A Baleen Whale Prayer

Whales are amazing! Of course, I may be a bit biased, but last November while whale watching of the coast of Monterey I was awe-struck by the grace, beauty and playfulness of the humpback whale. The more I learn, the more I realize just how much these fluked friends have to teach us. 

Recently I have been learning about how humpback whales feed using huge baleen filters in their mouths. The baleen filters (long strands that hang from the whale’s upper jaw) function a bit like a kitchen strainer. The whale opens its cavernous mouth (up to 10 feet wide!) and indiscriminately fills it with a huge quantity of water, krill, and anything else that happens to be in its path. The whale then pushes all that water back out through the baleen filters to strain out what is nourishing and what is not. The whale keeps what it needs for nourishment, swallows it down (up to 3,000 pounds of fish each day!), and then spits back out into the ocean what it doesn’t need. 

Similarly, we swim through our days taking in huge gulps of life – the good, the bad, the ugly and anything else that happens to be in our path. Some of what we encounter in a day is nourishing, but sadly much is not.  Unfortunately many of us (myself included!) often do the reverse of the humpback whale – we hold onto the negative and let the nourishing experiences slip away from us. 

What if we were to follow the filter feeding example of the baleen whales and only swallow what nourishes us? Maybe a prayer inspired by the baleen whale might look something like this…  

God, be my baleen today. 

Help me filter out that which harms me

and hold on to that which feeds me.

As you move through your day, I invite you to give this baleen prayer a try. Pray for God’s help to feed on the positive and filter out the negative. That inspiring song on the radio – swallow it down! Those precious moments of silence between activities – drink it in! However, that hurtful comment by your co-worker or those plaguing thoughts of self doubt – filter them out and release them right back into the ocean.

I pray that God might be your baleen filter today so that you can release the bitterness and drink in God's sweet love for you. Today and every day. Amen.

Photo Credit - https://scitechdaily.com/images/Humpback-Whale-Mouth-Open.jpg