Revealing the Hawk & the Dove
I love poetry, especially poetry that takes me by surprise: a made-up word, a word used in an unusual way, unexpected metaphors and similes. I love language that snaps me to attention, wakes me up. The Revelation to John is termed as Apocalyptic Literature but it is also poetry. It does exactly what good poetry does to me: startles me to feeling fully alive. Eugene Peterson in his book “Reversed Thunder”, states that Revelation is not about more information but rather about immersing us so that we experience the truths we have already been taught. John plunges us into cinematic scenes that explode the senses. I think that’s part of why we find it an overwhelming book - we are on sensory overload. It is also a frightening book. My takeaway picture of God is a God that is fierce, dangerous, angry, vengeful, judging, destructive. I also see God as powerful, creative, and restorative.
There’s a book by Gary Paulsen called “Voyage of the Frog”, about a boy blown out to sea and his fight to survive and find land again. One morning he wakes and finds himself in the midst of an Orca pod. His boat is sailing along and the whales are swimming astride. The boy is awed, afraid, humbled, respectful. He knows these creatures have the strength and ability to crush him and his boat. Yet it is a tranquil moment. The boy is face to face with great power and he is reverential.
“Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” according to Proverbs 1:7. This picture of the Orcas captures well what sort of fear we should have of God. A true sense of God’s presence, God’s holiness, God’s power should humble us but also make us quake. God has the power to squash us. Yet God chooses to love us.
It’s this mixed-bag that we get in Revelation. The Orcas swim peacefully by the boat. God crashes into the boat and smashes it all to pieces. It’s terrifying. Revelation 6 shows the Lamb opening the 7 seals on the scroll, unleashing bizarre creatures who steal peace and conquer and turn humans against one another. Verse 8, “I looked; and behold there was a pale green horse! Its rider’s name was Death, and Hades accompanied him. Together they were granted authority over one-fourth of the earth to kill with weapons, with famine, with disease, and with wild animals that roamed the earth.” (The Voice translation) All this is loosed by God! By God! It just gets worse and worse.
Then I read an excerpt by Virginia Stem Owens:
“There is a dove in heaven, we know, that descends/ when the skies open, sometimes in fire. But perhaps/ there is also a hawk in heaven that swoops down on/ us with the gift of death to deliver us from our used-/ up past, the past we have neither the courage nor the/ imagination to walk away from.”
In “The Selfish Gene”, Richard Dawkins writes about the hawk and dove theory. Hawks are fighters every time, unto death. Doves avoid harm, to themselves and others. You would think the hawks would pervade, but hawks being hawks would kill one another off, extincting themselves. Dawkins comes to the conclusion that a balance of hawks and doves is necessary, a “stable ratio”.
Revelation shows us that God is hawk and dove. And for good reason. I like Virginia Stem Owens’ take on it: death as gift - purging, cleansing, refining, purifying. Delivering us from what we can’t let go of ourselves.
I don’t know if Revelation was a code-book for John’s time only. Or perhaps a book of basic principles such as worship and overcoming. Or a predictive book, revealing visions of things to come. I don’t know.
How many times have many of us struggled to reconcile the angry God of the Old Testament with the God-is-love of the New Testament. If Revelation is not adding new information but rather plunging us into the experience of what has already been conveyed to us, God is both Testaments at once: terrifying and loving; destructive and restorative; dangerous and creative.
A new Heaven, a new earth. No more tears or sorrow. No more evil. It takes the rather hawkish God to get us back to the dove God. God is hawk and dove. Prying us loose of all that is less than God.
This poetry book, Revelation, is visceral. Most people who read it come away from it shaken, scared, hopeful, triumphant. It provokes. It prods. It demands. It startles. It enlivens.
“Wake up, sleeper, rise from the dead, and Christ will shine on you.” Ephesians 5:14 (New International Version)
