“My mouth speaks praise with joy on my lips–whenever I ponder you on my bed, whenever I meditate on you in the middle of the night—because you’ve been a help to me and I shout with joy for the protection of your wings.” (Ps 63:5b-6)
I’ve never been one to get overly excited about Shark Week, but (cue “Jaws” music) sharks snuck up on me last week and I couldn’t look away.
I’d heard good things about the BBC series Blue Planet II and an episode happened to be on last Saturday night as I was flipping around to see what was on television. The focus for this episode was on the Pacific Ocean and one segment was about a particular rookery of baby albatrosses (yes, a group of albatrosses is called a rookery—I looked it up) and their first attempts to fly. One’s first thought is probably, “Oh, how cute!” but this was no ordinary location. It was on a tiny island in the Pacific and the challenge for each albatross was that as it made its way out into the water, still trying to get the hang of its wings, there was a school of tiger sharks swimming near the shore, just waiting for said albatross to land on the water to rest.
What a dilemma for each albatross! They had to learn how to fly in order to find food, but they had some hungry sharks waiting for the slightest misstep. Near the end of the segment, the narrator said that, actually, sharks don’t have the best timing in the world so the vast majority of albatrosses learn to fly just fine. But what is burned into my brain (and what made for the most riveting viewing) is the few albatrosses who didn’t make it.
Fear can have the same impact on us, I think. In more spiritually lucid moments, we can look back on our lives and name the many moments where God was there for us. And yet any time a fear-inducing moment occurs, it’s tempting to go into Worst-Case Scenario Thinking and assume that (a) we’re on our own and (b) the spiritual sharks are going to eat us for lunch.
That’s why some kind of life review is a really great spiritual practice. I’m always encouraging folks to try the examen, but even if you don’t make this a daily practice, try a weekly or monthly time of looking back and answer these questions. What fears were most prevalent? Did you sense God’s presence? Did your worst fears come true? There may occasionally be times when you answer “yes” to that last question, but my guess is that most of the time, we realize that the God who has been faithful, the God who has been a liberator throughout history, has continued to be both of those things in your life, too. And that allows us to both be protected by God’s wings and take flight ourselves.