Fat Adolescent Pheasants

Something caught my eye as I stood in the prayer alcove this morning. It was a fat little cock pheasant scurrying up the drive furtively glancing this way and that. Could his desire for the seeds and nuts spilled onto the ground from the bird feeders over-ride his fear of a predatory cat crouching in the bushes? 

Yes, it could, and close behind came the next wave of fat young pheasants ready for easy pickings at the bird feeders. They brought a big smile to my face. I daren’t go beyond that to thinking that we are just fattening these guys up for the pots of the shooters who raise them for that purpose.

Actually, this is a bit of hypocrisy, because I have a frozen pheasant sitting in my freezer waiting for the oven or pot. Not, I hasten to add, one that I fed from the bird feeder! This one was given to us, shot and cleaned and all the rest by someone else.

The bounty below the bird feeders tempts these adolescent pheasant chicks into a place of danger – from the cats who are generally inside during the day but occasionally have daytime excursions. I am thinking of those three young adolescent women who have somehow been tempted to join the Islamic forces in Syria and who have now disappeared into a black hole of circumstance beyond my desire to consider.

The predators will most certainly have pounced on them by now. 

Jesus told his followers to be wise as serpents and innocent as doves. That is a tricky balance to strike. How do we maintain innocence while being shrewd to the ways of the world? 

Only through Jesus. Jesus’ challenges and advice to us are almost always beyond our own ability to achieve. The only way to ‘win’ through and live out the life he calls us to is in him. ‘Abide in me’ he advises. 

Abide. Listen. Read. Draw near. Don’t make quick decisions without praying, reading Scripture, talking with other Christians. Teach this to your children and your children’s children. This world is fraught with danger.

It is easy to slip into the fat teenage pheasant mode, and walk right into danger which is beyond our ability to escape.

Roots that Reach Deep

So I was walking Dusty round the wet walk at Crathes Castle this morning. The burns (streams) were in spate, raging waters roiling and boiling over rocks and bursting banks. I let Dusty wade into what is usually the bank – no way would I trust her to have the strength to get out of the fast-flowing burns.

We walked on and soon encountered tiger tape (yellow and black stripes) blocking the way forward and directing us on a detour round recent storm damage. In other words, uprooted titans of trees lying desolate and dying across the forest floors, having crashed into and splintered many other giants of the forest. 

We were directed to detour, but of course Dusty skipped neatly below the blockading tape, ignorant of its implications. When she finally found her way blocked, she bounded cross country to meet me on the other path. Her detour was not my detour.

On we went. Past the castle. Past many another dog and his/her walker. Through the car park and plunging back into the moody wood, a gathering of trees which seem both mysterious and gloomy. 

And soon, there was another giant of the forest, down. A wind of unimaginable vicious strength had obviously overcome the web of roots spread just below the surface and toppled this tree, which took its matted roots with it. And that matting of roots stood taller than me – maybe seven or eight feet tall. 

How did that happen? Here was a tree, growing healthy and strong, with a network of roots anchoring it to the soil. Or, apparently anchoring it to the ground, but actually being too shallow to be much good in the onslaught of a major windstorm.

Of course the application is obvious. How many of us look strong, even beautiful, and think that we have an adequate grounding of rootwork – perhaps networks of friends or church family – and we are lacking the taproot firmly sunk into Jesus? 

Ouch – sounds painful for Jesus – but he counsels us to ‘abide’ in him. Outside of him we don’t stand a chance. We’ll be felled one day by a fierce wind, left to wither on the wintry ground.