Little Flowers of St. Francis, compiled in the 14th century, tells the tale of Gubbio, a small town being terrorized by a wolf. They ask Saint Francis of Assisi for help and he cuts a deal with the wolf, promising food from the town in exchange for an end to the attacks. Morgan Meis draws a larger lesson:
The story is a trite bit of saintly hagiography at first glance. But there is something more. Human beings were trying to work out a problem through this tale of Saint Francis and the wolf. It is Saint Francis, after all, who proposed that we all live as birds. Mirroring something that Christ is supposed to have said to his disciples, Francis told his little friars to trust in providence, as do the birds. The birds don't worry about where they will get their next meal, Francis said. They don't fret and stress and cause strife, they neither sow nor reap. And yet, nature provides for the birds, God provides for the birds. All of us, Francis suggests, can live more like the birds.
That's all well enough, the more skeptically inclined among us might say, but what about the wolves? If providence really provides, then what do we do about the wolves? At the heart of this worry is the deepest question of all. Are we being cared for?
There is no unambiguous answer to this question. But the story of Saint Francis and the wolf makes an interesting proposal. It proposes that man cannot have a simple relationship with nature. Sometimes we must learn, sometimes we must teach. There is something to be learned from the birds. From the birds we learn to trust in powers that are beyond us. We don't make things grow. The bounty of nature is given to us. This is something the birds know and that they can pass on to us. And we can pass it on as well. Human beings can have an influence on wolves. This is factually true. It is possible to tame wolves. It is also possible to kill wolves. But in Francis' vision the taming makes more sense.
The Dish 