About Doves

We had an influx of doves this morning. A dozen or more mourning doves appeared at the pan feeder on the deck rail; there were so many of them that they were bumping into each other and kicking the seeds out onto the deck. Some waited patiently on the rail; others couldn't wait and kept fluttering at the others until they could get a spot at the seeds. This preponderance of doves was unusual; we frequently will have one or two of them at one of the feeders, but I don't recall having a crowd like this before.

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Joe and I have always thought of doves as not exactly the brightest birds around. They appear to be very stupid, as though their tiny brains can't manage their big bodies. Sometimes they seem oblivious to the approach of a cat, bumbling out of the way at the last minute. Their clumsiness seems to be a trademark. This morning as we watched a botched landing, Joe remarked, "They look as though they don't know how they got there." I couldn't help but agree.

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But here's the weird thing. Last night at church the dove was a character in the sermon. The gist of the sermon was God in relationship to Noah, and by extension in relationship to us. Pr. G talked about Noah's sending out the dove three times before disembarking (just noticed that "ark" in the middle of the word -- how cool is that!). This morning, watching our feeder guests, I wondered at Noah's choice of a dove to send out. I'm pretty much amazed that the bird was able to find its way back to the ark the first two times, and am still not totally sure what happened the third time! What ever happened to the concept of the wise old owl? Noah sent out a dove? What was he thinking?

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And, of course, we see the dove at the baptism of Jesus, and later on in Christendom used everywhere as the symbol of the Holy Spirit.

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I know God is famous for turning things upside-down. And perhaps it is only the doves Near Philadelphia that seem to be so dumb. Maybe it is a case of appearances being deceiving and they are actually of at least average bird IQ. Or, finally, it could be that there are other types of doves that I've no experience with that make sense in the scripture stories. In any event, great fodder to chew on theologically. Will be interested to see what, if any, comments this generates.