learning

Story: ‘Apapane Leadership

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 3 Comments

July 21, 2024

Jeremiah 23:1-6
Mark 6:30-34, 53-56

After the eggs have hatched and the chicks have learned to fly, many of the birds of the ohi’a and koa forest will come together in mixed flocks of ‘apapane, ‘amakihi, ‘akepa, and ‘alawi. They stay together to find ohi’a and mamane trees in blossom, which would also have attracted some tasty bugs.

It was the custom of one flock on the slopes of Mauna Loa to select a leader each week to keep the flock together and organize a watch for dangerous or suspicious creatures like cats, ‘io, pueo, and, well, people. The leader would look around for trees bright with flowers and guide the hungry birds toward them, while making sure nobody got left behind. It wasn’t the easiest thing for a bird to do, but most of them handled it pretty well.

One ‘apapane had been eagerly awaiting his turn to be flock leader. He was no longer that young, having seen a few summers and winters. He was something of a silent critic of the weekly leaders, silently scoring them on his own checklist. That one didn’t spot the mamane tree in blossom as fast as he had. This other one had been slow to get the birds moving. And this other one hadn’t properly spotted the watcher birds for ‘io. They’d spotted the hawk in plenty of time anyway, but it hadn’t been right.

At last came the week when the birds in the flock chose him as their leader for the next week. He was proud. He was excited. He was also… going to do something fairly complicated for the first time, and he was absolutely convinced that he knew exactly what should happen.

The result, the next morning, was a lot of birds screeching at one another, with their purported leader screaming the most and the loudest. He screeched at the ones who were supposed to be watching when they perched on a branch other than the one he’d selected. He screeched when they were ready to head to a new set of trees, and screeched when one or two birds headed off in the wrong direction. He screeched when a bird remained behind, and nearly pecked his tail as he flew right behind him to get him to the rest of the flock. He screeched when it was time to nap. He screeched when it was time to settle down to sleep.

When he turned about, one of the older birds, an ‘apapane kupuna, was perched behind him. He opened his beak to screech at her, but shut it quickly. He knew better than to screech at her.

“What have you been doing?” she said, “and don’t screech at me.”

“I’ve been leading,” he said, “like I’m supposed to.”

“You haven’t been leading like you’re supposed to,” she said rather severely. “You’ve been driving like you’re not supposed to. You’ve had birds who know perfectly well what to do confused and upset. Some of them went hungry today. While you were chasing that one bird there were two others that set off in the wrong direction and I had to go get them.”

“They should have listened to me!” he said.

“How could they,” she asked, “when you didn’t give them a clear direction?”

He was silent for a moment.

“You’ll try it again tomorrow,” said the kupuna ‘apapane, “and tomorrow you’ll plan, and you’ll chirp softly, and you’ll listen to the birds who know what they’re doing, and you’ll keep an eye on things and let other birds know when there’s a problem that they can help you with.”

“Be wise,” she said, “and attentive, and assuring. That will keep the flock with you, and fed, and comforted, and safe.”

Oh, it took some work, I tell you. But she was nearby the next day whenever he opened his beak to screech, and only one or two screeches got out. The day after he didn’t screech at all. By the time his week as leader was over, they followed him gratefully and gladly. Because he learned from his mistakes, and he learned how to lead.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories in full and in advance, but I tell them from memory and from improvisation. What you hear in the recording is not what you read above it.

Photo of an ‘apapane by Eric Anderson.

Teach Us, Jesus

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 6 Comments

“As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd, and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd, and he began to teach them many things.” – Mark 6:34

Bring your compassion, Jesus,
for our shepherds howl like wolves.
They lay the rod of law with harshness
on the poor and spare the ones in power.

Teach us, Jesus.

Bring your compassion, Jesus,
for our shepherds carelessly use words
that others hear, and hearing ponder.
Pondering, they set themselves to violence.

Teach us, Jesus.

Bring your compassion, Jesus,
for the shepherds cannot find the way
that leads between our Scyllas and Charybdises,
and lost, we founder in moral morass.

