Plus ça change

I will pour out my Spirit on all people (Joel 2:28)

There has been a dramatic change in the pecking order in our back garden. The first hint of this came when I spotted that my brassicas had been shredded. The pride and joy of my vegetable patch were in tatters. I searched fruitlessly for slug trails, cleared around the plants for evidence of the depredating insects but to no avail. Of their attackers there was no sign. So I did the modern thing and looked it up on my phone. One word was offered: PIGEONS!!! (the exclamation marks were in the original). Sure enough as I looked out this morning, two fat pigeons were waddling through the lines of plants, quietly turning them into leafless stalks.

It's odd really. These simple vegetables had been quietly growing for over a month, without any hint of the destruction to come. It seemed wholly arbitrary for the pigeons to suddenly find them attractive to their palates after all this time. And then it struck me. The neighbours had moved out and taken their cat with them. No cat, no pigeon predator, no beautiful brassicas.

It's ironic really. I'd been celebrating the lack of cat only the day before. Small birds had started reappearing in our garden shrubbery, in numbers not seen since the cat had moved in and taken over the territory. It was a delight to know I wouldn't be clearing away it's poo from amid my edibles again, or wondering whether the finch fledglings had any chance of survival above two weeks. And here was an unexpected downside. 

And then this morning, joy. A fox decided that our garden would make a nice addition to his normal hunting route. He drank from the birdbath, stalked the pigeons and loomed on the wall for ages. A new predator was in town and one that had a natural right to be there. Maybe my brassicas had a chance after all (though I've still protected what's left).

You might well be wondering what all this has got to do with Joel and God's Spirit. Well it's simple. As I saw the selective destruction of my brassicas, I was surprisingly upset. I was even tempted to tell my gun-owning neighbour to shoot the pigeons who had done the terrible deed. And it got me wondering how God feels about the destruction he sees around him, in particular the way this virus has killed unevenly; about how the poor had suffered far more loss than the rich;  about how those from ethnic minorities have had a far higher infection rate and death toll than the majority population. I sense he must look on our cities and morn, for he is not a God of the rich and powerful. If anything he shows a bias to the poor and vulnerable, if only because there is no other who will fight for them. He pours out his Spirit on all people without holding back. Our black churches flourish, our ethnic minority Christian communities are vibrant (and they could show the rest of us a thing or two about generosity and fellowship). Excuse the apparent frivolity, but God loves his brassicas as much as his beans. I'm wondering when the rest of us are going to wake up to that fact.

A fox wanders into the garden