There is a ladder against my neighbor’s house.  It’s a tall extension ladder that has been leaning there for a couple of months.

Frequently this winter, I have stood at my back door with a cup of coffee in hand and wondered about the ladder.  My neighbor is close to three-quarters of a century old.  I’m not sure he should be climbing up onto his roof.

As I finished a walk the other day, I noticed my friend was outside doing some work (on the ground), so I stopped to ask him about the ladder.  His reply surprised me.

“Oh, those pesky squirrels!”

I wondered for a moment if the squirrels had gotten a team together to move the ladder themselves.  You know, to make it easier to get up into the pine trees nearby.  Can’t you see them standing on each other’s shoulders, the top of that tall ladder wobbling around as they stagger to and fro toward the overhanging roof?

It’s not as if there aren’t enough of them around to accomplish the task.  At any given time, I can walk outside and frighten half a dozen of them.  Often, I can see more than double that number cavorting and chasing each other as I gaze out the living room window.

But, no.  My neighbor told me he’s had to set a trap inside the eave of his attic—one he can’t reach from inside the house.  Thus, the ladder.  He’s already trapped six or seven of the cute little varmints and says they’re not all gone yet.

I nodded sagely, remembering the old Victorian house in which we raised our children, years ago.  The attic of that house was home to a plethora of the bushy-tailed rodents.

I remember a visit to our family doctor during those years.  We made a last-minute run out to the country to release a squirrel we had trapped in the attic, so I was a little late for my appointment.  When I explained what happened to the kind old medic, he laughed.

“That squirrel will get back home before you do!”

I didn’t believe him then, but after doing a little research, I’ve found that the little critters do have a strong homing instinct, returning home sometimes from as far away as fifteen miles.

Most squirrels never go more than a few hundred yards away from their home in an entire lifetime, we’re told by some experts.  And yet, in dire necessity, they can find their way home from up to fifteen miles away!

The squirrels know where home is.

On a recent visit to a big city in a neighboring state, we turned into the parking lot of a church where we were to meet up with some family members and saw a car stop near the entrance to the parking lot.

The church was surrounded by trees—maples, oaks, and sweet gums—making a verdant wall of protection around the campus.  There, at the entry from the city highway, the paved drive in front of him, the man opened the hatchback of his SUV.  Taking out a live trap, he set it on the ground and opened the spring-loaded door.  Immediately, a terrified squirrel darted out, making a beeline for the trees nearby.

As the man placed the trap back into his car and drove away, I thought of our old doctor and couldn’t stop the words: 

“That squirrel will get back home before he does!”

We laughed, but there’s a niggling truth that my brain keeps worrying at.

The squirrel’s world has been turned upside down—nothing around him is familiar or recognizable.  And yet, he knows how to find his home again.

And, he’ll be back as soon as he can get there.

It seems to me that the world around us is all topsy-turvy right now.  Nothing is as it was—when we were growing up—when we were settling down with the one we love—when we were making plans for the still far-distant future.

And yet, we who trust in the Living God have always had a home.  Wherever we have been—no matter how far away from the familiar, the comfortable—we’ve been promised a hiding place.

“For you are my hiding place;
    you protect me from trouble.
    You surround me with songs of victory.”
(Psalm 32:7, NLT)

Our home is where He is.  And, where He is, we are safe.

I’ve watched the squirrels scatter for their hiding places.  They head for the distant oak tree, with its nest of leaves and sticks high up in the branches, and they are safe.  I suppose they may head for my neighbor’s attic, too.

Our home is much closer.  You see, He lives in us.

In us.

It’s safer, too.

Maybe it’s time to head there now.

Dr. Moose was wrong. 

I think we can get home before that squirrel does.

 

“The name of the Lord is a strong tower;
The righteous runs into it and is safe.”
(Proverbs 18:10, NASB)

“In the gentle evening breeze
By the whispering shady trees
I will find my sanctuary in the Lord.”
(from Full Force Gale by Van Morrison)

 

© Paul Phillips. He’s Taken Leave. 2024. All Rights Reserved.