Life & Death & Life . . .
Last year we watched online the osprey cam at Boulder County Fairgrounds, Colorado, the osprey couple together for years, updating their nest. One at a time, eggs appeared, we watched as they hatched one by one, chicks were fed, grew, fledged; and at season’s end everyone flew away to winter in South or Central America. The parents return year after year.
https://www.bouldercounty.org/open-space/management/osprey-camera/
What with our nightmare of family and Hurricane Michael, I forgot about the ospreys until this past week, when an old Navy buddy put me back in touch with them (a wonderful change, relief, respite and escape from worries and concerns of life), the same parents (osprey mate for life, spend the season together then fly and live separately during their migration and winter south, but return to the same nest each year for mating and chick-raising). Having forgotten them, I missed the egg stage, but last week I watched three hatchlings, the father bringing trout from the adjacent creek, the mother tearing the fish bite by bite and feeding her babies.
Wednesday morning, though, as I watched the father fly up with a fish, and the mother rise from covering the chicks, two chicks stretched open-mouthed as the third one lay still, unmoving. Tuesday, I then found out, there had been rain and snow, and the little guy had gotten caught in the snow, chilled, and died.
Thursday morning I watched as the mother sat warming her chicks, the father arrived with a whole fish, and the mother began ripping at it and feeding the two, who are bigger day by day, almost growing as we watch from the osprey cam.
Thursday later, the mother bird pulled the dead chick away from the others, finally picked it up and flew away, in a while returning alone.
The camera is live, though missing that final action, I did not see it until a video someone posted, as the mother osprey took care of her dead chick. I thought about it as I did my sermon preparation for this morning, life and death and life in the osprey nest - - and in our faith life, Jesus saving a boy from death, Jesus healing the invalid at the pool by the Sheep Gate, Peter raising Dorcas from the dead, and the violence of life and death in Revelation. But these osprey: Jesus said (Matthew 6:26) God cares for every sparrow, does God really? I guess God does, cares for the sparrow, cares for every osprey, cares for you and me, cares for those we love, grieves with us when a loved one dies.
“All Dogs Go To Heaven” is about kindness, friendship, and love, and is it true? What about our (somewhat arrogant I think) faith conviction that of all animals, not even other primates but only we humans have souls, that ospreys and sparrows do not, nor pets we love and care for, dogs and cats, goldfish, canaries and snakes, huge spiders, rats, mice, the terrified mice we feed live to pet snakes (Kyrie eleison), crickets we feed to pet tarantulas.
All animals have Being, and consciousness, awareness or at least instinct. All animals, including us humans in our image of God, with self-awareness that scientists say we share with a few other primates, human consciousness of death, our grieving, and our hope for something beyond death that means, as our theology holds, that the Burial of the Dead is an Easter liturgy, that at death life is changed, not ended; that because Jesus was raised we also shall be raised. And our burial office prayer “Give courage and faith to those who are bereaved, that we may have strength to meet the days ahead in the comfort of a reasonable and holy hope, in the joyful expectation of eternal life with those we love”.
Watching death and its ritual or closure at the osprey nest brings all these thoughts to the surface as I watch the mother bird carry her dead chick away, and sense in her, caring that seems more than just instinct: does that osprey mother care lovingly? Does God care for life and death in the birds’ nest as we believe God cares for our own living and dying? And if we say “yes” or “no” as if we are Certain, do we fashion a God who suits our notion of God? As my seminary theology professor used to ask, "Who or what is God?", is God y’VAH, I AM, ehYEH ahSHERRR ehYEH, I AM that I AM, I WILL BE what I WILL BE as God told Moses at the Burning Bush? Or is God who and what we say and believe God is? Again, do we fashion God in our image (as an enraged Patmos John seems to do so furiously throughout Revelation), or are we created in God’s image (Genesis 1:26-27)? Not asking for answers (church doctrine is long settled), but contemplating our self-centered and self-certain human nature.
