Bless the LORD, my soul; all my being, bless his holy name! Bless the LORD, my soul; and do not forget all his gifts, Who pardons all your sins, and heals all your ills, Who redeems your life from the pit, and crowns you with mercy and compassion, Who fills your days with good things, so your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. (Psalm 103:1-5)
Welcome to my website. This site is for family and friends, and for anyone who happens to stop by. I talk about some of the important things in my life and some of the many ups and downs I’ve experienced, always with the hope that you might take away something of value for your own journey. Life is very difficult, but that doesn’t mean we have to be afraid. And difficulty does not equal despair. We all can learn how to make lemonade out of lemons. In my life I’ve found the one absolute constant to be the Faith of the Catholic Church, and I talk a lot about my faith here.
Hawks, Eagles, and the Catholic Faith
The red-tailed hawk, buteo jamaicensis, is my favorite bird. Hawks are large creatures, with females (the larger of the two) having a wingspan that approaches five feet. When there are a male and female together in season, you might see them flying a kind of courtship dance of great swooping circles in the sky. Hawks can hover and they can dive at great speed when they are pursuing prey.
The hawk has something the eagle has not.
Like eagles, hawks are raptors, that is, hunters–but the hawk has something the eagle has not. Eagles are noble, and rare; hawks are common as the rain. The range of the red-tailed hawk extends from Alaska to Florida, and you see them in places you’d never see an eagle.
The Catholic Faith is more like the hawk than the eagle, for the Faith exalts the ordinary and the everyday. Every human being starts out just like everyone else, but by the sacrament of Baptism we are changed; we become a wholly new sort of creature, each one of us becoming a clear conduit of the Eternal Light in a way that the world has never seen before. We grow in holiness by consuming the Eucharist, which is made miraculously from ordinary flatbread and wine every time Mass is celebrated. Just as the everyday bread and wine become the stuff of God, we who once were common become noble, and we will never be the same again. It’s kind of like the hawk, who in his own way is noble as the eagle, even though he is just being himself.
B.A. "PrairieHawk" Schefter 