Throwing Us Into Life

A year or so ago I posted (Link) about one of the authors whose books moved and influenced my thinking in so many ways. Anthropologist and philosopher Loren Eiseley was a prolific and deeply thoughtful writer who looked at the world around him and was able to turn it into parables and portals about human existence, the evolution of life, and ultimately the cosmos.

One of his most famous stories is The Star Thrower which has become a story used by motivational speakers for the past 15 - 20 years according to Wikipedia. I don't know about that, but I do know that I first used it in 1976. For Easter.

Here's how Wikipedia condenses part of the story. The story

describes the narrator walking along the beach early one morning in the pre-dawn twilight, when he sees a man picking up a starfish on the sand and throwing it into the sea. The narrator is observant and subtle, but skeptical. He has the last word, a pessimistic conclusion. Some excerpts:

In a pool of sand and silt a starfish had thrust its arms up stiffly and was holding its body away from the stifling mud.

"It's still alive," I ventured.

"Yes," he said, and with a quick yet gentle movement he picked up the star and spun it over my head and far out into the sea. It sunk in a burst of spume, and the waters roared once more.

..."There are not many who come this far," I said, groping in a sudden embarrassment for words. "Do you collect?"

"Only like this," he said softly, gesturing amidst the wreckage of the shore. "And only for the living." He stooped again, oblivious of my curiosity, and skipped another star neatly across the water. "The stars," he said, "throw well. One can help them."

..."I do not collect," I said uncomfortably, the wind beating at my garments. "Neither the living nor the dead. I gave it up a long time ago. Death is the only successful collector.
—The Star Thrower, p. 172

The relationship to Easter is obvious, of course, with the theme of life and pulling the dying out of the mud and silt that can keep them from living. The Star Thrower as Jesus is powerful and has continued to motivate and inspire me for over 30 years now.

Well, this morning my pastor/wife used it for a celebration that Jesus is The Chief Elder of our church. A brief history:

Leonard Dober, one of the first two Moravian Missionaries was Chief Elder (head) of the Moravian Church, but it became too difficult for him and he thought of giving it up. He determined that at the Synod in London in September 1741, that he would relinquish that position. After prayerful consideration at the London Synod, Jesus Christ was unanimously declared as Chief Elder of the Moravian Church on September 16, 1741. The Synod knew that it would take a considerable amount of time to circulate the information throughout the Moravian World and so it was agreed that November 13 would be appointed as the day to celebrate the Chief Elder Festival. This celebration declares that Jesus Christ is Master, Head, Leader, Chief Elder and the Lamb that has conquered and so we will follow Him.
--Eastern West Indies Province

It's in that following that we were challenged this morning. Not by the Star Thrower himself, but by Eiseley who found he could not stay away. He could not be a bringer of death or even just be neutral. In being neutral we participate in the actions of death by neglect. If Jesus is our Lord, shouldn't we be following Him? If Jesus is who he says He is, shouldn't we participate with him? Life, in all its fullness beckons, yet many remain stuck in death. Their lives are often filled with anything but life.

How can you or I reach down and help lift them up? How can we be fellow Star Throwers? Such is the ending of the story....

Later, after some beautiful thoughts on our relationships to other animals and to the universe, the Eiseley looks again for the Star Thrower on another morning. As he walks along he, too, sees the starfish stuck in the waterless sand, dying. He reaches down, picks it up and then tosses it back into life.

..."On a point of land, I found the star thrower...I spoke once briefly. "I understand," I said. "Call me another thrower." Only then I allowed myself to think, He is not alone any longer. After us, there will be others...We were part of the rainbow...Perhaps far outward on the rim of space a genuine star was similarly seized and flung...For a moment, we cast on an infinite beach together beside an unknown hurler of suns...We had lost our way, I thought, but we had kept, some of us,the memory of the perfect circle of compassion from life to death and back to life again - the completion of the rainbow of existence"
—The Star Thrower, p. 181

Let us go and do likewise.