Former Co-Pastor Sylvia Peterson
We’ve watched a lot of documentaries since the pandemic started. Those that explore man-made disasters are especially upsetting. The oil spill in 2010 off the coast of Louisiana is one of them.
The initial explosion killed 11 people and injured 17 others.
More than 200 million gallons of crude oil pumped into the Gulf of Mexico for a total of 87 days and continues to wash up on the shores of Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Florida. Over 8,000 birds, turtles, and mammals were dead just six months later, including many that were already on the endangered species list.
It was when I watched the dying oil-soaked birds that a soul-deep ache gripped me in a place usually reserved for the suffering of a loved one. Like an ornithological voyeur, I couldn’t look away.
A brown pelican was trapped in the dark, stinky goo. His distinctive pouched bill was open as he gasped for air. His magnificent wings (which can span up to eight feet) occasionally flopped as though he wasn’t willing to concede defeat, as if he might still be able to rise above it all.
The photographer was quoted as saying, “In the eyes you can see that something is wrong. The eyes always tell a story.”
An Audubon naturalist described how oil prevents birds from regulating their body temperature, inhibits their breathing and fills their bloodstreams with toxins. Were they able to lay eggs, the shells would no longer be white and filled with the promise of new life. They would be a muddy brown, the occupant dying before it was even born.
What I saw in those pictures was a holocaust for birds, fish, turtles, plants, dolphins and everything else that lives and is nourished under the sea.
In Matthew Chapter 6, Jesus asks us to consider the birds of the air, “Look at the birds, free and unfettered, not tied down to a job description, careless in the care of God. And you count far more to him than birds.”
We matter to God. So do the birds, turtles and mammals.
If you visit Florence, Italy’s Galleria dell’Accademia and walk down the hall past Michaelangelo’s David, you will see Pacino di Bonaguida’s “Tree of Life,” which dates back to about 1310. A peculiar element rests at the top of the painting: a pelican.
Catholic columnist Fr. William Saunders explained, “The symbolism of the mother pelican feeding her little baby pelicans is rooted in an ancient legend which preceded Christianity. The legend was that in time of famine, the mother pelican wounded herself, striking her breast with the beak to feed her young with her blood to prevent starvation. Another version of the legend was that the mother fed her dying young with her blood to revive them from death, but in turn lost her own life.”
In the hymn “Adoro Te,” St. Thomas Aquinas addresses Jesus, “Pelican of Mercy, cleanse me in thy precious blood.”
Looking at the images of the Gulf’s dead and dying pelicans filled me with profound sadness, then I began to wonder. When was the last time I felt that degree of passionate grief for Jesus on his cross? When did the unfairness of his death propel me to my knees in humble perplexity? When did I last look into his exhausted eyes?
The eyes always tell a story.
I don’t begin to have foreknowledge of when the Gulf Coast’s horror will end, but I know the story of Jesus. Like the Pelican Legend, he fed us with his own blood. And like the legendary mother Pelican, it cost him his life.
•••
Sylvia Peterson is former co-pastor for Bald Hill Community Church and the author of “The Red Door: Where Hurt and Holiness Collide,” which can be purchased at Amazon or Barnes & Noble. She and her husband are chaplains for the Bald Hills Fire Department. You can email her at sylviap7@comcast.net.