Recently in our Adult Sunday School class, I was asked what I believe happens to us when we die. Taken by surprise, I did not answer, and I apologize for my hesitation, but I’ll answer this morning: it’s a matter of Faith, where Faith is the opposite of Knowing, of Certainty - - and I am certain of nothing, especially, like my namesake Doubting Thomas, that which I have not seen for myself. Besides, Jesus said not even the Son, but only the Father knows the Hours and the Days and the Times (Mark 13:32)
Eight years ago, after dealing with it by myself secretly alone for three or four years, I had a cardiac event and local medical professionals diagnosed me inoperable with two to five months to live. Operated anyway, open heart surgery for aortic valve replacement, mitral valve repair, and several bypass grafts, changed all that, but with that first, grim prognosis, I thought, well, why not, why NOT me?! As a priest, I’ve been through this many times with many people, now it’s my turn, and it’ll be interesting, and I’m not afraid, so I’m going to enjoy it, quite the essence of human self-awareness, knowing, watching, observing, recording-by-journal my own dying.
The closest I came, I believe, was on the operating table at Cleveland Clinic, when at Stage 3 surgical anesthesia I descended into dreamless, timeless nonexistence, not sleep, not darkness, but The Absence that I think St Paul means when he says that when we die we sleep in Christ (1 Thess 4:14, 1 Cor 15:18) until the resurrection when the bugle sounds and Jesus returns to judge the living and the dead. St Paul does not Know, as he is writing on Faith, and we, the church, have taken up his faith as our own. To the question of what I believe happens to us, my answer is that I’m easy between the faith of Paul asleep in Jesus, and the faith Jesus on Cross shares with the man beside him on the next cross, promising him (Luke 23:43), “Today you will be with me in paradise.” It’s indefinite and uncertain, tension between Now and Whenever, because that’s what faith IS, Faith is not Certainty, but Hebrews 11:1 faith is confidence in what we hope for, assurance about what we do not see (NIV).
So, my answer to that Sunday School question is that I’m easy, it’ll be whatever God says. Eight years ago, I missed “Knowing” by a narrow window of Time, and I’m easy with Faith for now. Faith being Hope with room for Doubting Thomas to come to supper.
Finally, back to the osprey nest. The mother bird took her little one away to do whatever she did out of the public eye. Where in all of it was the Creator who loves every sparrow? It’s a matter of Faith, and, seeing, I believe God was there. But you Know as well as I do.
++++++++++++++++
Easter sermon by the Rev Tom Weller in Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Panama City, Florida on Sunday, Easter 6C, May 26, 2019. Various texts.
(nest platform and cameras right on St Vrain Creek tributary of the South Platte River)(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Saint_Vrain)
https://www.bouldercounty.org/open-space/management/osprey-camera/
What with our nightmare of family and Hurricane Michael, I forgot about the ospreys until this past week, when an old Navy buddy put me back in touch with them (a wonderful change, relief, respite and escape from worries and concerns of life), the same parents (osprey mate for life, spend the season together then fly and live separately during their migration and winter south, but return to the same nest each year for mating and chick-raising). Having forgotten them, I missed the egg stage, but last week I watched three hatchlings, the father bringing trout from the adjacent creek, the mother tearing the fish bite by bite and feeding her babies.
Wednesday morning, though, as I watched the father fly up with a fish, and the mother rise from covering the chicks, two chicks stretched open-mouthed as the third one lay still, unmoving. Tuesday, I then found out, there had been rain and snow, and the little guy had gotten caught in the snow, chilled, and died.
Thursday morning I watched as the mother sat warming her chicks, the father arrived with a whole fish, and the mother began ripping at it and feeding the two, who are bigger day by day, almost growing as we watch from the osprey cam.
Thursday later, the mother bird pulled the dead chick away from the others, finally picked it up and flew away, in a while returning alone.
The camera is live, though missing that final action, I did not see it until a video someone posted, as the mother osprey took care of her dead chick. I thought about it as I did my sermon preparation for this morning, life and death and life in the osprey nest - - and in our faith life, Jesus saving a boy from death, Jesus healing the invalid at the pool by the Sheep Gate, Peter raising Dorcas from the dead, and the violence of life and death in Revelation. But these osprey: Jesus said (Matthew 6:26) God cares for every sparrow, does God really? I guess God does, cares for the sparrow, cares for every osprey, cares for you and me, cares for those we love, grieves with us when a loved one dies.
“All Dogs Go To Heaven” is about kindness, friendship, and love, and is it true? What about our (somewhat arrogant I think) faith conviction that of all animals, not even other primates but only we humans have souls, that ospreys and sparrows do not, nor pets we love and care for, dogs and cats, goldfish, canaries and snakes, huge spiders, rats, mice, the terrified mice we feed live to pet snakes (Kyrie eleison), crickets we feed to pet tarantulas.
