Last week I wrote about a family of cardinals that had built a nest outside our kitchen window. We spent the next week watching the mother and father dote on their young. They became part of our extended family and so on Saturday when we saw the nest was empty we began to suspect foul play. We don’t exactly know what happened, but it is safe to say that some predator had the young cardinals for a snack. There is afterall terrorism in the animal kingdom. After several days of mourning the demise of our feathered friends my wife and I spoke about some of the insights we’d gained. I thought of the yin and yang of the Tao and that whoever had hurt the birds might in turn meet a similar end. My wife’s approach was somewhat different though no less philosophical. She said that no one would call me a predator because I enjoyed cheeseburgers, but in fact cows are killed everyday so that we can enjoy burgers and other meat products. It’s something we just accept as part of the food chain and the life cycle. So too perhaps then is the demise of the young cardinals. Maybe they were just a snack for some other animal.
This got me to thinking as I often do of my friend Winnie the Pooh and a wonderful book written by Benjamin Hoff entitled “The Tao of Pooh”. A nun recommended this book while I was working one day at Mt. Irenaeus about five or six years ago. Follow this link to more information about the Tao of Pooh.
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