American Cod
Like the salmon in the Northwest, this fish is known to us for its role in our own food chain; feeding humans for millennia, from the Baltic down to New England, and later shipped all over Europe and to feed slaves in the Caribbean, it is the Bread of Life. Over a dozen subspecies bear the cod name.
It eats what I do- lobster, mussels, mackerel. Two colors, grey and red, five small fins, weighing 15- 30 pounds, a quintessential Fish.
What do you love about this particular creature?
What do they reveal to you about God and our faith?
When the pilgrims arrived, it was said they could walk across the bay of Cape Cod on the backs of these fish, so plentiful were they. A sign of God's lavish abundance. But what of its personality? Shakespeare's bawdy jokes use it as a name for the loin covering "cod piece," is it a funny fish? A 'Sacred Cod' has hung in the chambers of the Massachusetts legislature since before the Revolution.
We are what we eat, so we become this fish, whose life is bound to ours, and yet what does it mean that I know it for its white flesh and not its own being? The cod reminds me of the bounty of God, and of my human tendency to reduce that gift into my own purpose.
Author - The Rev. Rita Powell
The Rev. Powell is currently a Harvard Chaplain by the banks of the Quinobequin and looking out to the harbor islands when they can—raised in the woods and farms of western Massachusetts.
God of Word and Light, you have ordained and constituted in a wonderful order the ministries of all creatures above and below. Mercifully grant that, as the disciples were granted to see Christ on earth, our eyes would be opened to the spiritual reality all around us today; through Jesus the Wisdom of Creation, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Creation Collect for St Michael and All Angels from Season of Creation, A Celebration Guide for Episcopal Parishes