A lesson from nature

All of us have had to learn to cope with isolation caused by Covid 19. Since I was no longer able to visit  my cats at Animal Rescue in Pennsylvania, I looked for animals closer to home. I chose squirrels!

Obviously, I’ve seen squirrels all my life. But during my multiple daily walks around the grounds of the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen, I began to notice how cute they were. So I went to the Giant, and got a couple of bags of peanuts in the shell. Whenever I spotted a squirrel, I would toss a couple of handfuls of peanuts. They pounced on them, and devoured them.
    
But, as the old saying goes “No good deed goes unpunished,” I began to experience conflict. The crows liked peanuts too! They would “caw” out to their fellow crows, and would together swoop down on the poor squirrels.
 
I tried various ways to sneak the  peanuts to the squirrels, but, to paraphrase an old saying: “Trying to sneak peanuts past the crows was like trying to sneak the dawn past a rooster!” The crows won every time. The squirrels ran for their lives.
    
After a couple of weeks of seeing the crows as if they were Darth Vader attacking the Jedi, I realized that I had missed the obvious. The crows weren’t bad guys. They were just hungry. So I began to feed the crows first. And it worked.  Violence was avoided by sharing. We had all learned from our mothers: “Don’t be selfish. Share with others!”
    
Battles and wars have been fought between tribes and nations over food and water and land.
    
Jesus came to tell us that love, not violence, is the answer. For his efforts, he was crucified by the people of his day. Violence if often our reaction. But violence is never the answer. Love really is the only answer.
    
Every battle and war and  conflict eventually ends.  But love doesn’t end. Love lasts forever. Love brings peace to the living, and eternal life to the dead.

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