Carli and I recently came across a flock of swallows. I am not sure what was happening as they circled around a mythical center, flying in at all angles, diving, darting, swooping, and playing a 3-D version of chicken! It was amazing. I kept searching for the intruder at the center but it just seemed to be a gathering without purpose. As harmless as they were I couldn’t help being glad that I was in the car and not in the middle of those birds!
Flash bad three or four decades and I can remember the bats coming out at dusk. Even though I knew that they were fruit bats, vegetarians all, the myths of too many horror movies crowded my mind. Somehow I knew I was under attack! I cowered and automatically tried to counter the angle of their flights. Not once in any of those years did any bat ever act in a hostile manner towards me, but I knew. I knew they were blood thirsty at heart and that on one day the real effects would come into reality.
They were talk and black. Their wingspan, even when they were young significantly dwarfed their bodies. They made clicking sounds. They were blind, but who really knew? Were they really what they said they were? Would they behave the same tomorrow as they did today?
“You have as little to fear from an undeserved curse as from the dart of a wren or the swoop of a swallow.” (Proverbs 26.2) Yes I know, but who really knows what a curse can do? What if I secretly deserved the curse and God honors it? What if I am vulnerable – perhaps some secret of yesterday is coming home to haunt me?
What if? When will it happen? Could it be possible?
I have never heard of the fruit bats in Pune ever harming anyone. In fact I only know of stories that tell of how much they help. Remember – condemnations and curses outside of God are merely words of fear from the self-centric; myths everyone.
