DAY 12

Mariana Fruit Dove. Image by Laura Wolf.

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doves / pigeons / mariana fruit dove

A GREETING
From the end of the earth I call to you.
(Psalm 61:2a)

A READING
Immediately after Jesus had been baptized and was coming up out of the water, the sky suddenly opened up and Jesus saw the Spirit of God descending as a dove and hovering over him. With that, a voice from the heavens said, “This is my Own, my Beloved, on whom my favor rests.”
(Matthew 3:16-17)

MUSIC
How can we remember that all of us are a part of Creation?
How can we rewild ourselves?


A MEDITATIVE VERSE
O my little bird...
Talk to me; let me hear the joy of your voice.
Oh, it’s sweet, your voice is, like the voice of the dove.
(Songs 2:14)

A REFLECTION
I sat one summer evening and watched a great blue heron make his descent from the top of the hill into the valley. He came down at a measured deliberate pace, stately as always, like a dignitary going down a stair. And then, at a point I judged to be midway over the river, without at all varying his wingbeat he did a backward turn in the air, a loop-the-loop. It could only have been a gesture of pure exuberance, of joy – a speaking of his sense of the evening, the day’s fulfillment, his descent homeward. He made just the one slow turn, and then flew on out of sight in the direction of a slew farther down in the bottom. The movement was incredibly beautiful, at once exultant and stately, a benediction on the evening and on the river and on me. It seemed so perfectly to confirm the presence of a free nonhuman joy in the world – a joy I feel a great need to believe in.
- from The World-Ending Fire: The Essential Wendell Berry

VERSE OF THE DAY
In your tent I will make my home forever,
and take shelter under the cover of your wings.
(Psalm 61:4)
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Image by Quinn Daedal

As we close this series, we return once again to the bird most sacrificed and most revered in all of scripture. The dove marks some of the most significant moments in Jesus' life. A dove appears at his baptism by John the Baptist and it is the table of the dovesellers that Jesus overturns in the temple. The "spirit from heaven" descending like a dove that is named in John 1 becomes the image of the Holy Spirit - and enduringly that image has become iconic in the secular world, representing peaceful times.

In the Inclusive Bible translation of the overturning of the tables, we hear "pigeon" instead of the "dove" that appears in most other translations. Pigeons are very closely allied with doves in Scripture and in some translations the words are used interchangeably. However, they are clearly being distinguished from each other in the biblical texts, most often in relation to size and age. "Two doves or a young pigeon" was the sin offering for the very poor (see Leviticus) or as a substitute for another specificed animal that could not be provided. Pigeons were the very first birds ever to be domesticated and their capacity to "home" made them invaluable as family property. They were allowed inside and were treated like members of the family. They bred all year long and wild pigeons occupied caves, plains and forests alike which meant there was never a shortage. Translators in all eras have sometimes preferred "dove" to "pigeon" -- even where the text says otherwise -- because the cultural attitude towards pigeons in subsequent centuries would not survive its proper usage. A good example might be in the Songs text above. The bird indicated is technically a pigeon but "like the voice of the pigeon..." does not quite have the same impact. The pigeon has simply never been able to land the beauty and gentleness status of the dove.

Jesus' action to overturn the tables of the dove and pigeon sellers is not just a defiance of authority but a liberation of those birds. What needs to be overturned in our own time, in order for us to confirm the survival of all bird species into the next century? The Socorro Dove, the Blue-Eyed Ground Dove (one of the world's most endangered birds), the Polynesian Ground Dove are down to their last 100 individuals in each case.

When Jesus is baptised, a dove descends, taking us back to the dove of Genesis and to the primoridial waters of the dawn of Creation. As we live into what it means to be people of faith and stewards of God's world, how can birds inspire us to deepen our commitment? What are the local and larger community actions who could use our help and our faith-led hope?

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Image by Chic Bee

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Scripture passages are taken from The Inclusive Bible.

This marks the end of the LC† The Winged Word devotional. Thank you for joining us. 
See you in Advent!

