Wednesday May 18, 2005
Those dear damn deer
Deer are so beautiful. Deer are so destructive.
Those may seem like contradictory statements. They\’re not.
Most urban dwellers would give up their birthright, like the biblical Esau, to watch a herd of deer gently browsing in their gardens in the early half-light of dawn. They move with the fluidity of oil; their eyes are big and soft; their coats ripple …
And they have just finished nipping off every rosebud in our garden.
All around us, the farmers have put up eight-foot deer fencing, to protect their crops. Our rural road now resembles the perimeter of a medium-security penitentiary.
Unable to munch their way through the orchards any more, the deer treat our gardens like a salad bar.
We had no tulips this spring. The deer ate them all.
We had no roses last year. The deer ate them all.
Cedar hedges are supposed to grow tall and straight. All the hedges in our neighbourhood have distinct hourglass figures. Tender new cedar branches are their hors d\’oeuvres before they snack on our struggling little dogwood sapling.
Both at once
I am not a hunter. I succumbed years ago to Walt Disney\’s adorable little Bambi. But I must admit that when I see another rosebush cropped back, when the lawn mower redistributes another pile of deer droppings, when I have to protect every planting with unsightly chicken wire, I\’m strongly tempted to savor a venison dinner.
How can deer be two things at once? Both beautiful and destructive? Both desired and despised?
The problem, I suggest, is our thinking patterns, not the deer. For some reason, we developed an either/or mindset. We demand consistency. Something must be either this, or that – it can\’t be both.
You can see that conviction applied everywhere. The coach who was the fans\’ darling last year is this year\’s scapegoat. A politician goes overnight from white knight to wicked witch. The new spouse who seemed perfect in every way suddenly has irritating mannerisms that make you dream of divorce…
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Monotheism may have influenced this perception. Or maybe it is a victim of it.
Because if there\’s only one God, we expect that God to be all good. We also recognize that evil exists in the world. But if God is all good, then God can\’t have created evil. If an all-good God is also all powerful, then an all-good God wouldn\’t tolerate evil. Which leads to the logical conclusion that God is either not all good, and therefore must be evil. Or that an all-good God can\’t be all powerful, and therefore there must be an alternate evil power. Which negates the premise of monotheism.
We should learn from life itself. Every experience has both good and bad elements. Our most fundamental needs – breath, water, warmth, community – can also be the most hazardous.
Our challenge is not to choose between contradictory extremes, but to pick a delicate path between extremes. To tiptoe through the tulips. If the deer have left any.
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Copyright © 2002 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
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