All animals have Being, and consciousness, awareness or at least instinct. All animals, including us humans in our image of God, with self-awareness that scientists say we share with a few other primates, human consciousness of death, our grieving, and our hope for something beyond death that means, as our theology holds, that the Burial of the Dead is an Easter liturgy, that at death life is changed, not ended; that because Jesus was raised we also shall be raised. And our burial office prayer “Give courage and faith to those who are bereaved, that we may have strength to meet the days ahead in the comfort of a reasonable and holy hope, in the joyful expectation of eternal life with those we love”.
Watching death and its ritual or closure at the osprey nest brings all these thoughts to the surface as I watch the mother bird carry her dead chick away, and sense in her, caring that seems more than just instinct: does that osprey mother care lovingly? Does God care for life and death in the birds’ nest as we believe God cares for our own living and dying? And if we say “yes” or “no” as if we are Certain, do we fashion a God who suits our notion of God? As my seminary theology professor used to ask, "Who or what is God?", is God y’VAH, I AM, ehYEH ahSHERRR ehYEH, I AM that I AM, I WILL BE what I WILL BE as God told Moses at the Burning Bush? Or is God who and what we say and believe God is? Again, do we fashion God in our image (as an enraged Patmos John seems to do so furiously throughout Revelation), or are we created in God’s image (Genesis 1:26-27)? Not asking for answers (church doctrine is long settled), but contemplating our self-centered and self-certain human nature.
Recently in our Adult Sunday School class, I was asked what I believe happens to us when we die. Taken by surprise, I did not answer, and I apologize for my hesitation, but I’ll answer this morning: it’s a matter of Faith, where Faith is the opposite of Knowing, of Certainty - - and I am certain of nothing, especially, like my namesake Doubting Thomas, that which I have not seen for myself. Besides, Jesus said not even the Son, but only the Father knows the Hours and the Days and the Times (Mark 13:32)
Eight years ago, after dealing with it by myself secretly alone for three or four years, I had a cardiac event and local medical professionals diagnosed me inoperable with two to five months to live. Operated anyway, open heart surgery for aortic valve replacement, mitral valve repair, and several bypass grafts, changed all that, but with that first, grim prognosis, I thought, well, why not, why NOT me?! As a priest, I’ve been through this many times with many people, now it’s my turn, and it’ll be interesting, and I’m not afraid, so I’m going to enjoy it, quite the essence of human self-awareness, knowing, watching, observing, recording-by-journal my own dying.
The closest I came, I believe, was on the operating table at Cleveland Clinic, when at Stage 3 surgical anesthesia I descended into dreamless, timeless nonexistence, not sleep, not darkness, but The Absence that I think St Paul means when he says that when we die we sleep in Christ (1 Thess 4:14, 1 Cor 15:18) until the resurrection when the bugle sounds and Jesus returns to judge the living and the dead. St Paul does not Know, as he is writing on Faith, and we, the church, have taken up his faith as our own. To the question of what I believe happens to us, my answer is that I’m easy between the faith of Paul asleep in Jesus, and the faith Jesus on Cross shares with the man beside him on the next cross, promising him (Luke 23:43), “Today you will be with me in paradise.” It’s indefinite and uncertain, tension between Now and Whenever, because that’s what faith IS, Faith is not Certainty, but Hebrews 11:1 faith is confidence in what we hope for, assurance about what we do not see (NIV).
So, my answer to that Sunday School question is that I’m easy, it’ll be whatever God says. Eight years ago, I missed “Knowing” by a narrow window of Time, and I’m easy with Faith for now. Faith being Hope with room for Doubting Thomas to come to supper.
Finally, back to the osprey nest. The mother bird took her little one away to do whatever she did out of the public eye. Where in all of it was the Creator who loves every sparrow? It’s a matter of Faith, and, seeing, I believe God was there. But you Know as well as I do.
++++++++++++++++
Easter sermon by the Rev Tom Weller in Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Panama City, Florida on Sunday, Easter 6C, May 26, 2019. Various texts.
(nest platform and cameras right on St Vrain Creek tributary of the South Platte River)(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fort_Saint_Vrain)
