The Week In Summary (and everything is about ME)

 

 

 

When I was little, I was always trying to rescue baby birds and animals that I’d find ‘in distress’ outside while playing over the moor. I always ended up making things worse and never successfully managed to help anything, but I felt a real obligation to try.

One day I was walking our family dog Luke – a giant golden retriever, more like a bear than a dog, but with a heart of gold. He always loved going in the water and so when we got to the little stream, he ran straight in. Right in front of him were eight little baby ducklings, just a week or so old, paddling furiously behind their mother, trying to escape. In one simple motion Luke opened his giant mouth and swallowed up one of the ducklings!

‘NO LUKE!’ I shouted at him, 'Put it down!'

Amazingly, Luke immediately dropped the little duckling. Retrievers are gun dogs, and have very soft mouths (so my Dad told me) and so I was not surprised the little duckling plopped out unharmed. We then carried on our walk.

An hour later we came back past the same spot. Mummy duck and the 7 little ducklings had all gone, but the one that Luke had picked up had been abandoned.

‘Oh, no!’ I said excitedly, 'we’ll have to rescue him! He’ll have to come and live with us Luke!'

When we got back, I made him a home in an aquarium in my bedroom. He fell asleep exhausted and so I went out to play in the street with my friends. About an hour later I came back in to check on the little duckling.

To my horror, he was face down, dead in the water!

I felt an awful sense of shame and guilt for having killed this little duckling, all because I had this notion that it would be cool to have a duck for a pet.

I never forgot that experience and was very reluctant to ‘rescue’ any other animals after that.

25 years later I was looking out of my office window and I saw a little bird, abandoned on the drive. My first instinct was to run out and rescue it! But I stopped myself, and thought about the dead duckling. I watched for some time and it did look abandoned, it’s Mum didn’t appear to be anywhere near. I wanted to go out and save it, but before I did I decided to ask God for guidance! I had not really done this before, but I really didn’t want to make the wrong decision, and this seemed like a good idea.

So I closed my eyes, looked up towards the ceiling of my office and said ‘How can I help this little bird, what shall I do?’

I opened my eyes and looked out to the little bird, and at that very second, a Magpie swooped down and picked it up in his mouth and flew off!

I ran out the office door screaming, ‘NO! Put that down!’

Amazingly, the Magpie opened its mouth, dropped the little bird and flew off.

I went over and peered down at the unfortunate creature. It was practically dead. I hadn’t saved it, and I had cheated the Magpie out of his lunch. Once again I’d made things worse.

I left it there, went back into my office and thought for a moment. And then burst out laughing!

I know that might sound a bit weird, but I suddenly found the whole thing very amusing. I was laughing at my foolishness! I had this strong feeling that it wasn’t my job to worry about saving all the little animals, it wasn’t my job to worry about saving anything, it wasn’t my job to worry about saving the world! All of that was being taken care of and it was in good hands, very good hands!

My job was simply to concentrate on being the best me I could be. By all means do good works, but not out of a responsibility, not out of an obligation that God needs me to save everything! And thinking that without me, it will all go wrong.

Now I really try and let it be, leave nature to nature. I love to be outdoors, I love watching the rabbits play, the birds sing .. in fact I really love all animals .. but now I’ve freed myself from the obligation of the crusade of 'do-gooderism'!