Me and Squirrels and Jesus

When I was a child, I really liked squirrels. When people would ask what animal you would be if you were an animal, I sometimes considered being a squirrel. For one, I love to climb trees, and squirrels do that with such incredible skill. They were fast, usually flawless at their jumping, and pretty much fearless. These were traits that impressed me.

I'm not sure how historically accurate this is, but coincidentally, my opinion of squirrels began to change about the time I got bitten by one. It was entirely my own fault. I was at a large, mid-western university, visiting my sister, and there was a squirrel coming down a near-by tree. We were on a walkway very near by. The squirrel stopped about 2-3 feet from the ground and looked at us. I crouched down and extended my hand. The squirrel, logically (?), thought perhaps I had something good to eat, so it came up and not detecting a good smell, went with the taste test. Stupid me didn't have anything in my hand except my finger, which was what got taste-tested. It didn't break the skin or anything; in fact, it didn't really even hurt. But it happened so fast and surprised me, such that I shrieked a little, causing the squirrel to run off, no doubt muttering something about stupid humans who advertise falsely.

But it wasn't getting bitten that changed my mind about squirrels. In fact, I was pretty impressed with myself, and with the squirrel, for coming into contact with each other. It was merely that this event happened as I was becoming an adult.

And I have since discovered that adults don't so much like squirrels. First, there was the somewhat distant experience of my sister's church organ being filled up with nuts by local squirrels, eventually rendering it practically useless. (Clue number one that squirrels and humans may not have enough shared interests to get along.)

Then, I became the pastor of a church with a fellowship hall with a ceiling of warmth and too many easy entrances. For some period of time, until we got a major re-haul of our outside trim done, there was a squirrel colony living in our ceiling. I didn't mind so much at first, because of that childhood soft spot for squirrels. But it got a little creepy. You knew they were up there chewing on things. When you were in the building alone, you'd hear them, and it could be a little scary till you remembered what the noise was.

And then, I became a person with a bird feeder. This was really the deal-breaker with me and squirrels. If one buys a bird-feeder, it's probably because one has decided to feed birds. I think there are very few people who buy bird-feeders so they can feed squirrels. Except that that is what ends up happening.

I became increasingly frustrated with the squirrels. I tried weird, home-made contraptions of cardboard (not rain resistant) and milk jugs (better), along with alternate placement and hanging from increasingly hard to reach places. Nothing seemed to work very well. I have currently settled with hanging the bird feeder as far out a branch away from other branches as I can get it. Unfortunately, this also means the bird feeder is only visible from my window if I lean awkwardly close, which sort of negates the whole point. But the squirrels can no longer jump from a branch and successfully land on top of the bird feeder and gorge themselves. (At least, not very often.) What they can still do, is jump at the bird feeder and knock of bunch of seed onto the ground, where they and the mourning doves enjoy it together.

So I feel like we've come to some sort of detente. They're not disappearing the seed at a rate I can't afford to replace, but they're still getting some, so I haven't totally won.

But here's where it gets complicated. I posted on facebook the other day that I was going to blog about squirrels. Three comments were made. "Squirrels are from the devil." "Rats with bushy tails." The third was something about them being cute that I think was facetious, and then questioned whether they were like the bunny rabbit from the Holy Grail movie. I think that one qualifies as negative too.

Why do we hate squirrels? I think it's an adult thing. I think we might be jealous. They always look like they're having so much fun. And they get into things, crossing barriers that we construct, with no sense of propriety or order whatsoever. Kids don't hate squirrels. What would be the point?

I was sitting one day a while ago, in my back porch prayer closet, watching the birds and the squirrels. My back yard is kind of like a squirrel play ground. They run around on the branches, sometimes chasing each other, jumping branches from tree to tree and back again. It is hilarious to watch. And that day, I'd been reading about Jesus. I don't remember what the passage was (bad preacher habits even still), but it was something about one of those times when he was hanging with people that others didn't approve of.

And suddenly, my heart was filled with mercy for the squirrels. The squirrels are the animals that Jesus would love, I suddenly knew. The ones that the rest of us try to keep out of the food that we've designated for the animals of our choice, those are the ones that Jesus would want to feed. The squirrels are the tax-collectors and the prostitutes of the back yard wild kingdom. They are incredible to watch, and yet, somehow, in my self-righteous ruler-of-the-backyard hubris, I thought that this entertainment was free, that I could enjoy them and then relegate them back to their hidden nests, without caring whether they had enough to eat or not.

So I am trying to repent of my lack of appreciation for squirrels and return to my childhood love of them. "You must enter the kingdom of heaven as a child." Jesus loves them, this I know. And it really would be fun to be a squirrel, if you had to be an animal.