Pulling the Trigger

For the past few days a woodpecker has been flying into the window of my parent’s living room.  It hits the window pretty hard, and then scampers off.  Woodpeckers can take a beating because of the way they’re designed, but this bird seemed suicidal.  Yesterday it hit the window harder than ever, left parts of itself on the window and laid on the front porch, twitching slightly.  My immediate thought was to put the bird out of its misery—find a BB gun and go throw it in the woods.  The wisdom of my mother was to let it be (although I think part of that was because my nephew and niece were over and she didn’t want me to kill the bird in their presence).  I wanted to end the suffering.

That got me thinking about how I respond to problems in my life and in others lives’.  I’m a fixer.  You got a problem, I will fix it.  I don’t like to watch people suffer, so if I can help in any way I will.  But after spending a week with Larry Crabb and other lonely souls longing for authentic relationships (School of Spiritual Direction), I’m learning that to try and “fix” is to dismiss the real problem.  While my immediate response is to “pull the trigger” and end the suffering, that suffering has a purpose, and I need to let it run its course.  What if God decided to put us out of our misery every time we messed up?  None of us would be around!

So yet again, my mother was right.  After sitting on the porch in a daze for a while, the bird flew off.  I don’t know if it survived much longer, but that’s not my responsibility.  The best thing I did was nothing at all.  I think that’s what I need to do more in my relationships—just be there but not try and fix anything.