Last week Jim and I were in Florida and spent a morning at the
Naples Zoo. Having lived in New Jersey
all our lives, our zoo “standard” is the Bronx Zoo in the Bronx, New York. That zoo is a huge oasis of green nestled
right in the midst of a thriving urban area, incongruous amidst apartment
houses, grocery stores, shops and non-stop traffic. Although all that human activity makes the
Bronx a noisy place, if you listen carefully you can hear the completely
unexpected sound of a peacock’s call.
When I think of the word “zoo”, it’s the Bronx Zoo that comes to mind.
The Naples Zoo is also nestled in a quiet area in an unexpected
part of the city of Naples, but in contrast to the Bronx Zoo, it’s tiny . The
Bronx Zoo could be an all day visit if you take your time to see
everything. The Naples Zoo can be seen
in its entirety in a few hours. Like the
Bronx Zoo, the Naples Zoo has some of the usual exhibits, but not nearly so
many. The landscaping of the Naples Zoo does not say “Bronx, NY”. Rather, it distinctly says, “Florida”. As you walk the paths of that zoo, there are
groupings of different kinds of cactus, palm trees and an assortment of
beautiful flowering bushes blooming all year round, and no traffic noise to
distract. And it’s usually hotter, even
in February!
What I love most about the Naples Zoo is some features I’ve only
seen there. One is the daily alligator
feeding. There is a tranquil little pond
in the middle of the zoo where, at first glance, you can see two or three
alligators floating quietly on the surface.
But when the keeper arrives with lunch, the two or three suddenly become
fourteen - all hungry alligators waiting for the keeper to feed them some chicken. This the keeper accomplishes – by hand!
I’ve seen the alligator feeding a number of times and never
cease to wonder how much they pay that guy to do his job, because while he’s
feeding one the others begin clamoring around, getting closer by the second,
jockeying for position, so as not to miss out on their share. It’s easy to see why both the keeper and his
assistant carry poles with which to poke an alligator’s snout when he gets too
close! They could never pay me enough to
do his job! Alligators can eat you!
While the keeper is keeping the alligators occupied, his
assistant enlightens us spectators with facts about alligators. Like the fact that alligators can swim at the
speed of about 30 miles an hour, but they aren’t very fast on land. Water is where they are most at home. And the
fact that Florida is home to a whole lot of alligators, as well as some salt
water crocodiles. There’s just no
escaping them!
What I found most fascinating wasn’t so much the alligators as
the birds – a huge number of them – nesting in the trees within a foot or two
of the alligator pond. The keeper’s
assistant drew our attention to them, but I think most of us had already
noticed the beautiful white crane community crowding the trees at the edge of
the pond. He explained that the birds
deliberately make their nests close to where the alligators swim – not because
they’re not in danger of being alligator food, because they are – but because
those alligators tend to keep all the birds’ other natural predators away,
so their EGGS won’t become alligator food. He said they occasionally lost a bird that
way, but for the most part all of the eggs laid by the birds were completely
safe from predators due to their fear of the alligator body guards. How did those birds figure that out?
My other favorite exhibit is the giraffes. I’ve seen lots of giraffes in zoos but
never up so close and personal as at the
Naples Zoo. The zoo has seven young
adult male giraffes in a large pen with a high chain link fence, but what’s
unusual is that zoo visitors can get relatively close to the fence. When you do, you get a much better feel for
how truly big those giraffes are. Their
legs are as long as my entire body, but when the length of their necks and the
bulk of their torso is added, they tower above me. These most elegant and majestic of creatures
have always fascinated me.
With such an up close view, this time I was struck by the boney
structures on their heads and between their eyes, and I wondered for a moment
why they needed them, but I didn’t wonder long.
While their keeper was filling us in on interesting facts about
giraffes, two of the taller ones off in the background began making a lot of
noise. What they were doing, explained
the keeper, was “necking”, entwining their necks and butting their heads as a
means of establishing which one of these feisty young guys would emerge
dominant over their little giraffe community.
