Desiring That Which is Hard to Obtain

We  have recently put up a little wire box that holds suet for woodpeckers and other little birds. They love it. It hangs on the very end of a rather tiny branch of a dogwood tree, right outside the bay window of the kitchen, so we can watch the birds.

There are plenty of seeds of all variety on the ground, on rocks, on feeders for anyone and everyone. We regularly give scraps of leftover pizza, french fries (doesn't my daughter eat healthy?), bread, etc. for the crows.

Ah, but one crow, the size of a chicken, has decided he wants the suet.

There's nowhere for him to perch. So he stands on the ground, directly underneath the branch, takes a deep breath and jumps upside down, trying to attach his claws onto the bottom of the feeder.

This actually works about every fifth or sixth time he attempts. Then he is able to get a very small, very quick nibble of the suet before he has to release his upside down self and flutter back to the ground.

Crows are extremely bright, and I guess he sees this as a challenge.

But it is also something very hard for him to obtain.

Like the cows and horses who stretch their necks plumb out of place trying to eat that grass just beyond them on the other side of the fence, which is the very same grass they could nibble on with ease, right there at their feet.

There is the child who wants the very thing the parent can't find for Christmas.

There is the collector who wants only what is very difficult to find. They are usually willing to pay too  much, travel too much, and spend way too much time seeking whatever it is they are collecting.

There's the woman (or man) who doesn't want the person who is interested in dating them, they want the person they can't have.

Especially, for some, if that person is married to someone else, or a man of the cloth.

This crazy desire to obtain the difficult speaks for all of us on some level, doesn't it?

We want what we can't have, or at least what would be difficult to obtain.

That is why no matter how much money some people make, they have to spend just a little bit more than that.

We sometimes do outlandish things to search for peace of mind, when it is right there at our fingertips, waiting to be opened and read.

It's where all the simple and also the most complicated questions are answered.

But people will do absolutely anything else but that...

What desire is in your life right now? Something that will be difficult to obtain, or maybe impossible to have in the end?

And why is it there?

Maybe we are all desiring the very thing that we didn't even need in the first place.

Or maybe it was right there, within easy reach, all the time.

Just like the horses, we think that grass is greener on the other side.

Lord, may we stop being such fools.

Amen.