Penguins
I absolutely love the discovery channel. Elizabeth and I have watched a few episodes lately from a new show called, €œPlanet Earth.€? Planet Earth comes from 4 years of filming around the world. They’ve gotten footage of wild animals that has never before been captured. In one episode they go to Antarctica to film emperor penguins. These penguins are amazing. During mating season they congregate inland on Antarctica by the thousands. They mate and soon enough the females lay eggs. They transfer the eggs to the males €“ which is a risky deal b/c they have to give them to the males in a matter of seconds or the eggs will freeze and die in the 20 degrees below zero temperatures. The females pass the eggs to the males who put them on top of their feet and let their chub hang down around the egg to keep it warm. Then they can waddle around while still keeping the egg warm. The females then leave to winter in a warmer area, but the males stay in the interior of Antarctica and try to stick it out in extremely severe weather €“ the temperatures drop to nearly 60 degrees below zero, there is no food, and the winds can get to 125 mph! The temperatures and conditions become so severe that the penguins can’t survive on their own. They have an interesting tactic for staying warm - they huddle together in one gigantic mass. The naked eye can’t catch it, but time-lapse photography reveals that the penguins move in a spiraling direction so that each one gets a chance to be in the warm interior, then each one gets a chance to bare the brunt of the arctic cold on the exterior of the circle.
Then I got to thinking - what a powerful picture for what the church is supposed to be like. What if the church saw itself “spiraling” together with the world’s poor, mistreated, imprisoned, downtrodden, etc…? What if the church sat close enough with the homeless that we bore the cold for them? what if the church was so involved with the poor that it was cold and they were warm?
Penguins…
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