“Wise as OWLS, Innocent as Doves” – Youth Sunday, June 6, 2010
“Wise as OWLs, Innocent as Doves”
A Reflection by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
Youth Sunday
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
June 6, 2010
One night shortly after my husband Dan and I arrived here, we took a walk up the hill from our home in North Scituate to a vantage point where one can see the tidal marsh stretching into Minot Beach. It was right after the first serious snowfall. Moonlight and starlight cast an aura on snow that answered with its own glistening array of crystalline stars. Off we went for this late evening walk, our feet crunching through the snow.
Running along more or less next to us was Google, our lovable mutt of a dog we had just adopted from the Scituate Animal Shelter. Google is also a UU dog through and through in an endless search for truth and meaning at the tip of his nose. As we walked on through the snow, it didn’t take long for him to tangle in the frost-covered brambles—part of that interconnected web that befuddles us all from time to time.
Then we heard it. “Whooooo, whooooo.” We stopped in our tracks. Dan raised the flashlight toward an ice-caked branch. There, huddled side by side, were two owls. “Whoooo, whoooo” they sang. Even Google stopped and looked up. Wise as owls, their eyes held pools of what we only wonder about. One soft body found the other soft body, warmth finding warmth.
Wise as OWLS, innocent as doves. The biblical phrase doesn’t go quite like that. Rather, in the New Testament’s Gospel According to Matthew, it’s written that Jesus sent his disciples into the larger world with a gospel of love that the world of two millennia past was as reluctant to receive as is the world of our own day. Jesus knew what his friends would face, so what was his charge?
“Behold, I send you out as sheep in the midst of wolves; so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” (Matthew 10:16)
We don’t commonly think of serpents—or snakes—as wise; but they are. I have a good friend who had a pet python. Her kids adored Willy; and she used to walk through Central Park with Willy resting on her shoulders like an elegant stole. Willy was lovable, and he was savvy—that is, wise. Serpents or snakes don’t suffer foolishness easily. But they can also be lovable.
So it is with owls. They’re known for their wisdom. But for their love? As the “Whoo’s” sounded softly through the wintry wind, two owls sang their song of love and gazed forth into the night as if they knew the churnings of the world far better than any of us.
And doves, what about doves? You’ve perhaps noticed the chalice that I wear Sunday after Sunday. It’s a peace chalice. If you look closely, you’ll see the design of a dove, olive branch in mouth, soaring to wherever.
The sign of the dove with an olive branch in her mouth is a sign of peace. The coos of a dove signal love. What are peace and love, if not innocent—not naïve, but innocent?
For you who are graduating from our OWL program, the Our Whole Lives program; for you who are graduating from high school and turning a pivotal page in your life book; for you who have taught and led and cared for and modeled wisdom and love, peace and innocence, I wish you the blessing of wisdom and innocence. May you grow in wisdom and love as those two owls mystically proclaimed in their community of two from that ice-crusted branch. May you grow in peace and love, as the dove proclaims, olive branch clasped fast in her mouth.
May each and all of you find yourselves at home with wisdom and companionship, and may you soar across the waters with that symbolic olive branch clasped close to your heart. May you do all you can do and be all you can be to know lives of love and peace.
I love you each and all.
Amen.