Teach us, Jesus.

Bring your compassion, Jesus,
and teach us many things,
like how the shepherd cares first for the sheep,
whereas the predator consumes them.

Teach us, Jesus.

We are sheep without a shepherd.
Teach us many things.
And may we, by God’s grace,
learn.

A poem/prayer based on Mark 6:30-34, 53-56, the Revised Common Lectionary Gospel Reading for Year B, Proper 11 (16).

The image is Christ Preaching Amongst a Crowd of People, pen and ink. Artist unknown. Found at WellcomeImages. https://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/obf_images/a0/a1/69c69bd8f2f91424aa360aeb47d6.jpg
Gallery: https://wellcomeimages.org/indexplus/image/V0049499.html
Wellcome Collection gallery (2018-03-28): https://wellcomecollection.org/works/ycntxjvs
CC-BY-4.0, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=36668704.

Story: Not Doing So Fine

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 3 Comments

June 30, 2024

Lamentations 3:22-33
Mark 5:21-43

He was the oldest pueo in the nest. He was the best. He did things right.

At least, that was his opinion.

It wasn’t his younger sister’s opinion, but that frequently happens with younger brothers or sisters. They tend to think an older (or a younger, come to think of it) sibling can’t do anything right. Oldest children, however, or oldest fledglings in this case, tend to think, “I’m right. I’ve got this. Depend on me.”

And before you ask, yes, I was the oldest child in my family.

To his sorrow, it turned out his mother didn’t think he did everything right, either. She wasn’t like his sister, who didn’t think he did anything at all right. No, Mother was far more specific. She didn’t like the way he flew, or hunted for food, or caught it. “You’re beating your wings too fast,” she’d tell him. “You’re not paying enough attention while you’re circling,” she told him. And, of course, “You’re coming down too fast.”

The problem was that everything she told him happened to be correct. He was an overeager flier, and he tired himself out. In that fatigue haze, he didn’t look carefully for mice on the ground, and he’d miss them. So far his dives to catch prey hadn’t been complete disasters, but they weren’t getting better, either.

“I’m doing fine,” he hooted at his mother.

“No, you’re not,” she hooted back.

Exasperated, he flew off alone, without his mother or his sister, to avoid her steady barrage of corrections.

That worked. Well, it stopped the criticisms. At least the ones he could hear with his ears. His mother had succeeded, however, in creating some mother memory in his head, and he could still hear her telling him to fly slower, look more carefully, and for pity’s sake, control your dives.

But he didn’t change any of that. Which is why, after missing several swoops and getting hungrier and hungrier, he made a desperate dive for a mouse and crashed right into a bush. He crawled out, leaving behind several feathers in the process, and found his little sister waiting for him.

“Are you OK?” she asked, and she meant it.

“Mostly,” he said, feeling rather bruised.

“You need to talk to Mom,” she said. “Actually, you need to listen to Mom.”

He knew he did, but he also knew how much he’d annoyed her. “I don’t think she’d help me after all I’ve put her through,” he said.

His sister shook her head. “She absolutely will,” she fussed at him. “Go ask Mom for help. Say you’re sorry. But ask her for help. She will.”

They flew back together, and he did say he was sorry, and he did ask for help, and he finally started following her instructions, and he finally started to learn.

His sister couldn’t resist telling him, “I told you so,” but he was grateful to both of them anyway.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories in advance, then tell them from memory. I improvise a lot.

Photo by Bettina Arrigoni, via HarmonyonPlanetEarth – Pueo (Hawaiian Owl)|Saddle Rd | 2013-12-17at17-45-012Uploaded by snowmanradio, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=30241884

Story: Mother Memory

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 3 Comments

June 23, 2024

1 Samuel 17:32-49
Mark 4:35-41

The ‘amakihi was, everyone had to admit, an adult. Even her mother had to admit it. She was young, sure, but she had her adult feathering, she had lots of hours of flight time, and she knew the difference between a tasty bug and a yucky bug.

(Which I don’t, by the way. I’m inclined to think they’re all yucky bugs.)

