Providence and Ravens

 
Until I came north, everything I knew about ravens, I learned in Sunday school. (Okay, in Sunday school and from Edgar Allan Poe.) We had their close cousins, the crows, where I grew up in Minnesota, but I don’t remember ever seeing a raven. According to this map, there should have been some there, but I guess I missed them. 

It’d be impossible for a child to grow up in the Yukon and not notice the ravens. They are here and they are not silent.

Northerners tend to have a love-hate relationship with these big black birds. If we don’t lock the lids tight on our garbage cans, the packaging from our food waste will be spread all over the neighbourhood by trash-picking ravens. Can you see that the one in the photo (above left) is carrying a scavenged treasure? Once I saw a raven fly off with a whole package of cheddar cheese from a bag of groceries left in the back of a pickup truck in the supermarket parking lot. I’d like to have heard the conversation in that kitchen when it came time to make the grilled cheese sandwiches for supper.

 
It’s because ravens seem to relish life that we love them. When it comes to ravens, bird-brained isn’t stupid, and some of that raven brain power is used purely for amusement. Ravens love to swirl and roll in the air currents near the edge of the escarpment rimming town, performing stunt-pilot-worthy aerobatics displays. I have it on good authority that ravens have been seen sliding down snowbanks just for the fun of it. Another favorite pastime is playing “Nonny-nonny-nonny, you can’t catch me!” with my dog. Frankly, in an I.Q. competition between my dog and a raven, I’m not sure my dog would come out on top.

Their extreme cleverness shows itself in their hoarding behaviour. Sometimes ravens will store bits of stolen food in little caches so they can come back for it later, and studies have shown that they find their stockpiles again because they remember where they put them. They also spy on other ravens to see where they are burying their goodies, so that when the opportunity arises, the neighbour’s stash can be raided. Sometimes a hoarding raven will only pretend to bury food in order to throw the thieving spies and raiders off the trail. You might say that ravens are the greedy geniuses of the bird world.

 

But let’s get back to what I learned about ravens in Sunday school, way before any real-life raven encounters.  I learned, first of all, that it is God who feeds them.

Who provides for the raven its prey,
when its young ones cry to God for help,
and wander about for lack of food? (Job 38:41)

That’s a rhetorical question and we’re supposed to answer, “God does.” If you need further confirmation, see Psalm 147:9 and Luke 12:24.

God intentionally provides prey and other goodies for the ravens. Yes, they dumpster dive and trash pick and forage for berries and scavenge for carrion and hunt small rodents. They even eat carcass-feeding maggots and beetles. (How’s that for opportunistic snacking?) And this is how God  feeds them.

According to Wikipedia, the raven’s “diet may vary widely with location, season and serendipity,” which my dictionary defines as “the occurrence or development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.” It’s not quite serendipity, of course, if God feeds them, is it? But if we changed “by chance” to “by God’s intent” in that definition, we’d have a fairly good definition of providence. God intentionally controls the occurrence and development of events with a happy and beneficial result for the ravens.

So by providence, it is, that the ravens are fed. I leave the lid on my garbage can unfastened and it is God’s provision for them. The unguarded bag of groceries in the back of the pick up? Providence for the birds. Road kill? God’s good gift to the hungry young ones. Ravens have enough brain power to devise clever schemes for keeping their food finds all to themselves. This, as well, is God’s providence for them. All these things are good gifts from God who feeds the ravens.

I learned, too, back in my Sunday school days, that God, who feeds the ravens, provides for his people. We are, after all, of  “much more value … than the birds! (Luke 12:24)” In a favorite story from the Bible, God even used ravens to provide for one of his people.

Now Elijah the Tishbite, of Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab, “As the Lord, the God of Israel, lives, before whom I stand, there shall be neither dew nor rain these years, except by my word.” 2 And the word of the Lord came to him: 3 “Depart from here and turn eastward and hide yourself by the brook Cherith, which is east of the Jordan. 4 You shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.” 5 So he went and did according to the word of the Lord. He went and lived by the brook Cherith that is east of the Jordan. 6 And the ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the brook. (1 Kings 17:1-6) 

God commanded the ravens to feed Elijah and they brought him bread and meat twice a day. Not only do ravens receive good things from the Lord’s providential hand, but they have provided good things out of the Lord’s providential hand. Ravens were the means by which the Lord provided for his prophet Elijah. Like many of God’s miracles, this one turned the natural order on its head. These thieving scavengers and self-serving hoarders of rotting meat and moldy bread, became, at God’s word, generous servants and deliverers of fresh meat and fresh bread.

 

 

I’m guessing I won’t ever be fed directly by ravens. (To be honest, I’m not unhappy about that. I’ve seen where those beaks have been.) But like Elijah, I can trust that God will provide. God, who feeds the ravens, knows what I need; and God, who feeds the ravens, will feed his children, too.

 

All photos by Andrew Stark. Click on photos for larger views. 

Comments

[violet]

Wonderful raven pictures - and good thoughts. I like how you changed the definition of 'serendipity.'

I wonder if the big black birds that hang around here all winter aren't ravens too. We call them crows, but they're sure a lot different from the crows of my prairie childhood.

[rebecca]

Ravens look very similar to crows, but they are much larger.

[Chris]

Recently, as Jodi and I ate lunch at shipyards park, we watched a raven open a pizza box, eat, close it, and then stand on top to keep his buddies away from his treasure. We also have on many occasions watched them hide treasures in the snow and then watch from a ways away and scurry over when anyone gets close.

By the way some times the game with a small dog can be to lure them into deep snow so that they are helpless and then the ravens attack.

[rebecca]

I read a whole article on their caches in preparation for this. They can only find their caches because they remember them. Biologists have tested them by hiding caches of very smelly things. The ravens only find the ones they've seen being hidden.

So I suppose those ravens are watching for a while to see if another raven may have seen them hide their treasures. Apparently, sometimes, when they know other ravens are watching, they only pretend to hide things, to throw off the spies.

Anyway, I added a two lines mentioning their hoarding. Second to last paragraph, last two lines.

[Brandon]

One of the neat things about ravens as a picture of divine providence is that they are, like crows, extraordinarily smart birds; and so they're a good example of how God's works of providence includes (among many other things, of course) giving clever brains to be used.

[rebecca]

Ha! So I added another paragraph with more about their cleverness and their hoarding. Fifth paragraph down.

Then I added a sentence with Brandon's idea about their brain power being providential as well. In the ninth paragraph.

Those additions make the whole thing much better, I think. That's why I like comments—I get free editing.