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The Natural World on February 14

 My dog ran away. Again. He does that. I’ve managed to keep him in for over a week.

He’ll come back caked with mud, because we’ve had some heavy rains and there are lots of luscious puddles for him.

I went out to the front yard driveway and stood for about three or four minutes, hoping he would sense my presence and willingly come around the corner and respond to my loving calls.

Not.

But as a stood there, I saw a flock of birds leave my yard, settle in my neighbors, and then take flight to try their luck at the next neighbors’.

They were all black, not a lick of color in the crowd. They were looking for worms, I suppose, or anything else on the lawns of Whitfield County.

“I need to go back and fill up my feeders,” I thought. Yes, and buy some more feed. Which led to a reflection, not quite this orderly, but….

1. Didn’t Jesus say God feeds them? Don’t the birds exist and even flourish without my cute little feeders full of Pennington seed?

2. Do I really want that flock of black birds—I don’t know the species—in my back yard? I know the dogs don’t. I wish Butter would get his rear end back home. He’ll be a mess.

3. Why do I feel it is my responsibility to feed them? Heaven knows I can’t feed them all on a daily basis. I would spend too much money, and I’m retiring and have to be more frugal.

4. Is this some kind of do-gooder motive or compulsion from working in higher education and all these years as a sweet little Baptist girl? Does filling those feeders fulfill my self-identity? I sure don’t get any thanks from the birds. At least Nala and Butter are loyal and happy to see me. The birds fly away.

I can back in. I need to shower and get ready for the day. Yes, I’ll get more seed so I can sit in my backyard and use my Cornell Merlin app to find out what birds flew overhead or landed in the barren February trees or ate from my seed supply. But, maybe because I like doing that, not because of guilt.

Guilt is a lousy motivator, I tell my students. It works, but it has a lot of bad side effects. One advantage of facing my seventh decade is that guilt is having less and less of a motivational impulse for me, as is concern for what others think. It’s freeing. It is also scary. I might be alone more if I am me as I really am.

Which is not a viable choice if I am a Christ follower. Calling myself that automatically takes the me-focus out of the picture. As Donald Miller said, We all have a self addiction. Other than my morning coffee, I have no real addictions. Except self.

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