Her mother, however, continued to give her good advice. She pointed out the tasty bugs. She pointed out the blooming ohi’a blossoms. She pointed out the ripe fruit. She even said, “Oh, look, it’s nighttime,” as the sun set beyond Mauna Loa.

“Mother is so boring,” said our adult ‘amakihi of a daughter.

“Why do you tell me these things all the time?” she asked one day, and her mother replied, “Because a day will come when I’m not around when you have a question. I want to make sure I’m always with you in your memories for such a time.”

“But it’s so boring,” said the daughter, but she said it to herself because she didn’t want her mother to hear.

One day, exasperated by another recital of the bugs that weren’t good to eat, she took off and flew fast and far. She didn’t pay a lot of attention to where she was going. When she got hungry, she’d stop for a nectar snack or a bug break. Then off she flew again.

When nighttime came, she realized that she had no idea where she was.

What should she do? she wondered. And as if her mother was there, but she wasn’t, she heard in her memory the words, “Look, it’s nighttime. Find a branch with greens around it and settle down to sleep.”

So she did. In the morning her mother’s voice in her memory guided her to tasty bugs and ripe fruit. But now she had to remember the more difficult thing: how to find her way home.

“Look at the slopes,” said her mother in her memory. “We don’t live on Mauna Loa, so don’t fly that way. But fly up the slopes of Kilauea until you find the crater at the top.”

She followed the rising slopes but didn’t turn up Mauna Loa. After some time, she saw some familiar trees. After a little longer, she saw the great crater at the summit. She made her way around it until she found the stand of trees where her nest had been.

And… found her mother.

Her mother fussed at her for a while about being away overnight, but her daughter said, “Please, let me say this,” and mother fell silent.

“Thank you,” said her daughter, “for being with me in my memory to get me home.”

I’m afraid that from time to time afterward, she did get exasperated with her mother and think she was boring, but… she never fussed or protested, because of how important it was to have her mother in her memory to help her find her way home.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories ahead of time, but I tell them from memory. And sometimes, as today, things happen that have to be acknowledged – like a mother clear saying to her son, “I told you so.”

Photo of an ‘amakihi by Eric Anderson.

Story: Over and Over

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 4 Comments

June 16, 2024

1 Samuel 15:34-16:13
Mark 4:26-34

The ‘apapane was still young. So young, in fact, that his feathers were black and brown, rather than black and red. He had another month or two to go before he’d wear red feathers.

So he was still young. It turns out that he was old enough to have had something very scary happen to him, and he still thought he’d had a very narrow escape. He’d been perched in a tree eating bugs and nectar from ohi’a flowers when he heard the rush of air moving quickly over big wings. He immediately hopped along the branch toward the tree trunk.

Sure enough, he saw an i’o had swooped down to a neighboring tree, where he landed. The i’o just sat there for a few minutes, looking all about. The young ‘apapane was absolutely certain the i’o looked directly at him at least three times. He stayed absolutely still. Then the i’o stretched his broad wings and climbed into the sky, where he vanished a minute later.

Now the ‘apapane started to tremble. Truthfully, the i’o probably hadn’t even noticed he was there and had just landed to catch his breath and consider where he’d go next. That never occurred to the ‘apapane, of course. He was convinced that the i’o had seen him, tracked him, and stooped down at him, and that he’d escaped in the nick of time.

He had to find a way to be more aware of potential dangers. Obviously sitting in a tree he was more distracted, but on the other hand he was only a hop or two from safety. The dangerous times, he decided, were in flight. How could he look all around?

I’ll just mention that an ‘apapane’s eyes are set on the sides of their heads, so they already can look all around. He wasn’t quite thinking about that.

Instead, he decided to fly with a series of barrel rolls.

That’s when a bird (or a plane, or Superman, I suppose) rolls over as they fly. If you or I did it, we’d be spinning. It did allow him to see above, below, and to each side. To that extent it worked.

The problem was that it made him dizzy. If you or I were to do a lot of spins, we’d get dizzy. When this ‘apapane did a lot of barrel rolls, it made him dizzy.

