Crows, Owls and People

Crow attacking Barn Owl

Role Reversal: 

Crows, Owls--and People!  

I came home yesterday, and as I walked up the front steps, something large (very large!), flew out of the top of one or trees next to the house--and crows went with it.  Were they chasing a hawk?  I heard a commotion of crows convening in my back yard, and once outside, I looked up into the tree to see a Barred Owl trying to ignore 6 crows trying to drive it off.  It's called  "a mobbing."  Crows know that owls kill them and their young by night--but they rule the day--and these mobbings, sometimes huge numbers of crows--gather to drive them away.  Make no mistake! At any time, an owl can turn and kill a crow--but rarely during the day. The light calms them because their laser sharp eyes don't work as well during the day.  Plus, the name "night owl" means just what we say--awake at night and asleep during the day!

But this is really one of nature's great role reversals--the way of the wilds.  Each becomes the other's predator depending on the time of day.  Look below at the owl carrying off the remains of a crow. It's hazy but clear enough! 

The Remains of a Crow

But this is the way of the wilds and the balance of nature.  However, it is one of those amazing reversals. Mullets don't turn around and eat sharks at another time of day! The reversals that we witness as people have to do with power.  The lawyer who defends the doctor in malpractice ends up being the doctor's patient.  The cop who pulls over the dentist ends up in the dentist's chair.   So forth and so on..."top dog...then under dog" a reversal of power.

William Hurt starred in "The Doctor" and we watch as the arrogant doctor finds his humanity once he becomes the patient with the tumor.  Then, when he trains a new class of interns, he asks them to become patients themselves. 

Do you want the ultimate role reversal and Truth (capital "T")?  Jesus becomes fully human and dies at human hands.  Augustine said that he became like us so we could become like him; he came down to raise us up.  There is more than the balance of nature here.  It's the love of God.
 

 ⁵Let the same mind be in you that was^* in Christ Jesus,
⁶ who, though he was in the form of God,
   did not regard equality with God
   as something to be exploited,
⁷ but emptied himself,
   taking the form of a slave,
   being born in human likeness.
And being found in human form,
⁸   he humbled himself
   and became obedient to the point of death—
   even death on a cross. 

                                         Philippians 2:5-8