Come Fly With Me | Part III | Birds of Prey

I've been learning about Birds of Prey - Hawks, in particular. 

Did you know they can be Trained in a sport called Falconry? 

Somehow, Trained seems like a more Beautiful word to me than Tamed. 

Train /trān/

[verb] : to Teach (a person or animal) a particular skill or type of behavior through Practice and Instruction over a period of Time.

[origin] : Latin (trahere - to pull/to draw) 

Have you ever seen a Hawk catch an animal in flight? If you live in my town, there's a good chance you have. If you Pay Attention, you might see them sitting on top of street and interstate light posts watching the barren fields in early spring. 

Beautiful, powerful, silent, and swift, they can soar at immense heights and in the blink of an eye dive down to effortlessly to seize their prey. As amazing as it is to experience, I can't help but feel an Ache for the small creatures trapped inside their talons. 

As I learned about the sport of Falconry, one thing in particular was absolutely clear: these Birds aren't 'Tamed' to make less powerful and easier to control; they are 'Trained' because they are Powerful...and there really is no Controlling them. 

Here's a word for you: 

Creance /kree-uhns/

[noun] : a light cord attached to the leg of a Hawk to prevent escape during Training.

[origin] : Old French (credence - Belief or acceptance of something as True)

A Creance is introduced to practice flying Hawks outdoors after the Manning (Trust-building) process is complete. The success of the Training is crucially dependent on the Trust Bond that is built with the Hawk and the Handler within the first 24 hours of Manning, most of which the time is spent trying to calmly Hold the screeching and flapping Bird as it tries to Bait (Fly Away). 

When Hawks are fully Trained, however, they don't need a Creance. When they are fully Trained, they will Free Fly and Return to their Handler every time on their own Free Will.

Like many us, however, they can be Stubborn. 

I was drawn to a book on a bookstore shelf years ago called, H is for Hawk, a Memoir by Helen Macdonald. They are an Author, Poet, Naturalist, and research scholar at the University of Cambridge, and an avid lover of Raptors. 

The book sat for years, unread, and I spotted it recently when going through unused books to donate. It was in my Rid pile at first, and then Something told me it was time to read it.

"It was Death I had seen. I wasn't sure what it had made me feel.

But there was more to that day than my first sight of Death. There was something else, that also gave me pause. As the afternoon wore on, men started disappearing from our party. One by one their Hawks had decided they wanted no more of proceedings, saw no good reason to Return to their Handlers, and instead sat in Trees staring out over acres of fading pasture and wood, fluffed and implacable...

'No matter how Tame and Lovable,' I'd read in Frank Illingworth's Falcons and Falconry, 'there are days when a goshawk displays a peculiar disposition. She is jumpy, fractious, unsociable. She may develop these Symptoms of Passing Madness during an afternoon's sport, and then the falconer is in for hours of annoyance.'

These men didn't seem annoyed, fatalistic merely. They shrugged their waxed cotton shoulders, filled and lit pipes, waved the rest of us farewell...

The disposition of their Hawks was peculiar. But it wasn't unsociable. It was something much stranger. It seemed that the Hawks couldn't see us at all, that they'd slipped out of our world entirely and moved into another, Wilder world from which humans had been utterly erased. These men knew they had vanished. Nothing could be done except Wait."

Waiting. Nobody likes it much, or that Christianese phrase, "Wait on God's Timing." 

Wait on God? As if He is a Client in our Spiritual Accounts Receivable? 

Be Honest for a moment. Have you ever felt like your prayers were those annoying little payment reminders? "Hey God. Haven't seen my Blessing show up in the mail yet. Do you have the correct address on file?" 

Or do you ever think, perhaps, that maybe God is Waiting on us to come down from our Trees? 

Similar to Train, here's another word that means to pull/to draw out, though not just a word - a Name: 

Moses. 

"She named him Moses, saying, 'I Drew him out of the Water'." (Exodus 2:10, NIV)

Moses was Drawn out of the Nile River, the Water Intended to kill him, and spared for a Great Purpose. He was no stranger to Waiting. The Story goes like this: 

"Many years later, when Moses had Grown Up..." 

Did he, though? How old is a Grown Up? Does Growing Up ever end? The Scholars say he was about 40. Do 40 year olds feel Grown Up? Let's keep reading: 

"...he went out to visit his own people, the Hebrews, and he saw how hard they were forced to work. During his visit, he saw an Egyptian beating one of his fellow Hebrews.

After looking in all directions to make sure no one was watching, Moses killed the Egyptian and hid the body in the sand.

The next day, when Moses went out to visit his people again, he saw two Hebrew men fighting. 'Why are you beating up your Friend?' Moses said to the one who had started the fight. 

The man replied, 'Who appointed you to be our prince and judge? Are you going to kill me as you killed that Egyptian yesterday?'

Then Moses was Afraid, thinking, 'Everyone Knows what I did'." (Exodus 2:11-14, New Living Translation)

So Moses runs away in Fear and Shame to a land called Midian, and there he finds himself once again near Water; this time, a Well:

"Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters who came as usual to draw water and fill the water troughs for their father's flocks. But some other shepherds came and chased them away. So Moses jumped up and rescued the girls from the shepherds. 

Then he Drew Water for their flocks." (2:16-17)

It was Moses' turn to Draw Out from the Water. One day an Egyptian Prince, the next, watering sheep in the middle of a foreign desert wilderness. His reward for such Humility? A wife: the priest's daughter, Zipporah (meaning, Bird). 

So the Blessing arrived. But what about the Purpose? More Waiting. About 40 years, so they say. 

"Years passed, and the king of Egypt died. But the Israelites continued to groan under their burden of Slavery. They cried out for help, and their cry rose up to God.

God Heard their groaning, and he Remembered his covenant Promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. He looked down on the people of Israel and knew it was time to act." (2:23-25)

God Remembered? As in...He forgot? You'd think He wouldn't need the annoying payment reminders to fulfill His Promises to His Children.

Or perhaps, as C.S. Lewis once Artfully pointed out in The Horse and His Boy, maybe this Father, Himself, likes to be Remembered and Asked and sets us a Good Example.

So God used Moses to fulfill His Promise of leading His people out of Egyptian Slavery. And then what? More Waiting. And this time, Wandering. Another 40 years. 

But it didn't have to be that way. The reason they were Lost? They didn't Trust their Handler.

Trust takes Time. And Patience.   

Helen leaves us with this Grown-Up Lesson from their own Father when they were nine, Patiently watching the Surry sky, Waiting to see Hawks:

"When you are nine, waiting is hard...my dad looked at me, half exasperated, half amused, and explained something. He explained Patience. He said it was the most important thing of all to remember, this: that when you wanted to see something very badly, sometimes you had to stay still, stay in the same place, remember how much you wanted to see it, and be Patient...you Learn."