Crow
Ministerial Meandering
Crow
I hear it’s making a comeback in Lithuania since the departure of the Russians in 1991 - and it was a stand-by or go-to in Southern Australia when the mutton gave out. But most of us have probably not eaten crow literally. Except it was in a literary milieu that I just finished eating my helping of it - triumphantly handed to me by my wife as she finished the last crossword clue. ‘A lethal disease of plants characterized by black spores’ (4 letters) - well, of course you all know this; Smut. Obvious ain’t it? Except that my brain tells me that smut is a soot deposit or a dodgy joke. Determined not to be thwarted, Sheila finds she is right - the word being derived from some obscure German origin. At best of times I defer to Sheila on matters botanical, but I thought I was on safe ground here. It appears not.
The ability to eat crow or humble pie - (depending on whether you are having gravy or custard with it) - is never a wonderful experience, but it is, annoyingly, a useful one from time to time. The acceptance of not being right in every circumstance is something we should all be used to, though some of us find it harder to take than others. Others still - have an attitude that never allows them to be wrong - even when faced with real facts to the contrary. That is the situation with the (lack of) US government at the present time, being that it is led by a compound idiot whose self-delusional ability has never been matched - certainly in living memory. But enough on Agent Orange.
For those of us - and I would perhaps suggest that would be most of us - we do not like to be wrong, and we like it even less when we have it pointed out, and we positively abhor it when it happens in public. Colonel Nathan Jessup, (played by Jack Nicholson) in ‘A Few Good Men’, clearly doesn’t, as his comment to being shown up is, “Well, don’t I feel the *-ing asshole.” But then, knowing the movie and the roles Nicholson is prone to playing, one might say, ‘Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?’
Lessons in humility are hard, and even when we are forced to admit we are wrong, we would rather walk away than own up. I have quoted Kipling’s ‘If’ before in these MM’s, and he has a line for pride; ‘…And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise.’ This is not about owning up to being wrong, but perhaps swanning away from situations where a more modest approach might have been better.
It doesn’t stop there either. There are those times where you are right, but rubbing it in to the person who is not can crush them so badly they may never recover. We need to be sensitive to those moments and not capitalize on them. How you treat your momentarily defeated opponent - beit in a crossword puzzle or a more crucial life lesson - determines the sort of person you are. Do you take delight in kicking them when they’re down? Or maybe just a delicious helping of schadenfreude is enough to let you stride away with a smirk on your face.
‘WWJD’ might suggest another course of action; another exercise of power. Let me propose this; in Christian communities, power shouldn’t be about control—it should be about serving others, just like Jesus did. He used his power to help, heal, include those on the edges, and stand up to injustice. That kind of power isn’t about being in charge—it’s about love, humility, and lifting others up.
And sometimes you and I will have to eat crow even when we know we are right. Jesus humbled himself to such a place where false witnesses lied about him and screamed for his torture and death. I thought about that a lot, and then came to the conclusion that it wasn’t crow Jesus ate at all - it was a phoenix.
Philip+