I never before knew that giraffes engaged in this kind of rough and
tough behavior. It did explain the need for those horns!
The other interesting and unique thing about the giraffe exhibit
at the Naples Zoo is that they make available the purchase of romaine lettuce
leaves with which you can feed the giraffes.
While some of the giraffes were busy establishing dominance, the less
dominant few were lining up for free food (free for them, not for us)! There is nothing so awe inspiring as having a
giraffe extend his neck down and over the fence in order to take lettuce leaves
right from your outstretched hand.
While we watched one doing that, the keeper drew our attention
to the giraffe’s tongue. The giraffe,
due to its height and inability to use its limbs for such things, is able to
use its unusually long tongue like a prehensile thumb, grabbing the leaves and
then, as an elephant does with its trunk, rolling the leaves up in its tongue
to transport them to its mouth.
Before we went to the zoo that day, I had
been working on a series of lessons on the life of the Jewish patriarch
Jacob whose story is in the book of Genesis, the first book in the Bible. I plan to teach a series of classes on
Jacob’s life in the fall so I thought I’d get a head start.
I had just finished looking at Genesis 28, verses 10-22. In the
preceding chapters, Jacob had first talked his brother Esau out of the
birthright reserved for him as the eldest by tempting him with a plate of
food. Then, with the help of his mother
Rebekah, Jacob deceived his father Isaac into believing that he was Esau, and
also stole the blessing reserved for the eldest brother. When Esau heard what Jacob had done, he vowed
to kill him as soon as their father died.
In chapter 28, Jacob, the home body, favorite son of his mother
Rebekah, has hurriedly left home – ostensibly to find a wife among his mother’s
relatives – but also to protect him from a very angry Esau’s vengeance.
When night came, Jacob fell asleep with a rock for his pillow,
and he dreamed a dream in which he saw a “stairway
resting on the earth, with its top reaching to heaven, and the angels of God
were ascending and descending on it.”
Above it, Jacob saw the Lord Himself, and heard God’s voice
speaking words he had probably heard before – maybe from his grandfather
Abraham, certainly from his father Isaac.
The Lord said to Jacob:
“I am the LORD, the God of your
father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I
will give you and your descendants the land on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the
earth, and you will spread out to the west, and to the east, to the north and
to the south. All peoples of earth will
be blessed through you and your offspring.
I am going with you and will watch over you wherever you go, and I will
bring you back to this land. I will not
leave you until I have done what I have promised you.”
The words were very important for they were the words of God’s
covenant promise, issued first to Jacob’s grandfather Abraham and then to his
son Isaac and which God was now offering to Jacob as well.
What struck me from a passage so familiar to me, and which kept
going through my mind as we did our zoo visit, was what Jacob said in verse 16:
“When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought,
‘Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.”
I have visited the zoo, the one in the Bronx and the one in
Naples (and even the one in San Diego, CA) before and it would have been
natural to visit again and enjoy the zoo for the zoo. But Jacob was on my mind and I thought, “Surely the Lord is in THIS place”, so I
looked for Him there, and found that He had been there before me, long before
me.
He’s the One who made alligators to inhabit ponds, to move fast
in the water, to live long lives, to inhabit warm, humid climates, to lay eggs
and offer protection to birds. He’s the One who gave herons the “knowledge” to
build their nests in trees near alligator ponds so as to protect their eggs and
ensure the continuation of their species. He made giraffes to have long necks
and legs. He made them beautiful and majestic, and also strong and
protective. He made them with tongues
that were uniquely formed to give them aid in finding food high up in trees and
then efficiently and effectively getting it into their mouths.
It’s easy to walk through a zoo, or anywhere really, and be
completely unaware that the LORD is “in
this place”, but if we keep our eyes open, we see Him everywhere - in all
that He has made. His creation brings
Him glory and gives us joy.
“Great are the works of the LORD;
they are pondered by all who delight in them.” Psalm 111, verse 2
“You make me glad by your deeds, O LORD; I
sing for joy at the works of your hands.” Psalm 92, verse 4
