Stories about the journey to paradise, in religious and literary traditions, feature animals as both obstacles and allies. In Seamus Heaney’s translation of Beowulf, Grendel is the “shadow-stalker” the hero must slay to prove himself and attain an earthly paradise; on the medieval pilgrimage trail to Santiago de Compostela, Spain, there is still an ornate chicken coop housing a pure white cock and hen in the cathedral in one town to commemorate a pilgrim’s miraculous escape from disaster. What beasts block our roads or assist us on the way?

Rev. Craig Townsend presents Shadow-Stalkers and Resurrected Chickens: Animals on the Road to Paradise, an evening of tales, images, and soundscape evoking and exploring the human-animal interactions that illuminate both the journey and its goal.

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Craig Townsend is an Episcopal priest serving as Vicar at St. James’ Church on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. He has a Ph.D. from Harvard that, while focused on American religious history, also entailed the study of the world’s major religious traditions.