I was driving home after a day of clearing the balsams ever farther away from buildings. You know the practice. We call it “fire-wise” now. And with the recent fires sparked by lightning in many places, we know it is prudent. I rounded a bend in the road calmly enjoying the colors in the leaves and needed to slam on the brakes. There was a mother on the road, and I had to stop.
She stood in the middle of the gravel and refused to let me pass. Behind her was her youngster. The way she stood she commanded my attention. I could tell she was endowed by her Creator with a passion for her children and courage beyond measure. She didn’t even flinch when she saw my van and heard the tires crunch on the gravel. Out of respect I stopped the car nodded an acknowledgment to her and we stared at each other awhile through the windshield. I wanted to get a closer appraisal of this amazingly brave mother so I got out of the car and walked toward her. She straightened up to her full height, seven, maybe eight inches tall and still showed no fear.
And I could see she wasn’t the ruffed grouse I had thought, she was a spruce hen. And then I heard the rustling in the underbrush on both sides of the road (an undisclosed road – I’m not sharing this information) and I could see three other younger spruce hens slowly moving through the needles and leaves. It was one week before the season yet, so she and her off-spring were safe from me, and I happily congratulated her on her courage nonetheless. I am impressed each year when a mother spruce hen or grouse or duck will attempt to distract me, a potential predator, from her young.
Last spring as I was motoring along the Brule River I scared up a wood duck that squawked and flapped and tried to draw me down stream away from her brood. Her little body was so tiny compared to a 16-foot boat, but she took us on anyway. Always letting us get close before she would make a racket and splash a little farther. And she kept going and going and going, leading me, she thought, away. She knew what she was doing. God had given her that knowledge and that courage.
What does this tell me? Simply that God provides. I might want to say that God has provided many natural role models for me. In these mothers I see the love and selfless courage that I need to embody for the sake of my family and the other young in our community. In those hens I see a dauntless determination that takes a stand. Sure I am anthropomorphizing, but there are lessons to be learned from the denizens of the boreal forests and rivers no matter how small. Take a look at the Book of Proverbs and you will notice it has quite a few references to the wisdom we can gain in the world of nature.
What more does this tell me? Deeper wisdom. God has implanted in us knowledge of goodness and righteousness. And God has more than confirmed that wisdom through his Word. We know what we are called to do in so many situations; we feel it in our bones. When we see an injustice being done we feel like sticking up for the ones who have been wronged. When we recognize another’s hurt our empathy directs us to respond. Our failure is that there are times when we do not heed the inner voice that God has supplied. We don’t respond the way we ought. Regret, guilt and remorse may then set in to trouble us to rectify our sins of omission or commission, and that too is provided as part of the wisdom of God. We are complex beings, in some ways it might be regrettable that we are not as instinctive as the hens I have described. We need guidance. God again provides.
“He has told you, O mortal, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.” Micah 6:8 (NRSV)
Each month a member of the Cook County Ministerium will offer Spiritual Reflections. This week our contributor is Reverend Mark Ditmanson of Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Grand Marais.
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