Lessons From the Kitchen Window

The house I grew up in had a kitchen window that faced into our backyard. As my sister and I played, we'd sometimes see Mom in the window. She was doing some kitchen duty and may or may not have been actually watching us. But, it was a comfort to look through the window and see her standing there.

I didn't know until we moved into our home with its own kitchen window facing the backyard how much I wanted one! The light coming into the kitchen changes with every season. And every season it seems to take me by surprise.

There is a large (triple trunked) oak tree just off the porch. It drops a plethora abundance an obscene amount of acorns every year. The squirrels love it. Even Biscuit has been known to have an acorn on occasion. Those of us trying to walk without rolling across the back porch generally don't enjoy them so much!

The acorns bring squirrels, of course. And chipmunks who burrow underneath the porch and disrupt the bricks and whom Biscuit the golden retriever should in theory and by nature chase but is, in fact, relatively useless.

Despite their destructiveness, there is a part of me that really enjoys watching the squirrels. (I am working on an affinity for the chipmunks--when I stop tripping on uprooted bricks it may be easier.) There are a particular three that seem to really enjoy the huge triple trunked tree.

They chase each other around the tree early in the morning while I am getting Gracen's lunch ready. Up and down, around and around.

Then there is the one pictured. He comes around late every afternoon with his acorn in his paws. He sits and munches while I am in the kitchen getting dinner started. I've started calling him Martin.

As I scurry about trying to get some sort of dinner ready, usually with too many things going through my mind to be really focused on any one thing, I occasionally look out at Martin.

For all the busyness that squirrels display throughout the day, playing, gathering, storing those acorns (in the most inopportune places, I might add), he is still in the relative quiet of the yard. He is simply enjoying a meal that was provided for him. He savors it. He rests while he eats--maybe he takes the squirrel equivalent of a few deep breaths.

My mind is rarely still long enough to savor anything. In fact, my mind is usually racing so rapidly and about so many things that I can barely think coherently let alone be still and savor. And even though I think that our life is fairly quiet (and it is by some standards) there are, truly, very few moments of the day when there isn't some form of noise (radio, iPod, etc) to keep me company.

I'm hoping to take a lesson from Martin the squirrel. Relax, enjoy, and savor for a few minutes each day. Take a few minutes to simply be in the quiet. I often look at nature (often from behind the lens of my camera) and wonder at the many lessons God built into His beautiful creation.

Simple lessons that often get missed because we are either so busy or so focused on the big picture that sometimes we miss the small ones.