Surprising Ways

Inspired by my experience relayed below, I call this both
"Crow Angel" and "Raven Angel" depending on my mood.
© O.Douglas Jennings. All rights reserved.

A sense of joy often comes to me in a variety of surprising ways.

Sometimes it is when I’m in joyous fellowship with others and see the hand of the Lord at work in the events, hearts and minds of brothers and sisters in faith and humanity.

Sometimes it’s in the quiet stillness of dusk when I see a blessed breeze blow over the tops of the trees and remember the nearness of God.

Not too long ago, I while mowing the lawn, I twisted my ankle. It happened at the very back of our yard near the retaining wall where the yard is sharply sloped. Inexplicably, even though I had mowed over this stretch of turf hundreds of times, my foot caught in a nook of the ground that I couldn’t see under the grass and it bent grotesquely with a crunch of cartilage and muscle. The shock of pain made me dizzy as I released the safety handle that abruptly turned off the mower. I sat, half falling, on the sloping ground. All my strength was sapped. I actually wanted to lay down and close my eyes. I stretched my legs out and leaned on my elbow when my wife, Chacha, who had seen me from the kitchen window, came out to see what was the matter.

“What’s going on?”, she queried, keeping any alarm in her voice under control.

“I twisted my ankle!” I laughed weakly through the pain.

She helped me walk to the house as I thought, “Our yard is too long!”. But before we got to the steps on the patio, I felt extremely faint. In a cold sweat, I said, “I have to sit down.”

“Let’s just get in the house!” Chacha said. “You can lay down and I’ll get you some ice for your ankle.”

But I grabbed the back of the nearest patio chair and turned it around. “No. I have to sit down. Just give me a moment.”

“Ok. I’ll get the ice ready.” Chacha said as she reluctantly left my side.

I was happy to sit and feel what by now was a cooling breeze on my clammy skin. I tried to detect my pulse and assess my breathing. Was something else going on? Was I having some other physical crisis? Stroke? Heart attack? Though panic threatened to engulf me, I tried to relax and focus on the sensation of the soothing breeze and the sound of late-afternoon birds.

Then an inexplicable sense of joy came to me as I heard a crow. It’s calling was nearby. Not just the typical “Caw! Caw!” but a crow call with an extra kind of gargling sound mixed in. I remembered a documentary I had watched about how young crows make warbling kinds of sounds before they learn and settle in to the “traditional” calls.

For some reason, at that point I knew I would be okay. I smiled to myself. “Go for it, little dude!” I thought as the young crow continued to practice his caw-craft. God was speaking to me through that crow, I thought. The breeze, the crow, the lowering orb of the golden Sun. I felt revived enough to go inside to ice my ankle and rest. My joy was strangely sweet.

There was no bruising or any other signs of broken bones. My ankle felt tender the next day but was notably improved. I walked slower for a while as it healed. By the end of the week I finished mowing the yard.

Later I was inspired to make a drawing of an imaginary “Crow Angel”. Who knows but that God used an angelic crow to uplift me that day. Even now I keep my eyes and ears open for any new surprises of joy in the wonderful natural world around me that is touched with God’s signals of love and comfort.

Epilogue: Here's a video clip of a baby crow practicing his vocals:

Crow Baby babble!

"Scientists call baby crows’ vocalizations “babbling” because they rehearse their vocalizations in a similar way to human babies. When young, baby crows don’t make the traditional crow caw, but instead produce sounds that are similar to ducks, like quacks.… pic.twitter.com/UCvedZxHak

— Zero State Reflex (@ZeroStateReflex) November 14, 2024