CONSIDER THE BIRDS

A Provocative Guide to Birds of the Bible

Abingdon Press

Contents

CHAPTER 1

THEPIGEON

PURITYand IMPURITY

The very first storyin the Bible includes birds. In Genesis 1,God says, "Let birds fly," and "Let the birdsmultiply." But even before God creates thebirds, the spirit of God hovers over the faceof the deep—the ancient rabbis suggest—likea bird. The Talmud even specifies what kind of bird—adove: "The Spirit of God hovered over the surface of thewaters—like a dove." Not a pterodactyl or the humongous forbiddingbirds found in many creation myths, but a gentle, quiet,friendly thing. It's surprising. Of course the rabbis might havebeen wrong about the attributes of the spirit of God at creation;a giant powerful bird is a more likely character to take on thevoid. What chance would a dove have with the deep and thedark? It has a small brain, stubby little legs—it is easy picking forpredators.

It is not difficult information to uncover; nevertheless, I wassurprised to find that a dove is, in fact, a pigeon by another name.Pigeon is from the French pijon, and dove is an English word.There are a great variety of birds English speakers call eitherpigeons or doves—all in the Columbidae family. We tend to callthe more delicate and smaller members of the family "doves," butthe names are interchangeable. This information is hard toabsorb. How could a pigeon command creation? The rabbishave wild imaginations. Still, I like the image quite a bit—thespirit of God—like a pigeon.

In the beginning of the Gospel of Luke, the spirit of God hoversover Mary. The Spirit hovered over the deep in Genesis andmade it pregnant so that the deep birthed creation; now it hoversover Mary and makes her pregnant. Christian art through the centurieshas depicted this hovering presence, in the spirit of the rabbis,as a dove. I hope to show that this image is both stranger andricher than we normally think.

Once we get to the baptism of Jesus, the text is explicit. Herethe spirit of God shows up, and this time each of the Gospel writersis clear: LIKE A DOVE. The heavens open and the spirit ofGod comes down, alighting on Jesus' shoulder, and a voice fromheaven says, "This is my Son ... with whom I am well pleased." Ihave always thought that the voice seemed like a bit much: farfetched,B movie-ish. And the dove here has never moved me.Maybe because it is such a familiar scene or because I've seen toomany bad illustrations of it, or because the white dove has beenoverused as a symbol in commercial Christianity. It is shorthandfor "purity and innocence." When the church we rent puts updoves at Pentecost, we take them down before we proceed withour worship. It doesn't have the right vibe. They seem trite andsentimental—Styrofoam birds and white felt cutout doves gluedon a red background. What good news could they possiblybring?

John the Baptist says, "I saw the Spirit descend as a dovefrom heaven, and it remained on him." This, says John, is how heknows he should believe in Jesus. Somehow that has alwaysseemed a little thin to me: something that happens in fairy tales,not something that could hold much weight. I have hardlystopped to consider the bird. I think, Oh—it's a sign, like somethingwritten on cardboard, or illuminated at the airport, oradvertising a restaurant: Exit. Stop. Go. Eat here. This is theMessiah, flash flash. The Spirit descends like a dove, but I haveoften thought "like a dove" is extraneous information. It's themessage, not the messenger, that's important here.

The dove is merely a conveyor of information, nothingmore. And the message is flat—like black-and-white letters on apiece of paper. Something you could roll up and put into a smalltube and attach to the bird's leg: This is the messiah period believein him period. Homing doves have, in fact, been used preciselythis way for thousands of years. Their unique (and still somewhatmysterious) homing ability means you can bring them withyou, say, on a military campaign and then send them home bearingnews of the battle. Or use them like the Greeks did, toinform the populace who the winners were at the Olympicgames. You fold up a piece of papyrus and fit it in a tube and thebird will deliver it remarkably reliably. Is this all there is to thebird in this story?

Pigeons/doves have served every empire from the Egyptianto the Roman to the United States of America. They were usedas spies in World Wars I and II. They were fitted with cameras,trained by soldiers, sent out in balloons. Although the whitedove became the symbol for peace, many other pigeons are celebratedfor their military service. The bird is not simply onething. The most famous pigeon warrior was Cher Ami, whosaved an American troop that was being fired on by both sides.He flew through enemy fire to deliver a message to the alliedcommand that they were shooting at their own men. He wasawarded the Croix de Guerre medal for his heroic flight. Whenhe died he was stuffed. You can see him on display at theSmithsonian. Reflecting on this little hero in 1926, Harry WebbFarrington, a poet and preacher, described the pigeon: "Littlescrawny blue and white, messenger for men who fight."

Messenger for men who make money, too. Stockbrokers andbankers relied on pigeons to carry news of the markets beforethere were telephones and the Internet. It hasn't always been puresweet love that is sent down by the dove. They have been used inthe service of the empire, for money, power, and war.

