Sunday Morning Meds--Something to, well, crow about

“He provides food for the cattle 

and for the young ravens when they call.” 

Psalm 147:9

Fun facts. When a crow steps into Starbucks, he orders caw-fee. Albino crows are normally called “caw-casions.” This one is even local—crows are known to gather excitedly for a certain Presidential contest: the Iowa caw-cus. One more and then I’ll quit, I promise. Why do crows exist? ‘Caws.

They’re everywhere. They’re immensely social. They’re among the most intelligent of birds, of creatures, for that matter. But their song is an annoying as a sinus headache. I’m glad that God responds to young ravens when they call because when it happens in our trees—and it happens every spring, it seems—I’d rather shoot them. They fall out of the nest (there’s a nasty rumor which says parents kick them out early), and for the next week or more it’s sheer cacophony.

They’ll eat anything—bugs, vermin, road kill anywhere in any shape. In the city, they’ll hang out at the dumpsters behind fast food restaurants. They’re garbage-men—and women (you can’t tell boys from girls, by the way).

Native people have stories about them, dozens of stories because the ravens and their smaller cousins the crows have personalities roughly akin to a red fox. They’re tricksters. How about this? Crow cut up a salmon for bait, then invited Grizzly to go fishing with him. When he took out the bait, the bear asked what it was. Crow told him he’d sliced up his own testicle, so Grizzly did the same—and died. Crow didn’t need to go fishing.

A researcher discovered that crows actually invite others to their road kill feasts. Amazing. Maybe that’s why so many consider them intelligent: they’ve moved beyond survival of the fittest. They read Darwin themselves.

They’re more like we are than we care to think. They mate for life and stay close to their families. They’re capitalists, resourceful and entrepreneurial.

The town of Belgrade, Minnesota, created a huge black crow sitting on a thirty-foot branch atop a 25-foot high cement pedestal, for the 1988 Minnesota State Centennial. That crow is 18 feet tall, and I’d love to know where the city council was meeting the night the idea for that sculpture passed—what roadhouse tap. That town's pride and joy is not beautiful or moving. It’s just a huge crow.

The psalmist says God cares for crows. I don’t know how to take that.

Crows don’t need care. They do very well by themselves—thank you. They manage. Shoot, they thrive. This time of year—early winter—they come into town in droves most evenings, hundreds of them, then sit in trees and yak about how the day went. They make a mess and tremendous hullabaloo, and then they all go to sleep as if there’s a matron somewhere among them cawing “lights out.” Lately, it seems, they’ve even learned to hush. Crows adjust, chameleon-like in their long, black robes. They don’t need the Lord. They’ve got bootstraps, after all.

Maybe that’s the intent—God cares even for crows. Nobody else does. Nobody has to. They’ll survive. They’ll eat anything. They’ll colonize towns and cities. They’ll figure out a way to do it. There’s a McDonalds down the street, right? They’ll make do.

Somebody in Belgrade, Minnesota must love them. So does the Lord.

Crazy, isn’t it? Just crazy.