Not crows, but not robins either

Spring’s serenity outside our den’s window was shattered recently by the caws of crows and the sounds of struggle.

My wife and I turned to look. A crow was pinning a robin to the ground with its beak. The robin seemed to be struggling a bit, although it was hard to tell whether it was moving on its own or being shaken by the crow. Then the crow flew up, carrying its prey a few yards farther before landing again. That happened one more time, the contending pair coming down too far away to see them clearly. I assume the crow got its meal.

The two were not the only actors on the scene. Five or six of each of their species darted and flew and called through the air, apparently encouraging them the way fans at a boxing match cheer on their favorite. Did the spectators carry lingering feelings of victory or of loss home with them after it was all over?

The robin and the crow are perhaps two of the most common and universally recognized of birds. We grow up being taught to know robins when we see them, and that they are signs of spring. They make their way across our yards listening for and consuming bugs and worms we cannot see, so feel little sympathy for. We sing songs and recite poems about them, and celebrate the blue of their eggs. Robins are good, the more the merrier.

Crows, on the other hand, eat flesh we see sprawled out on our streets, and make a really ugly sound. Plus, to their ever-lasting shame, they are as black as Darth Vader, not to mention as people who are by some wrongly regarded as inferior. Crows are bad, and we’d rather not have them around.

Because we humans have loaded robins and crows with conflicting moral values, it is tempting to assign moral judgment to what Maxine and I witnessed: The bad crow killed and then ate the poor, innocent robin.

But nature, operating without human interference or judgment, is not subtle about moral good nor moral bad. The natural world’s ethical norms are no more refined than those suggested in the razor-sharp dichotomy of eat or be eaten. Extended to entire species, eat or be eaten becomes reproduce or go extinct. To the extent nature itself measures good and bad, survival, whether at the moment or in the future, sums it up.

What the crow did was good for the crow. What happened to the robin was bad for the robin.

Something fundamental to humans—something animal, if you will—is attracted by the clarity of an ethic of eat or be eaten, of reproduce or go extinct. In this ethic, living is all about me, and perhaps about people like me. If another gets hurt or exterminated in the process, that’s too bad. It’s the way things are. It’s much easier to be a crow if you do not have to consider the interests of the robin. You probably sleep better at night.

But something else in us is repelled by that kind of ethic. As appealing as it is to make ethics and morality a series of stark contrasts between what’s good and what’s bad, we know it is not enough. Consideration of the other must play an important role in our decision-making when it comes to right and wrong or we become something less than human. We become inhuman, and do and participate in deeds of inhumanity.

When we consider ourselves or those like us to embody all that’s good, and people other than ourselves or unlike us to embody all evil and therefore to have no claim upon us, our ethic is for the birds.

Memorial Day follow-up

As we usually do, last weekend Maxine and I watched the PBS-sponsored Memorial Day Remembrance. We appreciate it for the performances (even though we know few of the performers), but more for the stories of heroism and sacrifice that are told.

I was particularly moved this year by hearing again what our POWs in Vietnam went through. Surely there were times when they must have wondered if it would have been better to have been killed than to suffer as they were.

The piece about World War II reminded me that it was about preventing a racist and ruthless tyranny from overtaking human existence and history. WWII was about preserving democracy, in all its inherent messiness, as the preferred means of human governance. My life would have been very, very different than it has been if the Allies had not won.

I am deeply grateful to the men and women who gave completely of themselves so that I have been able to enjoy the one life I dare call my own.

At the same time, it seems to me that the decisive fights for human dignity and freedom are waged not on battlefields, but in the halls of government and the court rooms of justice, and usually in times of peace. Military victories that save us from others must be secured and preserved in the political work of those we elect to serve us. If they do not do that work, the war dead will have died in vain.

If I get it right, soldiers must know—deeply—that the battle is not about them. It is about a larger and more inclusive us, and they—the soldiers—are players in a larger enterprise whose goal is the survival of some still larger enterprise. That is the only way their willingness to sacrifice their lives makes sense. Otherwise, why do it? Why join the fight at all if your only concern is preserving yourself?

So if we celebrate soldiers who have sacrificed everything for us, should not we who are beneficiaries of their sacrifices be willing to sacrifice as well? They served. Should not we?

A renewed sense of service and sacrifice could help us get back to the business of being one nation of liberty and justice for all. Our elected political leaders can show us the way by their examples. What we choose them to do is not about them, or their success. It is about us and our flourishing, together.

When our public servants speak and act to call attention to themselves as if they alone could save us, or to crassly appeal only to their subsection of the populace, they encourage us all to flail about, punching at ghosts and apparitions, instead of confronting realities. It’s a fight we all will lose.

To lead us is to serve us, and to serve our nation is to serve as many of us as possible for the good of all of us. Leaders who serve and sacrifice honor those we remember on Memorial Day more than all grand parades, passionate speeches, and waving flags.

Pentecost's Wings

We were just about ready to leave home for our church’s Pentecost service—wearing a bit of red so we’d fit in and stand out—when I heard that awful thud against our patio door’s glass that told me a bird had smashed into it. A soft feather was stuck to the glass, and below it, a few feet from the door and on the concrete, lay the victim. Its back was toward us. I am guessing it was a young robin.

It made a couple of pathetic moves, then lay still. I was quite certain it was dead. But it was time for us to leave home. I figured I’d have to do something with the corpse when we came back.

When we returned, the bird was gone. No sign of it. As if nothing had happened.

Had the body been carried off by another animal, a scavenger? Crows and hawks nest in the trees behind our house. Or perhaps a turkey vulture had swooped down from soaring high above to claim its meal.

Or what if, after a few still moments of repose, the robin had caught its breath again? What if it was as good as dead for a time until it was able to right itself and spread its wings and fly away on its own power?

I will never know who took wing from our patio while I was reciting a Pentecost liturgy in a church somewhere.