Dizzy enough that his next landing in a tree looked rather painful.

Still, he kept trying it. “Eventually it will work,” he told himself, so he did exactly the same thing in exactly the same way. And exactly the same thing happened. He got dizzy, and he landed badly.

He couldn’t really see what was in the sky around him, because when his head cleared after his latest rough landing, he saw his father perched on the branch beside him.

“What are you doing?” said father.

“Watching for i’o,” said his son.

“Is it working?” asked father.

“I’m sure it will,” said his son.

“What are you doing differently?” asked his father.

“Nothing,” said his son. “I’m doing the exact same thing every time.”

“And leads to the exact same problem every time, doesn’t it?” said his father.

“I have to watch for i’o,” mumbled his son.

“Try turning your head rather than your whole body,” said his father. “Try weaving your flight from side to side. Try anything that’s different – because, my son, what you’re doing right now isn’t working, and doing it over and over again the same way won’t make it better.”

You may sometimes see an ‘apapane do a barrel roll as it flies about the ohi’a forest, but when it does, it’s to pull off a fancy landing or just to celebrate the joy of flight. He’d learned something from the wisdom of his father: try something different.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories in advance, then tell them from memory and improvisation. As a result, what you’ll see and hear in the video recording does not match what you’ve just read above.

Photo of an immature ‘apapane by Eric Anderson.

Story: Perfectly Picky

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 3 Comments

April 14, 2024

1 John 3:1-7
Luke 24:36-48

I believe I mentioned a few weeks ago that if there’s something edible up in the ohi’a and koa forests – bugs, berries, fruit, sap, nectar, caterpillars, and so on – there’s an ‘amakihi eating it. They’re not picky eaters. They’re enthusiastic eaters.

Except for one young ‘amakihi. She was perfectly picky.

I don’t know how it got started, but I do know that early on she’d only eat bugs that she’d seen fly. I guess that meant they were fresher, somehow? Which meant that she would no longer eat the crawling bugs or the caterpillars, and there would be no spiders in her diet.

I know. You’re thinking, good choice. Along with you, I am pretty happy not to eat bugs at all. We are people, though, and not ‘amakihi.

Then she wouldn’t eat tree sap that came from cracks in the bark. I know – again, it sounds like a good choice for a human. But if you’re not going to eat tree sap that comes from cracks in the bark, how are you going to get to it at all? An ‘amakihi beak isn’t a good shape for making holes in bark. She’d removed another entry from her diet.

Then she decided not to eat fruit or berries unless it was perfectly ripe. That cut out a whole lot of fruit that was almost ripe, and it cut out a lot of fruit that was just past ripe, all of which feed other ‘amakihi perfectly well.

Her family started to notice that she was maybe getting a little thinner.

When she decided that the only nectar she’d sip would be from perfectly formed ohi’a flowers, that really did it. Go up to the ohi’a forests and you’ll find plenty of flowers on the trees. But are they perfectly formed into red puffballs? Not exactly. Some flowers show just a few scarlet tendrils. Some form ovals or just plain look squashed.

She wouldn’t eat from them. She wouldn’t even eat the flying bugs that landed on them.

She was hunting through an ohi’a tree that was bright red with blossoms – but very few of them perfect blossoms – when the branch jumped with another bird landing. She looked up and saw her grandmother watching her. Grandmother watched her pick over a big bunch of lehua, sip from none of them, and hop over to another, and sip from none of them.

“What are you doing, granddaughter?” asked grandmother.

“Eating,” said the picky ‘amakihi. “I’m hungry.”

“Eating what?” asked grandmother, who hadn’t actually seen her granddaughter eat anything.

“Nectar,” said granddaughter.

“Where?” asked grandmother.

“From the good ones,” said her granddaughter. “I only eat from the perfect flowers, Tutu.”

Grandmother looked at the tree full of blossoms and didn’t see many perfect ones. “You won’t find many perfect ones, granddaughter,” she said. “Not here, and not anywhere.”