Pigeons were employed (though probably not paid) by theGreat Barrier Pigeon Gram Service and Mr. Howie's PigeonPost, a form of airmail between mainland New Zealand and theGreat Barrier Island. Pigeons can carry up to 2.5 ounces on theirbacks. I don't know how much the message "This is theMessiah" would have weighed—probably less than that. I supposeit's possible that the dove at the baptism carried a papyrusprepared by God the Father. But it doesn't seem quite like God,somehow, to employ the pigeon post to send a message. It seemsa little too obvious, straightforward, unequivocal—as if God issitting somewhere on a cloud with a pen in hand.

The writers of Scripture, though a varied group, usuallyseem to have more imagination than that. More artists, often,than exactly historians, they choose rich, thick symbols that resonatethroughout the text—sometimes subtly, sometimes not(lamb, lion, grapevine). Like the iconography of painters, theimages resound on levels far deeper than the surface. Theappearance of the spirit of God as a dove at Jesus' baptism cansurely be read as something more profound than the pigeonpost. The spirit of God appeared in bodily form like a pigeon. Idon't think we'd be wrong to consider that.

THE SPIRIT OF LIFE

The author of John says he didn't include everything in hisbook (of course not—it's twenty-one chapters; and Jesus, so thestory goes, lived for thirty-three years—that's less than a chapter ayear), but he wrote what he wrote so that we may come to believethat Jesus is the Christ, "and that believing you may have life." Jesuscomes so that we may have life, and have it abundantly—eternallife, actually, is what John calls it. Whatever that means, it doesn'tsound like the kind of belief that would come from a can or a tubetied to a pigeon's leg. God's "message" in Christ isn't somethingyou "get" by reading words on a piece of paper. It is God's spiritthat will give us life (great big abundant overflowing life like aspring forever welling up, according to John). The Spirit hoversover the water in Genesis and creates life—lots of it; plants yieldingseeds of every kind, trees bearing fruit of every kind, swarms ofliving creatures, sea monsters, everything that moves, every wingedcreature—swarms, swarming and creeping, fruitful and multiplying,fungi, membranes, bowels. Bulbs, suckers, and buds sendingout runners and tubers splicing and crossbreeding. And God saysthis is good, very good—resoundingly good.

The dove has come to seem banal and bland and cutesy asfar as Christian symbols go. It has come to represent somethingpolite and petite and pure. Maybe this has worked to deprive usof a more robust view of the Holy Spirit. Isn't it sort of limitingto imagine the spirit of God as something dainty and white? Weare made of dirt, according to the creation account in Genesis.We are full of bacteria. We each carry two to five pounds of bacteriain our bodies—two to five POUNDS. We could kill a dovewith one or two blows from the back of our hand. We need aspirit that can handle us.

In The Voyage of the Beagle, Charles Darwin marvels at the"extreme tameness" of the doves he encounters on CharlesIsland. They are so easily killed by buccaneers and whalers andsailors who, he says, "always take cruel delight in knockingdown the little birds." He describes a little boy he saw sitting ata well with a big pile of dead birds beside him. The boy sat at thewell all day, says Darwin, with a switch in his hand, waiting tokill the birds when they came to take a drink.

Surely we need God's spirit to be less easily done awaywith—something that can handle the fungi, membranes, andbowels. Not some fragile naive princess dressed in white,unaware or untainted by the ways of the world.

GODDESSES OF LOVE

The dove in the lore of ancient civilizations wasn't, actually,quite so pure. The bird has a complicated past when you dig a littledeeper. Ishtar, a sexy, promiscuous, violent Babylonian goddess,was often depicted as a dove. Pure and naive and delicatewould not be good words to describe her. She's more of everythingthat pulls at humanity all rolled up into one: passion andjealousy and anger and sex. She's goddess of war, fertility, andlove. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, which predates the biblical text,Ishtar pushes Gilgamesh to marry her. Although he may find herattractive, he declines because she's proved to be a bit much forher previous lovers, leaving them dead or maimed.

Gilgamesh says, "Listen to me while I tell the tale of yourlovers." Then he goes on to describe how she broke the wing ofone, dug pits for another, rustled up a whip and spur and thongfor her stallion lover, struck her shepherd lover and turned himinto a wolf, and "now his own herd-boys chase him away, his ownhounds worry his flanks."

The ancient goddess dove was not a bird easily knocked downby whalers, sailors, and buccaneers, or a little boy with a stick.

In another story, Ishtar descends to the underworld lookingfor her lover. She's very threatening—knocking on the door tothe underworld, screaming that she'll break, smash, wrench,force the doors if she isn't let in; and she will "bring up the deadto eat the living." When she does, finally, get in, leaving the faceof the earth, all sexual activity ceases everywhere. Fertility dies.It's like she's necessary to life at the same time she threatens it. It'salways interesting to see, when you start looking around at othergods and the founding narratives of other cultures, how differentthe Hebrew stories are. The God who hovers over the deepin Genesis speaks a word—no screaming, threatening, breaking,and smashing—no violence at all. There are no monsters slain,no battles fought. The spirit of God hovers and coos and theworld is born, grows fertile, with hardly a bang. The spirit ofGod at creation is not violent, but God may not be a naiveprincess either.

