Awe and Wonder: What I Learned from Morgan the Giraffe

My experiences in the Earth community of Kenya were transformative. One of the most was meeting a 7-year-old Maasai giraffe.

Sep 13, 2024

When people ask me about my trip to Kenya the first thing that I talk about is Morgan the giraffe. Meeting him was one of the most transformative experiences I had while I was in Kenya! Yes, I was there for the work that I did with the World Council of Churches and the World Communion of Reformed Churches. Yes, the conversations that I had with people from around the world were inspiring, and I came home with new friendships. Yes, the work with the New International Financial and Economic Architecture (NIFEA) Consultation on Land as Commons, not Commodity was important and deeply meaningful.

Yet as an ecotheologian and climate activist, it was my encounters with wild others in Kenya that most fed me and stirred my soul. Most especially, it was my encounters with giraffes that have stayed with me.

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God, the Lord, created the heavens and stretched them out. He created the earth and everything in it. He gives breath to everyone, life to everyone who walks the earth. (Isaiah 42:5 NLT)

I saw giraffes in four different contexts and met two different species. First, I fed giraffes at the Giraffe Centre. This is a centre for breeding and releasing endangered Rothschild giraffes (also known as Baringo giraffes) into the wild. While the giraffes have full access to the wild, some remain close to the centre to receive food from excited hands like mine. I giggled like a child as I fed them!

Rothschild's giraffe, also known as the Baringo giraffe, at the Giraffe Centre in Nairobi, Kenya. The darker one in the first two photos is a male. The third picture is of a pregnant female. Apparently giraffe headbutts will send you to the hospital! There were staff regularly telling us not to turn our backs to the giraffes!

Then, I went on a “safari walk” within the Nairobi National Park. The safari walk is a tiny area of the park (the park itself, the largest national park within a city, is 45 square miles) that is like a zoo, with animals that are native to Kenya. There, I had the most incredible experience of walking with, feeding and petting “Morgan,” a 7-year-old Maasai giraffe. Here is Morgan!

Morgan is a Maasai giraffe; he is only 7 years old and so hasn’t reached his full size yet. This giraffe has a close relationship with the warden of the Nairobi National Park Safari Walk, which is why I was able and privileged to be able to be so close to him.

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What I discovered in petting Morgan is something that I would never have realized otherwise: the patches that give giraffes their distinctive coat are raised; the darker areas are of a thicker or longer fur, and so they are raised by a few millimetres above the pale area surrounding them. How cool is that?!

(I mentioned that I saw them in four different contexts; I also saw giraffes in the distance in the African savannah of Nairobi National Park, and later in the wild of the Great Rift Valley. Those pictures, taken with my phone, do not do them justice! You’ll just have to take my word for it.)

There is so much detail and richness to the Earth community in which we live, God’s creation! The Maasai people of Kenya would know about giraffe fur, and certainly Canadian Anne Innis Dagg, the first person to study wild giraffes (and who encountered unrelenting resistance to her work because she was a woman) within Western science would also know. But there is so much that most of us are unaware of; there is so much that hasn’t been discovered about the Earth and its life systems.

But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds in the sky, and they will tell you; or speak to the earth, and it will teach you, or let the fish in the sea inform you. Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In his hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind. (Job 12:7-10 NIV)

My time in Kenya reminded me of this. Through my experiences there, God reminded me of the vast beauty and mystery of the Earth community, and the need to take delight in the flora and fauna around us. God reminded me of the need to experience awe and wonder in front of the Earth community, awe and wonder when we experience more-than-human others like Morgan.

What has sparked awe and wonder in you in the natural world?

Awe and Wonder: What I Learned from Morgan the Giraffe

My experiences in the Earth community of Kenya were transformative. One of the most was meeting a 7-year-old Maasai giraffe.

We are in a climate and ecological crisis, and it’s all hands on deck... Subscribe to join a community of people of faith and like-minded people seeking to make change!

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