The Crow

God made the crow.

Why?

The crow is raucous, loud, and unpleasant - to the eye, the ears and the mind - having a beak that seems disproportionately large, coloured entirely in an un-admirable black, and with a disgusting habit of eating carrion and other waste.

On the other hand there is the eagle, a soaring piece of perfection, of elegance, precision and efficiency. But the crow even dare to challenge the eagle in the skies.

I have seen a crow go up to a gliding circling eagle cawing loudly, noisily, and ill-temperedly. The eagle remains nonchalant, circling unaffected. But the crow persists, even though it lacks the eagle's stamina, needing to come down and rest on some high perch periodically. And it keeps harassing the eagle, till it moves out of that space in the skies.

True there is a role and place and necessity for carrion feeders in Nature. But even the vultures, equally disgusting in their habits, have some beauty yet in their appearance and design.

That seems totally absent in the crow, except that it is intelligent. It has been demonstrated that the crow can acquire on its own, without training, useful behaviour and abilities, and to make and use tools. The latter was once thought to be what defines humans.

So why did God, whose works are perfect in beauty, make a crow?

The obvious underlying analogical question is why does a good and loving God create Satan and evil? Maybe evil is necessary to judge evil and excute evil on evil, but thats a different matter from a necessary evil: it begs the question why is there an evil to be judged at all.

But even as God is true, there is certainly wisdom in God's idea of the crow, not least by faith in God.

But I can think of only one thing at the moment.

And this is that beauty is not solely of, nor even about, physical appearances. The intelligence in the crow cause us to pause, to relook and rethink about this bird, and ponder on its Creator who made it, and not think it ugly just because it appear so. And the crow must be good and perfect and beautiful too, for God is its creator, but in a way not immediate and apparent to us humans.