Irony Becomes Her

Consider the Squirrel

How do those squirrels do it? They scurry across the street over dinky little power lines and don't seem ever to lose their balance.

Until now.

I looked up into the cloudless sky, as I am wont to do, but my eyes focused closer this time. There was a squirrel hanging by all four paws from the overhanging power line. A shudder proceeded down my spine as my roommate directed the car safely under the struggling furball. If that thing had let go...

But he hadn't, and he was on top of the line and out of sight before we were.

Even when we are doing what we're made to do, sometimes it's hard to come to terms with our limitations. When I want to be effortlessly walking across my own power line, I trip and find myself clinging with my fingernails in order to survive.

In light of this and the upcoming holiday, Jesus's parable of the rich fool in Luke 12 comes to mind. "'And I'll say to myself, "You have plenty of good things laid up for many years. Take life easy; eat, drink and be merry."'

"But God said to him, 'You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you. Then who will get what you have prepared for yourself?'

"This is how it will be with anyone who stores things up for himself but is not rich toward God."

I don't have stores of grain anywhere, but I have barns full of overconfidence in some of my talents. Perhaps I could spread a little of that around into other areas--the ones in which I'm always saying, "No, I can't do that."

I can do all things.

posted by Lynn @ 9:51 AM