A Little "Squirrelly"

A favorite piece of technology that I own is my nature camera.  Even when I can't sit in my swing or on my garden bench to watch wildlife happen, my trusty camera is always on duty.  This week, I had to laugh about what we caught on camera when the squirrels and birds didn't know we were watching! 

We have a squirrel feeder that we fill with raw peanuts and sunflower seed for the squirrels to eat.  A couple years back, when we put it up, the woodpeckers decided that they wanted to share that food....but they wanted the 'lion's share'!  They would chase the squirrels off!  Poor little squirrels didn't have much out of that feeder.

Yesterday, the camera caught several shots of Mr. Squirrelly climbing the side of the tree, determined to get into the bird feeder.  There is poison ivy growing up one side of the tree, so you can't see the opening.  The birds won't go through that way.  Mr. Squirrelly must have figured that out, and up the side of the tree he went - right into the poison ivy, and through the opening!  We saw him stick his head in, and stick it through the other side to make sure no birds were going to chase him out, and then he got all the way into the jar and had himself a feast!  What great pictures we saw!  It was almost like being right there, up close and personal.

Are people like that too?  We know what we need to survive, but we are easily dissuaded from pursuit of that object by criicism, worry, or other "critters" that would rather us not have it.  They easily chase us away!  It took 2 years for the squirrels to finally realize there was another door, and that the birds wouldn't chase them if they went through that door.  Wonder how long it takes some of us to find a 'back door' to our pursuit of happiness?  And how can we circumvent the other 'critters' like worry, defeatism, low self-esteem, destructive criticism, sadness, and other types of thinking, that crowd us out of our own 'squirrel feeders'?  We know there is nutrition in that feeder, and that it will taste delicious, but those other critters just keep running us off!

I like it when Apostle Paul said, "Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.  And King David exhorts us to encourage ourselves by singing hymns, psalms, and praises....I know that I can't be thinking negatively when I'm doing that.  I do believe that Paul and David, as well as other characters of faith in the Bible has a point - worship and thinking about the lovely character of Jesus (for he is all things that are true, honest, just, pure, and so on) will scare the other "critters" away.

 A song that crossed my mind today says:

I found Happiness, I found peace of mind
I found the joy of living, perfect love divine
I found real contentment,  happy living in accord
I found happiness all the time, wonderful peace of mind since I found the Lord.

I found the backdoor.....in a nutshell - inspired by Mr. Squirrelly himself.