She watched the picky ‘amakihi skip perfectly good (if imperfectly formed) ohi’a flowers for a little longer and said, “I think you should eat from some of the imperfect ones, young one.”

Granddaughter, who was annoyed, poked her beak toward a flower that basically had two red tendrils and no visible nectar, and said, “You mean like that one?”

“No, child,” said grandmother. “Not like that one. There’s nothing there. But the question isn’t whether a flower is perfect or not. The question is whether it feeds you.”

The picky ‘amakihi thought about this a while. And she really was hungry. With a glance at her grandmother, she put her beak into a bright red ohi’a flower which, to be honest, wasn’t perfect, and fed.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories ahead of time, then tell them in worship without notes. As a result, they change in the telling.

Photo of an ‘amakihi feeding at imperfect ohi’a flowers by Eric Anderson.

Story: Missed Lesson

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 3 Comments

April 7, 2024

1 John 1:1-2:2
John 20:19:31

Most of the birds of our island fly by themselves, or in a loose flock. Around Hilo we’re mostly likely to see a pair of finches or a larger group of mynas flying together. Myna flocks tend to be rather chaotic, with birds crossing back and forth and no real attempt to build a formation and stay in it.

There’s an exception to that, and it’s the nene. I’ve mentioned nene school to you. I haven’t told you about the origin of nene school, which goes back so far that nobody really knows when it started. The nene don’t, and if the nene don’t, I certainly don’t.

The problem was that the nene liked to fly together and chat while they flew. They make that “Ne. Ne,” sound as they go. In the days before the foundation of the nene school, however, the cheerful “Ne. Ne,” would be interrupted by screeches and cries to veer off, and sometimes by the distressing sounds of wing feathers scraping over one another, and then the groans of pain and, of course, angry squawks of denunciation.

The problem, of course, was that nobody knew, when flying together, what any other goose would do, so they were making goose guesses. Actually, since there’d be more than one goose guessing, there’d be geese guesses. If one was young, you’d have gosling guesses. And if you had a visiting goose, there’d be guest goose guesses.

When one of these geese guesses was wrong, you’d get geese gripes.

When they founded the first nene school, everybody was eager to take part, and everybody came to the first class. And the second. And the third.

But one goose guessed wrong about when the fourth class was being held, and he missed it. He did show up for the fifth class, and, well, he made more goose guesses that goofed. The nene flying that day lost feathers, altitude, and tempers.

The teacher took him aside when class was over. She didn’t ask him why he’d missed the previous class. She just told him that what he’d missed, he’d have to learn.

“This is why we started this school in the first place,” she said. “We’re learning to fly together, to fly the same speed at the same time holding the same distance. We’re learning to be predictable and trustworthy in our own flying so that we can trust what the other nene will do. No more goose guessing.”

So he stayed and flew, and this time he learned the things he’d missed from the previous lesson, and he learned the things he’d missed from the lesson he’d just taken but hadn’t learned anything because his goose guesses had gone so goofy.

There are plenty of things in our human lives that we do separately, each in our own way. But there are also lots of things that we do together. We need to know what our fellow Christians are going to do, and they need to know what we’re going to do, so that we make things happen together.

It goes better than geese guesses.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories ahead of time (it’s the text you just read) but I tell them from memory without notes. And so they change in the telling.

Photo of nene in flight by Eric Anderson.

Story: Imperfect

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 2 Comments

December 17, 2023

1 Thessalonians 5:16-24
Luke 1:46-55

She was making gingerbread cookies for the first time in her life – she wasn’t very old – and she was all excited about it. Her older brother had learned to make gingerbread cookies a few years before, and he’d got rather good at it.

This was her very first time.

She thought it was going pretty well, even if there sometimes seemed to be more flour on the counter than in the bowl. She might have miscounted the amount of ginger, too. She decided she’d better add some more to make sure there was enough. Yes. Just a little more. And a little more.

