I parked on
the frontage road that paralleled the beach and scrambled down a fifteen foot
pile of concrete riprap. On my way to catch a flight in Los Angeles, I found
myself with a couple extra hours, so thought this spot on the ocean near
Ventura a good place for some reading and prayer. With the beach spread out like a blanket before
me and waves breaking thirty yards away, I sat in the sand that cool November morning,
leaned back against a sun-warmed chunk of cement, took off my shoes, and
cracked open the little book.
It had been a long time that Henri Nouwen’s The Way of the Heart had sat
on my shelf, though I had been looking forward to picking it up just as long.
On my way out my office door several days earlier, I scanned my ‘to read’ pile
for just a little tome to fit in an overfull briefcase, and it was an easy
addition. It’s a brief book about desert spirituality, including the spiritual
discipline of solitude, a commodity in short supply in my life. I had just read
that one of the cardinal sins a person in solitude will struggle with is the
sin of greed. Solitude is a kind of fast, and whenever we fast we are made
starkly aware of the props we miss, the little luxuries we wish were available,
and we come to realize how dependent we are on superfluous stuff. Solitude can
bring us to that place of conversion where we can see how much our self worth
has depended on what we have acquired, let this old greedy self die, and allow
the new generous self to be born. But first we need solitude. The thing is,
when we get there, we think we are alone. But suddenly this visitor named Greed
comes pounding at the door. The task, Nouwen says, is to stay in solitude long
enough that this unwelcome caller gets tired of knocking, goes away, and leaves
us alone.
I sat there reading, resting, thinking,
praying, the surf drowning out all sounds except the calls of gulls. I shut my
eyes and lay my head back on the rock. All of a sudden there was the startling cacophonous
sound of seagulls surrounding me and I opened my eyes with a start. Not ten
feet away a dozen or so were fighting over some round object on the beach, scores
more coming in overhead, screaming incessantly. Suddenly another dozen were
struggling over another round, brown object just to the right of the first
melee. Something whizzed past over my head from behind up above the riprap.
Before I knew it more and more seagulls -- many species, large and small, young
and old, several hundred --
were converging around me from all points. It felt like a
Hitchcock movie.
Before I knew it, more and more seagulls --
many species, large and small,
young and old, several hundred --
were converging around me from all points.
It felt like a Hitchcock movie.
Behind me, from the parking area
above the concrete, someone was pitching pancakes out onto the beach, gliding
through the air like frisbees, to be met by the squabbling, screaming, pecking
birds. Ten, twenty, thirty pancakes came sailing over my head, launched by
persons unaware I was on the beach below. One bird would finally get hold of
the tasty disc amidst the riot, fly away, and get only a few feet before the
pancake would break and fall out of its beak, creating another mad dash of
juking, feinting and grabbing on land and sea. I was mesmerized. The whole
experience lasted about five minutes, whereupon I heard a motor start and a
camper pull away.
Though I am unashamedly
anthropomorphizing, I had a stark picture of what greed must look like to God,
a parable asserting itself. One wants what another has, convinces himself that
he needs it, and by aggression or subterfuge seeks to get it, only to lose it
to another, and on and on it goes. The story was playing before me in real time
and I prayed, “Lord, let me hold this image as I consider the effects of greed
on my own spirit."
The beach became quiet again. Most
of the birds were flying off but several dozen remained, standing quietly in
the sand, perhaps licking their wounds (though they have no tongues), perhaps
interiorly celebrating the pancake they got or bemoaning the one that got away.
Then I remembered: at some point during the commotion something had landed quite
close to me, not two feet away, hidden from my sight by a log. Had it just been
a bird landing quickly, or was there one last pancake on the beach?
I soon had my answer, for some of the birds standing nearest began to move
toward me. One brave bird at a time would inch my way, look down at the spot, look up at me again, and look
down again, take a hesitating step, two steps forward, one step back, but
always forward, looking me in the eye as if to say, “You have what I want.”
Several got within three feet, then took off, giving up. The birds were so
close, their eyes so sharp in seeming to search mine, it was almost like I
could see into their greedy little wills (ok, admitted anthropomorphism again).
Finally, one advanced close enough to leap forward, snatch the last pancake and
take flight, others lifting, chasing, crying from behind.
I had my picture, though, and I have
not forgotten it: my loving, benevolent, gift-giving heavenly Lord, looking
into my eyes, and sadly seeing the greed therein.
Lord, teach me the lesson of the
pancakes.
~~RGM, from an earlier journal entry,
adapted for my blog November 1, 2013
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