Something to crow about
Nancy Kennedy
One of my favorite YouTube videos shows a crow in Russia figuring out how to sled down a snowy rooftop on a jar lid.
The bird places the lid on top of the roof, stands on it and slides down the slope — and then does it again!
It picks the lid up with its beak and this time carries it to the top of another section of the roof.
However, that doesn’t work as well, so it goes back to the original spot and slides down.
It tries a fourth time, but can’t get the jar lid to stay and flies away.
Also in the video, you hear the young voices of the kids who are recording the crow’s antics, laughing and chattering in their foreign language.
Sometimes when I feel overwhelmed at the speed of insanity in the world, I watch videos of animals doing genius things.
Yesterday, I watched a chimpanzee in a zoo using a broom to sweep its living space. It even dipped it in a bucket of water and used the broom bristles to scrub a spot on the ground.
Another video showed a monkey named Eli brushing his teeth and another monkey putting money in a vending machine and buying a bottle of juice.
But my favorite is the sledding crow. It wasn’t simply mimicking human behavior. It was thinking — and not about survival. It was thinking about having fun.
Every once in a while we get a glimpse of creation as it was meant to be — joyous and creative.
Amid the fires and floods, monster storms and the sheer violence of natural catastrophes and constant, senseless killings, God sometimes brings us back to Eden and shows us how things once were and will be once again someday.
I think God gets a huge kick out of watching birds figure out how to have fun with a jar lid after a snowstorm.
But I think he gets a bigger kick out of watching kids in Russia discovering a sledding crow, capturing it on video, putting it on YouTube and then having someone in Florida find it on a day she needed to see it to be reminded that God sees and hears and cares.
For most of us, life has moments, even seasons, of difficulty. It’s easy to think that God doesn’t care.
But Jesus said that God cares even about sparrows.
“What is the price of five sparrows? A couple of pennies? Not much more than that,” Jesus said. “Yet God does not forget a single one of them. And he knows the number of hairs on your head! Never fear, you are far more valuable to him than a whole flock of sparrows (Luke 12:6–7).”
If he cares enough to let a crow in Russia have a ski vacation, how much more will he stoop from heaven to meet our needs? More than that — how much more will he find ways to show us his kindness and give us glimpses of the coming new creation?
His grace is sufficient, his mercy is great. And his delight is a healing balm as we wait with all creation, longing for the day of restoration when he makes all things new.
Maybe he’ll even give us a chance to sled with the crows.
View the video on YouTube at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=hn0OjCneVUg.Contact Nancy Kennedy at 352-564-2927 (leave a message) or email at nkennedy@chronicleonline.com.