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LC† The Winged Word is a devotional series of Lutherans Connect, supported by the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and the Centre for Spirituality and Media at Martin Luther University College. To receive the devotions by email, write to lutheransconnect@gmail.com. The devotional pages are written and curated by Deacon Sherry Coman, with support and input from Pastor Steve Hoffard, Catherine Evenden and Henriette Thompson. Join us on Facebook. Lutherans Connect invites you to make a donation to the Ministry by going to this link on the website of the ELCIC Eastern Synod and selecting "Lutherans Connect Devotionals" under "Fund". Devotions are always freely offered, however your donations help support the ongoing work. 
Thank you and peace be with you!

DAY 8

The Kākāpō, image by Jake Osborne.
Native to New Zealand, it is now critically endangered. 
There are currently only 325 known individuals.

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most endangered birds

A GREETING
Turn your ear to me and hear my prayer.
Show me your steadfast love—and your great strength.
(Psalm 17:6-7)

A READING
Guard me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings, let your hand rescue me from such people, from such a world.
(Psalm 17:8;14)

MUSIC
Sung in Irish, the lyrics lament the departure of a loved one, 
and a desire to use music to call them back.


A MEDITATIVE VERSE
“Whoever touches you touches the apple of my eye!"
(Zechariah 2:12)

A REFLECTION
The sense of [peace] may come with watching a flock of cedar wax-wings eating wild grapes in the top of the woods on a November afternoon. Everything they do is leisurely. They pick the grapes with a curious deliberation, comb their feathers, converse in high windy whistles. Now and then one will fly out and back in a sort of dancing flight full of whimsical flutters and turns. They are like farmers loafing in their own fields on Sunday. Though they have no Sundays, their days are full of sabbaths.
- from The World-Ending Fire: The Essential Wendell Berry

VERSE OF THE DAY
When I look at justice I see your face;
and when I awake, I’ll be content just to see your likeness.
(Psalm 17:15)

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The giant ibis is on the verge of extinction, with only 300 - 350 individuals
believed to still exist. This image, taken in 2013, is by Brendan Ryan.
Most likely such a capture would not be possible in 2026.

In Psalm 17, we hear the psalmist ask God to be held as “the apple” of God’s eye. The ancient saying is believed to refer to the reflection of oneself that can be seen in another's eye when standing very close. Being guarded or held as the apple of God's eye can be a metaphor for God's love, and extends the sense of humankind being made in God's image. We are close enough to God that we can see our own reflection in God, and God in us.

Images of the mirror and reflection of God's love in us and working through us fill Psalm 17. The psalmist is asking for God's intervention against an enemy and uses the argument that God's people are cherished by God, the "apple of God's eye," so God will intervene to save them. How might we read all of these verses, from the point of view of the most critically endangered birds in our world? The kākāpō and the giant ibis, two native birds of the southern hemisphere and mostly known to have had habitats in New Zealand and Cambodia/Vietnam, might be good candidates for taking the place of the psalmist. These very rare birds are down to their last individuals and on track to become extinct. Efforts have been made to relocate and sequester the kākāpō to specific predator-free islands off the coast of New Zealand, possible only because the kākāpō is a flightless bird. The giant ibis is the national bird of Cambodia, and enjoys legal protections there. However, illegal logging and hunting still threaten even these measures.

Just as we are the precious apple of God's eye, so too is Creation and all its creatures. How much can God count us to make endangered species the apple of our own eyes?

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This American ornithologist explains why birds are declining 
and offers suggestions of what we can do.



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Scripture passages are taken from The Inclusive Bible.

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LC† The Winged Word is a devotional series of Lutherans Connect, supported by the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and the Centre for Spirituality and Media at Martin Luther University College. To receive the devotions by email, write to lutheransconnect@gmail.com. The devotional pages are written and curated by Deacon Sherry Coman, with support and input from Pastor Steve Hoffard, Catherine Evenden and Henriette Thompson. Join us on Facebook. Lutherans Connect invites you to make a donation to the Ministry by going to this link on the website of the ELCIC Eastern Synod and selecting "Lutherans Connect Devotionals" under "Fund". Devotions are always freely offered, however your donations help support the ongoing work. 
Thank you and peace be with you!