When she was cutting out the shapes – there were cookie cutters for people shapes, and for star shapes, and for reindeer shapes, and even for Christmas Tree shapes – she got things a little scrunchy. In transferring the cut-out cookies to the trays for baking, things got more disarranged. One poor gingerbread person lost their leg, and she tried to mash it back together.

Her older brother came by about this point and decided to make fun of her more oddly-shaped cookies. The two discussed it calmly and reasonably – well, no. The two of them were yelling by the time the cookies came out of the oven. Which might be why there were a little overdone.

She burst into tears.

Mother gathered her into her arms as she said, “They’re not perfect! They were supposed to be perfect!”

Indeed, they weren’t perfect. Some of the trees looked like they’d been through a windstorm. The mashed-together leg had come off in the baking. At least two of the stars had very bent points.

And, it had to be said, they were a little too brown. Not burnt, quite, but any longer in the oven and burnt they’d have been.

“They’re not perfect for Christmas!”

Mother, who thought about things like this, said, “Do you think Christmas is about being perfect?”

The girl said, “Isn’t it supposed to be?”

Mother told her that Jesus didn’t come into the world because it was perfect. It was full of people doing unkind, even cruel things to one another. Jesus came to show a better way, and help people find and live a better life here on earth and beyond. Jesus came to love the ones who didn’t think they were loveable.

“But my brother’s Christmas cookies are perfect.”

Brother, who was feeling sorry he’d picked on his sister, told her that they certainly hadn’t been perfect the first time. “I really burnt the first batch,” he said. “And the second batch wasn’t much better.”

“Let’s see how yours are,” said mother, and all three of them took a bite. She had, in fact, put in far too much ginger.

“I don’t think these are very good, Mommy,” she said, but she wasn’t crying.

“Not so good,” Mother agreed. “Shall we try again?”

In the meantime, her older brother reached for a second cookie. Mother and sister looked at him.

“I like lots of ginger,” he said. “Can I have the recipe?”

Imperfect we may be, but there’s love for us, too.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

When I tell these stories, I tell them from what I remember of the story I’ve written. And… I make new things up as we go through. There will always be a difference between what I’ve prepared and what people hear.

The image of gingerbread people cookies is by ParentingPatch – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24263325.

Story: Flight School

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 3 Comments

April 23, 2023

Acts 2:14a, 36-41
Luke 24:13-35

The myna chick was in flight school.

She’d already been to flight school, but now she was in a different flight school. The first flight school was what you think it is, and her instructors were mostly her parents, with occasional helpful contributions from random mynas near the nest – because a myna has something to say about just about anything – and not-so-helpful contributions from her sisters and brother, who also had plenty to say about her first attempts at flight but they didn’t really know any more about it than she did, and sometimes less.

They were mynas, of course, so they had something to say about it whether they knew anything or not.

She had graduated flight school, however, with flying colors. By which I mean, she could fly.

And now she was in flight school. This one, however, was not about flying. It was about fleeing. The first flight school taught her how to make her way through the air. The second flight school taught her about the things to fly away from.

There were a good number of them. The problem was that she found it all very boring. The instructors would suddenly shriek, “Cat!” and all the students would fly away. Then they’d do it again. And again. It was tiring. And boring.

When everybody was wing-weary and tired, the teachers announced a short break. The students scattered to the trees to rest.

Our myna hadn’t been settled long when some other birds also perched on nearby branches of her tree. She didn’t know much about them. There was a kolea, and a couple of finches and doves, and a yellow-billed cardinal. She was really startled, though, when a very large bird with long white wings and long legs settled near the top of the tree. Nobody else seemed to move, however, so she folded the wings she’d planned to fly away with. Her flight school lessons hadn’t moved on to birds yet.

“Startled, little one?” said a voice from above and behind her.

“Yes,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve seen a bird that large before.”

“Don’t worry,” said the voice. “That’s a cattle egret. They don’t hunt mynas.”

“Are there birds that hunt mynas?” she asked.

“Certainly,” said the voice. “Not a lot, but they do enjoy a tasty bit of myna when they can get it.”

“What birds are those?” she asked, not sure she wanted to know.

