Nevermore

Elijah the Tishbite, from Tishbe in Gilead, said to Ahab: “As the LORD, the God of Israel, lives, whom I serve, during these years there shall be no dew or rain except at my word.” The LORD then said to Elijah: “Leave here, go east and hide in the Wadi Cherith, east of the Jordan. You shall drink of the stream, and I have commanded ravens to feed you there.” So he left and did as the LORD had commanded. He went and remained by the Wadi Cherith, east of the Jordan. Ravens brought him bread and meat in the morning, and bread and meat in the evening, and he drank from the stream. (1 Kings 17:1-6)

Today’s reading mentions ravens.  God commanded ravens to feed Elijah.  The ravens brought bread and meat in the morning and evening.  Good birds serving God and Elijah!   But wait.   Haven’t ravens been linked to evil made clear by Edgar Allen Poe’s poem The Raven?  This cartoon from The Wizard of Id is another example.  Poe’s last two stanzas read:

“Be that word our sign of parting, bird or fiend!” I shrieked, upstarting—“Get thee back into the tempest and the Night’s Plutonian shore! Leave no black plume as a token of that lie thy soul hath spoken! Leave my loneliness unbroken!—quit the bust above my door! Take thy beak from out my heart, and take thy form from off my door!” Quoth the Raven “Nevermore.”

And the Raven, never flitting, still is sitting, still is sitting on the pallid bust of Pallas just above my chamber door; and his eyes have all the seeming of a demon’s that is dreaming, and the lamp-light o’er him streaming throws his shadow on the floor; and my soul from out that shadow that lies floating on the floor shall be lifted—nevermore!

This much maligned bird is considered by some Native Americans as bearers of magic and a harbinger of messages from the cosmos.  They believe messages beyond space and time are nestled in the midnight wings of the Raven and come to only those worthy of the knowledge. The raven is considered to be a creature of metamorphosis; it symbolizes change and transformation.  In other words, in the words of Yoda, “Evil not is this creature.”

This black bird’s reputation should be restored and reclaimed as a bird favored by God.  Holding this bird as a symbol of evil, we must quoth – nevermore! 

Deacon David Pierce