DAY 7

Image by Rob Zweers

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Quails

A GREETING
Teach me to do your will, for you are my God.
Let your nurturing Spirit guide me
on a safe and level path.
(Psalm 143:10)

A READING
Now the Spirit went out from God and drove quail in from the west, and they alighted all over the camp as far as a day’s walk in any direction, in piles three feet thick. All that day and night and all the next day the people went out and gathered quail. No one gathered less than about sixty bushels.
(Numbers 11:31-32)

MUSIC


A MEDITATIVE VERSE
They demanded food, and God sent them quail
and satisfied them with the bread of heaven.
(Psalm 105:41)

A REFLECTION
In spite of all the talk about the law of tooth and fang and the struggle for survival, there is in the lives of the animals and birds a great peacefulness. It is not all fear and flight, pursuit and killing. That is part of it, certainly; and there is cold and hunger; there is the likelihood that death, when it comes, will be violent. But there is peace, too, and I think that the intervals of peace are frequent and prolonged. These are the times when the creature rests, communes with himself or with his kind, takes pleasure in being alive...I have seen the same peacefulness in a flock of wood ducks perched above the water in the branches of a fallen beech, preening and dozing in the sunlight of an autumn afternoon. Even while they dozed they had about them the exquisite alertness of wild things. If I had shown myself they would have been instantly in the air. But for the time there was no alarm among them, and no fear. The moment was whole in itself, satisfying to them and to me.
- from The World-Ending Fire: The Essential Wendell Berry

VERSE OF THE DAY
We are free like a bird from the trap!
The snare has been broken and we are free!
(Psalm 124:7)

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Drawing of a corn crake, by Johann Friedrich Naumann (1899)
for his Natural History of Birds in Northern Europe. 
"Corn crake" is the word used instead of "quail" in some translations of 
Exodus and Numbers. The corn crake is on the red list in the UK.

The second half of these devotions will turn to birds who are not stigmatized by scripture but instead play a life-giving role in the biblical story or have become symbols of divine life. At the same time, we will see how much these same birds are vulnerable, threatened or nearing extinction in our own time. This week we will also feature the writing of Wendell Berry, the American poet farmer and environmental activist who died last week.

There is no specific mention of quails in the Levitical and Deuteronomic prescriptions about birds as either clean or unclean. God's provision of quails as food for those wandering in the wilderness is slightly different in the two accounts of the feeding: in Exodus the quails are linked with the appearance of manna and are a manifestation of God's abundance. In the Numbers account, they are summoned from the sea.

In our own time, quails migrate by the thousands from Europe to Africa where they are then trapped by hunters in huge nets spread along the edges of the Mediterranean as they arrive, exhausted. The nets used are fishing nets, erected along sand dunes. Fishing nets are a biblical symbol of plenty promised by Jesus. How does their use this way challenge our sense of abundant life?

Many of the world's species of quails are critically endangered, verging on extinction or actually extinct. Most famous among these is the Himalayan Quail, last seen in the western Himalayas in India almost 150 years ago. The Manipur Bush-Quail, another Indian species, dwells in the grasslands of the northeast and is rarely seen, as its habitat undergoes climate change-created drought. Scientists are trying to reintroduce the Masked Bobwhite Quail to Arizona after that species succumbed to drought in Mexico.

Our biblical stories are marked by ritual mistreatment of animals, including birds. But do our own contemporary stories have to be? In the spirit of today's music, how can we change the narrative of our time to become one in which we all thrive?

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Scripture passages are taken from The Inclusive Bible.

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LC† The Winged Word is a devotional series of Lutherans Connect, supported by the Eastern Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada and the Centre for Spirituality and Media at Martin Luther University College. To receive the devotions by email, write to lutheransconnect@gmail.com. The devotional pages are written and curated by Deacon Sherry Coman, with support and input from Pastor Steve Hoffard, Catherine Evenden and Henriette Thompson. Join us on Facebook. Lutherans Connect invites you to make a donation to the Ministry by going to this link on the website of the ELCIC Eastern Synod and selecting "Lutherans Connect Devotionals" under "Fund". Devotions are always freely offered, however your donations help support the ongoing work. 
Thank you and peace be with you!