“There’s the pueo,” said the voice. “They have very flat faces and big eyes, and they fly really quietly. You want to fly away from those.”

“Anything else?” asked the myna.

“Definitely,” said the voice. “Watch out for the ‘io. It’s got a sharp curved beak, large pointed talons, and big broad wings. It can spot you from high up in the sky.”

“At least it doesn’t roost in trees,” sighed the myna.

“Who says it doesn’t?” said the voice. The myna turned her head, and saw a larger bird with cream and brown feathers, bright eyes, a curved beak and sharp talons on its great feet. The finches leapt from the tree with a screech of “’Io!” followed by all the other birds – except the ‘io, who didn’t happen to be hungry.

She didn’t find flight school boring after that. She wanted to know everything about identifying the creatures around her – the ones to fly away from and the ones who wouldn’t harm her. She lived her life grateful for an ‘io who would tell her the truth.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I tell these stories during worship from my memory of the story as written (that’s the text you’ve just read). My memory is… not photographic.

I did take the photo of the ‘io at the top of the page.

Story: Deep Dives

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 3 Comments

February 5, 2023

Isaiah 58:1-12
Matthew 5:13-20

I believe that I have mentioned schools before. A couple of my stories have visited nene school, and we’ve heard a little bit about ‘apapane learning to fly and ‘amakihi learning to sing. There are several species of fish, of course, that have made the ultimate commitment to lifelong learning, because…

They are always in schools.

This story is not about birds or fish, though it does take place in the water. This is about a honu school. Green turtles hatch on beaches, of course, and then the little turtles head down into the water. When they’re small they stay in shallow water, but as they grow they venture further out. That’s when it’s time to learn about deeper diving to graze on the seaweeds below or to hide from a hunting shark. That’s when I imagine a honu might go to school.

The teacher of this particular honu class was mostly feeling pretty satisfied. The students were cheerful and respectful. They were kind to one another and to her. They encouraged one another and they kept an eye out for one another. There hadn’t been a single episode where a student had got lost on the reef; someone always called before one wandered out of sight.

That’s a pretty good class.

There were two students, however, who were giving the honu teacher something of a headache, and for completely different reasons. One student insisted on trying things before he was ready for them. She’d set the class to dive to a particular depth, and he’d say, “I can dive deeper than that!” and promptly set out to do that. The problem was that sometimes he could dive deeper, and sometimes he couldn’t. He was still learning how much breath to take in; he was still learning how to feel the water movement in the deeper sections. He’d come back to the surface scared and panting, and ten minutes later he’d shout, “I can dive deeper than that!”

That was one headache.

The other student was entirely the opposite. “Let’s dive to this depth,” she’d say, and he’d shake his head. “I can’t do that,” he’d moan, even when he’d done that same dive the day before. “Let’s go just a little bit deeper,” she’d say, and he’d come right back to the surface.

That was two headaches.

Imagine now that she’s encouraging the one who’s not confident about his dives while the one who’s overconfident about his dives is diving and she had to go rescue him.

That’s three headaches.

When class was over one day she took them over to the beach for a rest and some one-on-two instruction. “I need for the two of you to work at a steady pace,” she said.

“But I know I can dive deeper!” said the first. “But I don’t think I can dive deeper!” said the second.

“Both of you can dive deeper,” she told them, “but this is something you learn to do by degrees. You make a little progress, and a little progress, and a little progress. If you don’t go a little farther, you don’t make progress. And if you go too far, you also don’t make progress. It’s like eating a big piece of seaweed. You take little bites until you’re not hungry any more.”

“You mean I really can dive deeper?” asked the second one. “Yes,” she said.

“You mean a little bit farther means I can dive farther tomorrow?” asked the first one. “Yes,” she said.

I wish I could say that both of them followed her advice in each class from then on. They didn’t. But they did better, and they did better with each passing day. Both of them learned to take those deep dives of the honu, and both of them were grateful they’d take it just a little bit at a time.

by Eric Anderson

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Photo of a honu (in shallow water) by Eric Anderson.