Green Heron : Stand There!

This is a Green Heron. It is a profoundly talented predator. It stands stock-still in the water waiting for its prey, and then its neck shoots out like a spear and secures its meal. The entire action is so fast, well surpassing a human eye, that only a photograph can capture the action. And that blazing action is where most people put their focus. There’s an excitement, a feeling of “wow” bound up in the dramatic moment. I have certainly enjoyed capturing that instant. Instead of that action photo, though, I offer a different pose, depicting the heron just standing. I would suggest that the real lesson to be learned is not in the lightning-quick strike but rather in the heron’s ability to stand motionless for minutes and minutes on end.

My community is blessed with a sagely rabbi. One of his recent teachings has struck me as especially resonant. Says my teacher, “Don’t just do something; stand there!” The literary device he uses is anastrophe, the purposeful inversion of expectations designed to illustrate a point. And the seeming incongruity has driven his point home. He is reminding us that when people are hurting, when people are needing, often they don’t require our words or our actions but rather simply our presence. Merely knowing that we are there provides comfort. Being able to see us making ourselves available as they need us creates a sense of surety and security. The afflicted will ask for interaction when the moment has ripened.

Human psychology has a natural bias towards action. We are what we do. But equally there are times when what we do is far less meaningful than where we are. When someone is hurting, there often is no consoling action that can be - or should be - taken. Rather we simply want the person to remember that they are part of a community, that they are seen, and that they are supported at the time and in the way that they need. The heron when it’s standing still is one of the easiest birds to photograph. But that sense of ease should not belie the complex story of the Heron’s life that the instant in time depicts. So too, when we “merely” stand there, our presence far surpasses any action we could take.