a very long and
convoluted tale. Let us just say, as far as I can tell in the context of the
Job quotation, the ostrich herself (and the other animals vividly described in
that chapter) is a symbol of the forces that resist human explanation. She is
not, after all, a very powerful or dangerous animal, she is just weird: look
how her knees actually bend the wrong way; she has no ears to speak of, just
holes in her head; she is an enormous flightless bird, when, to the ancient
mind in general, and reflected in the Hebrew dietary laws, all
"natural" things were supposed to have set "natures" that
could be discernible by human observation and categorization - and birds, by
definition, are feathered things that fly - and she has thereby defied human
attempts to define or comprehend her; if the Jobian author's story of her cruel
mothering is true (though I chose a picture that belies it), it is a "miracle"
she propagates her species at all - though how weird to speak of a
"miracle" to mean the continuation of a species characterized by
cruelty and senseless destruction.
But I have now taken the humble ostrich as my Spirit Animal,
my inspiration, to remind me that there is so much in the world that cannot be
understood or limited or tamed. That does not offer me complete immunity from
the natural human frustration when confronted with such things, but it does
begin to tilt my feelings more toward "wonder" and away from the more
negative aspects of frustration, rejection, or denial. I will keep trying.
Masken