On Being Prickly

The Song of the Porcupine
by Beth Anderson

One day when god was distracted,
I was made between the mouse and
the swan.  God was thinking feathers and fur,
but remembered her newly-formed evergreen
with needles like sharps.  And flash!
There I was.
Unique among creatures,
I walk alone.
Unlike the wee mouse who finds a
hidey-hole amidst the crumbs of people,
or the swans who duck their
heads ‘neath their wings at night,
giving up feathers for pillows of down.
Among these creatures I am a singularity,
Not unlike that furless, featherless, quill-less
Oddity
Called man.

We all know a porcupine or two.  What do we call these people?  Brusque, irascible, irritable, twitchy, cantankerous, grumpy, petulant.  They fall into the category of “difficult” people.  “Watch out for him, don’t get on his bad side!”  “If she once gets on her high horse, she never gets off!”

SO . . .

What did the porcupine say to the cactus?
–Is that you, Mama?

I think there’s fear operating here, both in the prickly-type person and in those of us who dread getting jabbed.  The first thinks, Don’t get too close to me; you may not like what you see.  I like my quills because then even I don’t have to look at myself all that often.  I stay self-protective because I’m afraid of you.  And the ones on the receiving end stay guarded as well, because they’re afraid of those sharp stabbing wounds.  Few of us realize that the porcupine in nature has a soft underbelly that is highly vulnerable to attack by predators.  So remember: Underneath, there is softness.  But prickly people build fences around themselves, and many of the rest of us don’t broach them.

Of what good are porcupines to a congregation like the UU fellowship?  Well, these people get our attention when their spines are up.  They warn us that something threatening may be in our territory.  It may be a mistake we’re about the make in the budget, an ill-considered social justice project, or a liturgical change that we may regret.  So sometimes the porcupines are an early warning system that we should heed.  In the wild, porcupines are noctural, so they spend a lot of time nosing around in the dark. They often do that for the congregation too.

Porcupines also give us an opportunity to find uncommon beauty in unexpected places.  The Lakota people valued porcupine quills, collecting them for hair accessories and as decorations for their clothing.

The porcupines in our midst give us a chance to practice patience, to find the value in a different perspective, to see the spines but remember the softness on the underside.  The porcupine, like all of us, is both sharpness and softness combined.  And our porcupine members give us the opportunity to see them whole, in all their prickly glory.