Things With Wings*

Bats creep me out. That’s probably a fairly typical, if not universal, reaction to these winged, furry night-time creatures but, where bats are concerned, I’ve got some baggage.

My first memories of bats take me back to Baptist Youth Camp, along the shores of Slippery Rock Creek in western Pennsylvania. Evening chapel attendance was mandatory, and I struggled to stay awake while sitting in the steamy open-air chapel, my body drenched in OFF insect repellent. I occupied myself by thinking about what I would buy at the snack shack after the final altar call. I was usually thirsty for grape soda but also tempted by the possibility of red shoestring licorice. Sadly the taste of bug spray usually rubbed off my hands and onto the shoelaces, ruining their delightful artificial strawberry taste. While mulling my choices, I watched as one bat, then another, then an entire winged furry army began circling the heads of the Baptist youth, dive-bombing the same mosquitoes we were trying to repel with our layers of OFF. I had heard that bats could get tangled in one’s hair, and mine--this being the seventies--was long and straight and very enticing to bats, I was sure. I had also heard that if a person were bitten by a bat, he or she would be subjected to multiple rounds of rabies shots injected into the stomach. I couldn’t wait for the last verse of Just as I Am to finish so the last sinner could get down the aisle just as he or she was, and I could retreat to the safety of the snack shack.

One summer, I returned from camp and spent the evening working at my school’s science club booth at the local downtown street fair. I’d worked for hours at the booth serving kraut dogs, cheeseburgers and fries, standing on grease-soaked pavement in my flip-flops until I could barely feel my feet. I remember coming home and sitting on my bed, trying to massage some feeling back into my toes, and looking up to notice something hanging from the frame of my bedroom door. It looked like a clump of dust, but as I walked over to grab it and throw it away I realized it looked like a mouse. It looked like a mouse hanging upside down from my door frame. In slow motion, my brain processed that what looked like a mouse but hung upside down was probably a bat, and I would have to pass through the doorway from which it was hanging in order to get someone to rescue me. And I still had that problem with the afore-mentioned long, straight hair which was so enticing to bats. I have no memory of how I got out of that room, nor of how the bat was dispatched, nor by whom, but I do remember that bats were rapidly moving up on my list of things that filled me with fear and loathing.

Several summers later, I had a very different encounter with bats. I was sitting by the fountain in the town park on a lovely, warm summer evening, about to have my heart broken by my high school boyfriend. Somewhere in the midst of the “We can still be friends” conversation, a bat flew down and landed on the soon-to-be-ex-boyfriend’s chest. To this day, he believes I have evil powers and had used them to summon that bat to do my bidding.

And I was okay with his believing that.

Recently, my husband and I were enjoying a quiet Sunday afternoon floating in the pool when something flew close to my head. I thought it might be a butterfly or a hummingbird but, as I got a better look at it, I realized it was black and it wasn’t humming. A bat was dive-bombing us in the middle of the day. We splashed water towards it, trying to scare it away, but that must have made it think we were just really big insects. It seemed inspired by the challenge we presented, its dive-bombing intensified in response to our splashes. Clearly that bat was out of its mind with rabies, and I could almost feel the needles as they injected vaccine into my stomach. That bat demonstrated the truth of what scripture claims: creation is, indeed, in rebellion.

Given my history with these creatures, I was surprised recently to find myself enjoying an evening of bat-watching from the lounge chair in my back yard. My husband and I were sitting outside talking; watching the silhouette of tree tops form against the sky as daylight faded. We saw stars come out one-by-one, and then the bats appeared. Swirling gracefully in the sky, they dove for insects; they darted and danced, putting on a spectacular show. They were doing what God had put them on this earth to do, and I found myself delighting in them.

Maybe I’m ready to make peace with bats, to appreciate their role in the cosmos and the Creator’s design in making them. But I really need them to stay where they’re supposed to and do what they were created to do. And come to me when I need them to do my evil bidding, obviously.

*The title is taken from a piano arrangement written by a songwriter named Liz Story. It is intended to sound like bats in flight, and I tried learning how to play it back in the day when I was taking piano lessons. I wasn’t very good at it, but it’s a cool song.

Linking up with emily and others today, working on perfecting our imperfect prose to the glory of God.