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Leaders in faith: Singing under the brooding shadow of the raven

By Ron Poythress
Triangle Baptist Church

Ron Poythress

The naturalist Loren Eiseley penned many keen observations of nature, but it was his reflections on what he saw that often leave us with inspiring parables of life.

In one of his many musings, he wrote of napping in the soft grass in the middle of a field on a warm spring afternoon. Awakened by the shrill sounds of a bird perched on a nearby limb, he observed a mother sparrow voicing her anger at a raven that had invaded her nest. One by one the defenseless baby sparrows were being devoured by the sleek black monster. As the raven sat with a squirming nestling in his beak, the mother sparrow began to fly helplessly in circles above the clearing. Indifferent to her maternal pleas, the raven gulped, whetted his beak on the dead branch and sat callously still.

Then, according to Eiseley, something unusual happened. Into the glade fluttered several small birds, a half dozen or so varieties, drawn by the anguished outcries of the grieving sparrow. Not one of them dared to attack the raven, of course. But they cried together there in some “instinctive common misery,” the bereaved and the unbereaved alike. They fluttered as though to point their wings at the murderer. And he, the threatening bird at the heart of life, sat there, “glistening in the common light, formidable, unmoving, unperturbed, untouchable.”

Eiseley says that what happened next, though, was most surprising of all.

“There, in that clearing, the crystal note of a song sparrow lifted hesitantly in the hush. And finally, after painful fluttering, another took the song, and then another, the song passing from one bird to another. … Till suddenly they took heart and sang from many throats joyously together as birds are known to sing. They sang because life is sweet and sunlight beautiful. They sang under the brooding shadow of the raven, for they were singers of life, and not of death” (Loren Eiseley, “The Immense Journey,” 175).

They sang under the brooding shadow of the raven. Might that be an apt metaphor for what we are attempting to do in worship? It seems to me that in worship, whatever our faith tradition, we gather together to sing – to sing of life over death, hope over despair, good over evil – and we do so under the brooding shadow of the raven.

The ravenous threat to life is a pervasive and brooding reality. Global economic meltdown, the threat of nuclear holocaust, the horrors of war, widespread poverty and hunger – these and countless other monumental concerns hover over us. The deadly raven casts a menacing shadow over all that is good and hopeful in life. What’s more, we are often overwhelmed by our powerlessness, our helplessness, to deal with those forces that threaten us and those whom we love. Unemployment, rising costs in health care and homelessness are no longer issues faced by those we don’t know but are ominously close to all of us. Our helplessness may lead us to despair; our denial may drive us to cynicism. But in either case, whether it be our impotence or indifference, we lose the song that inspires us to life and hope.

As people of faith we are called forth to sing under the brooding shadow of the raven. To be sure our throats are faltering, our voices weak and shaky. Some of us may be unable to sing yet; that’s OK. Some are still trying to find their own voice. But even with quivering voices we join the chorus of those who would sing of life and who pass the song from one to another.

Together we declare, even in the face of evil, that life is good! In the midst of tragedy we affirm that there are goodness and mercy which follow us all the days of our lives. We defiantly insist that the forces of good are stronger than the forces of evil. We are sustained by a faith that is stronger than death, encouraged by a promise that God will never forsake us and assured that hope, not despair, has the last word over our lives.

It was surely such an affirmation of faith that led the Hebrew people, in captivity on foreign soil, to sing Psalms, particularly the laments, or what we might call today “the blues.” Such resilience enabled Paul and Silas to sing while waiting in a dank, dark jail cell at Philippi. And wasn’t it a radical trust in God’s trustworthiness that stirred Jesus to sing some of the Psalms with his frightened disciples on that awesome night before he was to be crucified?

Just maybe – as we join hands and hearts and voices in our places of worship – we, too, may sing of our faith in God’s goodness and our hope in what is redemptive in all persons, even under the brooding shadow of death and destruction.

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• Leaders in faith: Label maker
• Leaders in faith: Lonely child prodigies
• Leaders in Faith: The Importance of Home in Uncertain Times

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