The churchy people have learnt the lesson well: pastor is afraid of bats. So there are two approaches when it comes to pastor and bats, which fall basically into these two categories:
keep telling her how harmless they are to her, and how necessary they are to keep insects down, really a marvel of creation etc etc.
don’t bring her attention to anything bat-related, lest you cause a major panic and trauma episode.
Back in November, I met with Marleen. You have to know Marleen to truly understand what a force she is to be reckoned with. Marleen is the gatherer of people, the one who organizes the meal brigade when someone is ill, the one who shares whatever she can from her own kitchen, the one who brings me containers of food, whose card nights are sacramental, whose friendship is fierce, who comes early in the morning when she hears that a bat scare has happened to her pastor in the night and now the bat has been located lurking, threateningly, upside down, behind the dining room curtain.
Marleen comes prepared, ski suit over pyjamas, not to give me pithy reassurances of how harmless bats are, or how they are a marvel of creation. She comes prepared to get rid of that damn bat if she can find it! Next to Jesus, Marleen is my redeemer and my salvation. Marleen is the personification of courage.
Today is the last day of November as I write this. In early August, Marleen came to my rescue the morning after the night of terror, the night in which I awoke, in my dark bedroom, to the distinct presence of a bat swooping in circles over my bed. Understand that I do not sleep with my corrective prescription glasses on (or with pants on for that matter - so its a double-whammy kind of vulnerability if you will). So at best I make out shapes and figures without the glasses. (And I experience severe vulnerability if surprised when I am pants-less.) So when I opened my half-blind eyes in the dark night, and saw a swooping, I screamed. Kicking my bare naked lower body in sheer fear, I screamed my lungs out.
Lord, have mercy, did I ever scream.
I screamed wordlessly.
Then I screamed for help, HELP, PLEASE HELP ME I screamed to my sister who was thankfully in the room beside mine.
My sister is also afraid of bats. But it seems she is more afraid of her one sibling (ie me) dying of a heart attack. So she braved the bat, crawling on all fours (my sister that is, not the bat), and got into bed with me (again, my sister, not the bat) - but only after screaming back at me to stay under my covers as I continued to scream for HELP, PLEASE HELP ME, now interspersed with snivelly crying. She instructed me to remain under my covers, reassuring me that the bat could not get me if I stayed under the covers.
So, I stayed under the covers and, pantlessly proceeded with my screaming. Until my sister joined me. Then, together, we strategized for survival.
Exactly two weeks before, my dear friend Susan had been home with my sister, my mom and I. We had enjoyed a lovely birthday celebration meal, and were settled down to a game at the dining table when a bat swooped down the hallway. All manner of screaming ensued. Parker went under the dining table to join my sister. I semi-crouched in the kitchen alternating between screaming and praying.
My mother and Susan with a broom and dustpan maneuvered the bat out of the house.
Fast-forward two weeks, to two sisters huddled under the covers, while a bat swooped about in the house and the sister strategized on survival. Her name was Susan. I called Susan at 3-something in the morning. And she is a good friend. She didn’t tell me to get over it until the morning. She came. She took the 20-minute drive from Kemble to Wiarton and came. She searched high and low, no bat to be found, she lifted Parker back into bed. Got some Rescue Remedy into both Parkie and me. She encouraged me to think about what message this bat might be bringing me.
Between Susan & Marleen, the bat episodes of the summer showed me that friendship trumps fear every single time. No matter how scared I may be, relying on friends is a formula for help.
Why am I sharing this story now? In the week of Christmas, having pulled through the darkness of Advent to land on this side of the birth of Jesus? I actually began writing this in the first week of Advent, when I learnt that the Eternal light (the little red light that hangs in the sanctuary in Wiarton) had been “fixed”. This light had been off for some time - we thought it was blown. But further investigation which happened as we prepared for Christmas revealed that bats like this lamp.
They fly in and apparantly cannot fly back out.
So they die in it. Proceeding to dry out.
The light was obscured by a number of dead, desiccated bats. By removing their mummified bodies, and (soon to) design a covering for the opening of the lamp, future deaths of this nature can be avoided and the light will continue to shine.
The darkness has not overcome it.
This feels like an appropriate time to recognize a few things, before the year turns over:
Sometimes, the people walk in great darkness thinking the light is gone out when, in fact, it is simply obscured by dead things, that have quite unwittingly dimmed the light.
The coming of Jesus gave us the encouragement to look for the light (quite literally), and brought us to throw off the dead things that obscured the light.
The bats have taught me many things in 2023: about friendship, and (my lack of??) courage.
Sometimes, scary things are drawn to the light. Sometimes, we have to battle those scary things, with help, in order to move forward.
Sometimes bats do bring messages: of change, renewal, even hope.