Red Squirrel or Grey?

I scoured the trees, looking for the source of an unusual birdsong and also wanting to glimpse a red squirrel. 

We know there are red squirrels in our nearby woods because an expert who stayed with us once showed me the telltale signs of a red squirrel’s nibble of a pine cone as opposed to the North American grey squirrels nibble. Here in the UK, the imported grey squirrels are driving the indigenous red squirrels out. It isn’t that they’re vicious or nasty, just that they are multiplying fast and feeding off the same food sources so causing the red squirrels to retreat. There’s a big campaign to protect the reds and reduce the spread of the greys.

I didn’t see a red today, but it got me to thinking about how lifestyle can impact others. I remember in the 60s how we used to proclaim that if it didn’t hurt anyone else, it was ok to do it – whatever it was.

But sometimes the hurt is subtle and because it isn’t in my face, I assume I’m not hurting anyone else.

I’m thinking of the shopping choices we all make, clothes and food. There are some chain stores where the clothes are so cheap, you know that someone is working at slave wages or literally as a slave in order to produce them, yet I know of people who shop in those stores. They don’t stop to think that their lifestyle choices, which seem innocuous enough, have a real impact on the lives of others halfway round the world. 

Food distribution is another thing. There is plenty of food in the world to feed all the people in the world. It’s just that some of us are eating more than our fair share, or we’re choosing to eat things which cost more resources to produce than another commodity – such as farming beef which requires a high input of cereals/grasses to feed them, rather than just growing more cereals and grasses to feed ourselves.

It’s complex, the issue of justice. Our impact on others. God is a God of justice, who loves the poor and downtrodden. He chooses to use us to work through, rather than to just fix the imbalances himself. 

Jesus famously stood up in the temple one time and read a passage from the Old Testament and claimed it was about himself. It says, The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour. (Luke 4:18)

I don’t want others in this world to be marginalised, like the red squirrels, because I have the voracious appetite of a grey squirrel. I want to live simply that others may simply live. Not easy to do. Requires self-control, awareness, and keeping alert. 

I’ll have to depend on God to help me do it.