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Eagle's Wings
You saw for yourselves what I did to Egypt, how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. If you now listen to my voice and keep my covenant, then out of all people you will be my cherished ones. ~ Exodus 19:4-5They turned on

As any Mainer can tell you, Loons will carry their young on their backs, more between than on their wings, but definitely carrying them. Some other waterfowl will do the same. There is no record of a bird in flight carrying its young. In an age before powerful optics, it is easy to understand why the people of the Ancient Near East would think that eagles carried their young on their wings. If you have ever seen an eaglet on the nest ready to fledge, you will have seen a lot of hopping with the parents near by. It would be easy to interpret that as the adults stirring up the nest and carrying their young. The simple truth is that the young are just practicing getting some air under their wings while not straying off the nest since the tumble could prove fatal if they are not yet quite ready to execute actual flight.

If eagles were to actually transport their young, Mount Sinai would be among the places they would go. So it is appropriate for the mythological imagination of Hebrew storytellers to picture God carrying them to this holy residence. It would, indeed, be the location from which they would spread their wings and soar. That is, once they were able to sort out proper understanding and identification. While Moses was up on the mountain, encountering the uncontainable divine, the people were making their best effort to both contain and misidentify God. They built a golden calf to receive their worship because they could not imagine touching and being touched by divinity in boundless ways. Like their acceptance of misinformation about eagles, they were content to limit their experience of God to tangible intermediaries like an idol made of gold.

But let us not be quick to condemn, for we, too, are eager to create our own graven images. When we rely on the economy to provide our needs and to save us, we make gold itself the idol we worship. And in a great irony, the tablets of the commandments on public display becoming more important than the laws they contain is a prime example of containing God to our rituals instead of being borne on those mighty wings to heights beyond our short-sightedness.

Prayer: Mother Eagle, you know the flight we are capable of, give us a shove. Amen.

• Happy Birthday to Ian whose birthday was Monday Oct. 3rd. 

• From Mark Serdjenian: Prayers for those who've been in harm's way from Hurricane Ian.
• From Gina: Prayers for Brian M. struggling with cancer and not able to get any more treatments.
• Prayers for Avery that lung tests are good.
• From Nancy Sanford: Continuing prayers for the hungry and the homeless.

The 2022 midterm elections are on the horizon — are you planning to vote? Do you know how and where to vote, and what you might need to have when you show up to the polls? What if your voter registration is out of date, or has a mistake, and you are challenged at the polls — what can you do?

Maine Public is part of a new community-powered journalism project to answer those questions and any others you have about how to exercise your right to vote in the upcoming midterms. Our mission is to provide you with the information you need to vote — we’re not concerned about how you vote, or who you vote for, we just want to make sure you are armed with the information you need to vote and understand how elections are run and kept secure.

This project is part of the work of America Amplified, an initiative funded by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to support community engagement journalism in public media. We’re also working with 28 other public media stations across the country to ensure that all eligible American citizens can vote.

Many states, including Maine, have changed voting regulations since the 2020 general election, when concerns about the pandemic led to an expansion of absentee and mail-in voting. This time around, the rules are different, and there’s a ton of misinformation and disinformation circulating about elections and election security — we’re here to clear things up.

Are these elections important? Arguably, every election is important. But this one could likely change the balance of power in our state and our country. You can’t sit this one out if you care about what’s going on.

“We do not have a government by the majority. We have a government by the majority who participate.” That truism is often — wrongly — attributed to Thomas Jefferson. But regardless of attribution, it remains true that you can’t change anything unless you choose to participate in the process. We’re asking you to participate here: submit any and all questions about taking part in the upcoming midterms by clicking on the button on the prompt.

You can also text your questions to us! Just text MAINE to 855-670-1777 and follow the prompts to submit a question about participating in the midterm elections.

With help from our partners at America Amplified, we’ll answer the questions online, on the air and on social media. We’ll send the answers directly to you as well. If you share your contact information, we may even reach out personally.

We can’t do this without you.