A Teachable Moment?

05/16/2014

Don't praise your furnace when the house is cold.
Russian proverb

In The Goodness of Rain, Ann Pelo describes being with 16-month-old Dylan on a beach when Ann spots two bald eagles in a nearby tree...

"My heart skips a beat. What a glory, to stand so close to these two fierce-beaked, strong-bodied raptors! I gesture to the tree, telling Dylan with excitement, 'That cry is the call of eagles. There are two of them in that cottonwood tree!' Dylan peers upward for a moment, then returns her attention to the stony beach, and to the many rocks waiting to be flung into the water.

"I wrestle with whether I ought to urge Dylan to attend to the eagles. To be so close to the wildness of eagles is an extraordinary thing. But the tree and the sky and the eagles quilt together in shades of gray, brown, and black; it's difficult to make out the eagles in the tree, if you don't know what to look for — and Dylan doesn't. She doesn't know 'eagle,' the word or the raptor. This is an opportunity for her to learn 'eagle,' yes, but only with some determined effort by both of us.

"I decide not to force the moment. Dylan delights in her rock throwing, and she's well ensconced on the beach, toes right at the water's edge. I could ask her to look for the eagles in the tree, could point her toward their bright white heads as a way to identify them, could, in these ways, introduce her to eagles. But I don't know how to communicate what I really want her to know: that it is a rare and holy thing to stand beneath twin eagles. The words I would fumble my way to would be inadequate to capture the signifying grace of he eagles' presence — and, anyway, they'd be unintelligible to Dylan, only 16 months old. There is no instruction to offer. What I can give Dylan, in this moment, is my reverence, my glad astonishment at our good fortune, my upward gaze, and wordless watching."

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