Years ago John Epps told the story (which he credits to Gary Tomlinson) of the Osprey who sees a ripple on the surface of the water and swoops down to claim her prey, only to discover that she latched onto a whale. And with the hook-like barbs on her talons, there’s no way she can let go.
I admit I don’t remember what John was illustrating with the story or what point he was making. But the story itself made an impression and I have used it for years, most recently in a talk I’ve given the last six years, to our Leadership McKinney classes, on the subject of vocation, or calling.
I conclude the story in my talk by saying that this Osprey, with the whale locked in her talons, is facing an existential crisis. The crisis is not that she has a whale in her talons; the crisis is, will she regard it as a burden to bare or a gift to share.
I then suggest that there comes a time, perhaps even several times, when most of us have that kind of experience in which we are awakened to the fact that we have our lives on our hands and the world on our shoulders. And, like the Osprey, the experience precipitates an existential crisis; shall we receive this “life on our hands and world on our shoulders” as a burden to bare or a gift to share? I call it an “Osprey moment,” and how we answer the question of burden or gift makes all the difference.
The most impactful Osprey moment of my life, at least until now, came with the death of MLK, when I felt most stridently the assault of the weight of the world and sensed the inescapable demand to do something in service to that world. It bore all the similarities to what Tillich called the “grace” happening, or what the New Testament writers called “metanoia”—to be born again. I went into the tomb, as it were, for three days immediately thereafter, and three years later it led me to the Order Ecumenical and many of you, and since then to every challenge and opportunity that has emerged.
I reached 80 years of age six months ago, and that Osprey moment is as prominent in my consciousness now as ever before. Even now and ever so, I live in the tension between both the dread and the anticipation that the Osprey could visit again, and with her that haunting question, which I would have no choice but to answer.
Randy
