I have a little chipmunk that lives in my yard. By "little" I mean small in size,
but full of himself, and that makes quite a large package. I'm not sure
how long he's lived in the maze of tunnels that completely encircle
my house. I've just noticed him a lot more this year. I assume its a "him"
but I could be wrong.
He's quite the character. No matter what time I look outside, no matter
what part of the house I happen to be in, if I look out, there he is.
He's charged with too much energy. Zoom, zoom, zoom. This way,
that way, upside, down way. I'm beginning to see him as an analogy
of our relationship with God. He furtively runs around, thinking that
no-one is watching. If he sees me, he throws himself into whatever
bush or hiding place he can, but he's kind of wired so he calls so
much attention to himself that even if I hadn't initially seen him,
I would have after he tried to hide because he cant seem to make
himself small or inconspicuous.
He doesn't know that I spend a lot of time watching him. I've begun
to put extra food items down his holes, just to let him know that
I know where he lives and to kind of bless him.. He's not much of
a vegetarian. And he has a sweet tooth. He likes the organic sugar
cubes, but not the lettuce I've stuffed into his hole. Furthermore,
he's absolutely selfish.
The most bizarre thing that has happened so far is that I put
raisins out for the robins that we also feed. A little while after I put
them out, I looked out and a mourning dove had seen them
and had flown down to eat them. There was also a robin
who had come. Chippy flies out of his hole and actually gets
into a fight with the mourning dove. He lunges at the bird
and runs around in circles madder than you can imagine and
chirping loudly at the poor dove. The dove, not exactly peaceful,
tries to chase him away also. Its quite a loud confrontation.
They are hopping and fluttering and chirping in both bird
talk and chipmunk talk.
I go out to see what is happening and they are so embroiled
in arguing that they don't pay attention to me. The robin is there,
just a few feet away. The robins in our yard know us, so they
dont fly away unless we are within a few feet. The robin is trying
to figure out what is going on. The robin looks at me and then
at the fighting duo, and cuts them a wide swath, moving closer
to me and farther away from them. "There goes the neighborhood"
I could almost hear the dignified robin intimate toward me.
When I watch this little guy, crazy and reckless as he is, I think
of us and God. God is closer than we think, watching us more
than we know. He leaves food where we can find it. We take
the sweet stuff readily and leave the healthy stuff behind.
God is aware of how we treat others. And we, much of the time, are oblivious
to His Presence, thinking we are sneaking around unseen, and
full of our petty jealousies, spending a lot of time not sharing, or
worse yet, getting quite beligerent when people take things that
are not even ours.
Chippy also has a hole by the downspout. Our gutter was having
problems so I put a large container, during the dry weather,
under the spout to catch the rain. I didnt know that it partly
covered his hole. When he came up the hole, I heard this
extremely loud commotion. He had panicked when
he could not get out of his hole and pushed the container over,
scaring himself silly in the process. He is quite the character.
Not very accepting of new things. Not quite able to adapt
to changes. Not liking new things on his turf.
I've started to be more bold with him. It startles him. I speak
to him when I know he is hiding in the bushes. I ring a little
bell when I am putting food down his hole. I want him to
know that I care about him, but also have a little fun. :)
Gee, this is sounding more like our relationship with God
all the time. Hmmmm..... I wonder if He sees me like
I see Chippy. Yikes.
P.S. I have a picture of him somewhere. I will try to find it
and post it.