Astarte, a Semitic goddess (representing fertility, sexuality,war); Aphrodite (love, beauty, pleasure, procreation); and Venus(same as Aphrodite) are all associated with doves. These goddessesall have many lovers—promiscuity being more their thingthan purity. The dove was considered sacred to Adonis andBacchus. In all these myths the dove was invested with eroticmeaning. It became the symbol of love between humans andbetween the deity and its worshipers.

Pigeons are known for their sexual appetite. In order to gettheir pigeons to fly home fast and furious, competitive pigeonracers will sometimes make use of their tendency to be powerfullyaroused. Some pigeon racers will place a couple together,allow them a certain amount of foreplay, and then pack one ofthe desirous pigeons up and drive it away. When released, thepigeon flies back home fast.

When pigeons mate they appear to kiss. They are actuallyexchanging food, but it looks like they are making out (withoutlips of course—which does make it different). When they copulate,it is gentle and consensual (compared to, say, watching thegeese at the park); and they make love frequently, any season ofthe year, and have many babies—sometimes as many as twelvebatches a year. With all their zeal for sex, they are usually true toone love—mating for life.

They can also be quite the fighters. Of course they aren'tpredators, but they do pick fights with one another, sometimestheir own mates. Anyone who watches them long enough inconfined quarters might begin to wonder how they came to representpeace. They are not one simple thing—like humans, likethe spirit of God. Maybe peace isn't one simple thing either.

GRAY

It's a wonder, with its colorful mythological history andrandy nature, that the dove has become the symbol of purity.

A dove is a pigeon. That seems worth saying repeatedly. Wemay have imagined the dove at the baptism was white, but it wasmore likely gray, with an iridescent green-and-violet neck—arock dove, which is very common in Palestine and which is consideredto be the ancestor of our common domestic pigeon. Thecommon domestic pigeon—the kind that gathers in our parks,nests in our eaves, poops all over our buildings and sidewalks.

Archaeological evidence suggests that the dove was domesticatedvery early in the history of humans. People have beenraising them to eat and race and sacrifice and carry messages fora very long time (three thousand years at least, perhaps more).Archaeologists have dug up ancient underground pigeon coopsall across Israel; some apparently held thousands and thousandsof birds. Ruins of old coops have been found all across the world.The Romans sacrificed them to Venus. The Hindus fed them.The Europeans ate them by droves.

The rock pigeons found in our cities and barns are probablyfrom populations established by escaped domestic pigeons. Theyare often referred to as feral pigeons. How is that for a symbol ofthe Holy Spirit? I believe it's a good one. I like it. It's ubiquitous,on the streets. The white dove is overused. How about pigeonsfor Pentecost, on banners and bulletin covers? There are lots ofbirds that want to avoid us, who are too wild for us, who needtheir space. You could call them unfriendly. Pigeons want to beclose to us. They are where we are—in some of the worst placeswe have made (our neglected projects and abandoned buildings)and some of the best (art museums, parks, Rome's piazzas). Theywon't leave us alone.

Yet there's hardly a bird that people are more likely to wantto shoot and exterminate. People are very often not fond ofpigeons. They call them "rats with wings." They are consideredpests who "infest" urban areas. Cities have tried countless ways ofexterminating them, usually unsuccessfully. What if the spirit ofGod descends like a pigeon, somehow—always underfoot, routinelyignored, often despised?

We celebrate Thanksgiving at the dairy farm where my husband'sgrandparents lived out their entire lives. His sister livesthere now. The cows are gone, but the pigeons remain. After dinnerthis year, Jim took me up to the hayloft. Pigeons were everywhere.It's always a little frightening to have a bird flap by yourhead in an enclosed space, but I have been reading so muchabout them, I am just happy to be among these birds. We sit andwatch and listen. It sounds like hundreds of lovers have just beensatisfied—the way they coo and moan. It is sweet and peacefuland animal. After a while, Jim tells me a story about theChristmas he and his brother got BB guns. They crawled up theladder to this loft and shot pigeons. Jim says, "I still feel guilty.It's one of the few things I have ever killed." Later, my colleaguethe Reverend Russell (also a generally nonviolent man), confessesto fantasies of hauling out his grandpa's gun to shoot thepigeons that relieve their bowels all over his back porch.

The passenger pigeon used to be so prolific in NorthAmerica that Audubon described flocks so large that they tookthree days to pass by, blocking out the sun. I learned this fromTom Waits when he called in to Bob Dylan's radio show. Earlyexplorers describe "infinite multitudes," "countless numbers." It'sestimated that they made up more than 45 percent of the totalbird population in North America. This is hard to even imagine:the skies bursting with profligate life (like an ever-flowingspring, like eternal life, almost).
(Continues...)Excerpted from CONSIDER THE BIRDS by DEBBIE BLUE, Jim Larson. Copyright © 2013 Debbie Blue. Excerpted by permission of Abingdon Press.
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