I wrote this piece ten years ago for Magnificat. Apologies to those who have read it before, but it IS January 25th.
“Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?” [Acts 9:4] Authentic conversion always comes from realizing that we have been “persecuting” Christ.
In the fall of 1986, I spent thirty days at an addiction treatment center in rural Minnesota. Hiking trails meandered through the woods. The trees were turning color. One morning I crept out for a walk just past dawn. Not another soul stirred. I came upon a pond and, through the mist, saw a blue heron, standing stock still, noble head erect. I saw the heron and the heron saw me.
It was a moment from the Song of Songs, a moment of liminal space and time, an instant of such heart-stopping beauty that in my memory it has attained the level of myth. All those years while I’d been in the bars, this heron, or one like him, had been coming to the pond. All those years while I’d been drinking morning Sea Breezes at Boston’s Sullivan’s Tap, another parallel world had been breathing, suffering, praising God. Many years passed before I discovered Christ, and more years after that before I came into the Church. But in a way I can mark my conversion from that moment. In a way that heron was Christ, saying, “Heather, Heather, why are you persecuting me?”
St. Paul fell off his horse, but Christ comes in the form of a lamb, a dove, a heron. That’s not to say he’s always gentle. But he’s often gentlest when we’ve been doing terrible violence to ourselves and others. Christ never cuts us down with a gun or a sword. He looks at us with love. He says, Look at these blue-gray feathers. He says, Isn’t it lovely to be still and listen to the frogs? He looks us in the eye with love and says, “Why are you persecuting me?”
To be forgiven when we know we don’t “deserve” to be forgiven is radically transformative in a way violence can never be. To be forgiven does another kind of violence: to our whole tit-for-tat notion of crime and punishment. To be forgiven makes us realize that, unbelievable as it may seem, God needs us for something. We have a mission.
My experience with the heron wasn’t a white-light experience. It was a door opening onto what has proved to be a long and very slow spiritual awakening of, as William James put it, “the educational variety.” How often I’ve forgotten the heron. How often I’ve been harsh, rageful, importunate, intolerant, unfaithful, unkind, and just plain wrong.
When that happens I’m struck blind for a few hours or days or even months. Often a long time passes before I see that once again, I’ve been persecuting Christ.
Our offense doesn’t lie in breaking a rule. It lies in offending against love, against truth, against beauty.
What’s remarkable about St. Paul isn’t that he had a white light experience. What’s remarkable is that he retained his fervor for all the remaining years of his life.
Fyi, this and many other pieces I’ve written for Magnificat over the years have been collected into a little book called Holy Days and Gospel Reflections.
Excellent Heather! Thank you.
My pleasure, Phillip!
Heather: THIS!!! I first came to appreciate your prose (and your spirituality) from this piece. I STILL remembered it to this day . Thanks for the redux ! BLESSING
Ha I know, I love to pull out this old chestnut from time to time–The Heron Lives! Best to you, David.
Perfect! To be awakened and for our soul to be released from the darkness, baggage and distractions we can live with. Thank you!!! What a beautiful way you described it.
Thank you, Ingrid!
Since I just recently found you I’m happy happy to read an oldie but goodie! Thank you so much
Thanks, Gloria…January 25, I just couldn’t resist…
This is a beautiful reflection. Having had my own encounter with Christ through a Blue Heron, this speaks to me. And Christ does “come in the form of a lamb, a dove, a heron.” And we are all the Better for it.
Amen! Thank you so much…And as I’ve learned, the Blue Heron has been a conduit for a bunch of other people, too…obviously a bird who is very close to Christ.
Yes, I discovered that after I saw one on a walk the night before a surgery my husband had to remove a second tumor & had a stroke. It was definitely a sign Christ was/is near as my husband continues to fight.
Wow…that IS an encounter with the Heron…
I just learned you will be on the PraiseWriters tomorrow with Claire Dwyer. I am very excited to be joining you
Yes indeed! I’m so looking forward–hope to see you there!