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Minutes of Meetings with God |
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The Coyote ... |
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| Most days, Samantha (our dog, Sam) and I run about three and a half
miles. It's no Olympic quality thing, it's running in an effort to
maintain some semblance of health. We plod along at about nine minute
miles. Sam and I have a pretty good arrangement, she drags me out and I drag
her back. It evens out.
Typically, nothing unusual happens when we run. Both dog and I simply enjoy being outdoors each day for about 30 minutes. Every now and then something unusual happens. One morning, Sam and I scared up a large buck, an eight or ten pointer that bounded across the road not far in front of us. I wasn't expecting anything. The deer's sudden appearance, from a thicket by the road, really startled me. Sam just about yanked my arm off (I keep her on a leash) trying to chase the deer down. Not long ago, Sam and I were running our usual route when I saw what I am sure was a coyote. The beast had too sharp a muzzle and was too pointy in the ears to be a dog; and it was too big to be a grey fox. I had never seen a coyote in the wild before. I had heard some folks say that there were coyotes around the area, but I never thought I would see one. Actually, I've been keeping my eye pealed for the black panther some neighbors claimed to have seen last year (I even thought I saw the big cat once, but it was probably a big black dog). I've been thinking about that coyote, off and on, ever since I saw it. Coyotes have been gone from Michigan for quite some time. Until recently, their range had been pushed to the South and to the West; now, however, the coyotes are returning to some of their old hunting grounds, including Southeastern Michigan and my neighborhood. My fleeting glimpse of that single coyote (which was unusual, because they most often run in packs), reminded me that things where I live were not always as they are now. Once the area was covered with trees, swamps and prairies; the coyotes and other wolves roamed and hunted the area freely. I was also struck with the realization that things are changing and will continue to change where I live. On one hand, "new" stuff is popping up all around the neighborhood, including a new home right across the road from us. Farmland, especially frontage along the roads, is becoming residential. Technology is making its presence felt. Frequently at night I watch the lights flash on the cellular telephone repeater tower that went up near the house. On the other hand, the very old, like the coyote, is returning. I see more deer than I have ever seen before; I see more hawks, orioles, ring-neck pheasants and other birds that had become rare. It is as though in counterpoint to human efforts to re-create the world, God works it so that His original creation reasserts itself. Considering the monstrous mess we human beings have been causing in the world of late, especially in our efforts to make the world a better place (mostly by killing each other and destroying many of the different forms of life, animals and plants, with which we share this planet), it seems we need all of the reminders we can get that this is not our world and we do not live here by ourselves. Jesus told a parable (in Mark 12) about someone who planted a vineyard and fully equipped it so that it had everything necessary successfully to produce. Then that fully equipped vineyard was rented out to some tenants who were expected to make the vineyard yield its fruit. When the time came to pay the rent, the tenants violently refused to honor their debt. The tenants abused and murdered the rent collectors. Near the end of the parable, Jesus asks the question: "What shall, therefore, the owner of the vineyard do?" The answer: "He will come and destroy the tenants, and will give the vineyard to others." God has rented to you and me this beautiful and fully equipped vineyard we call the Earth. Despite our (and the Bank's) claims to the contrary, we do not own where we live. God did not leave out one thing we need in order for us to live here or that we need to be fruitful here. God created a place in which there is enough of everything to go around for all of us, with extra left over, extra that God would collect as a kind of rent. The primary problems we face have to do with our self-centeredness, our greed and our unwillingness to share, our violence and disrespect for every form of life, human or otherwise. One day, altogether too soon, God will come in person to collect the rent that we owe. What kind of tenants will we have been? Will we have trashed the "rental property"? Will we have refused to pay up when the rent came due and God sent special people to collect? Will God take the vineyard from us and give it to others?. I still think about that coyote. Would a coyote be a better tenant than I have been? |