Tuesday 28 February 2023
Start with me: save me from skunks, anyway.
I can cry all I want in the woods by the lake.
God will have mercy on me anyway!
Psalms 130:1-2
A Song of Ascents. Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice! Let your ears be attentive to the voice of my supplications!
Luke 18:38-39
Then he shouted, ‘Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me! ’ Those who were in front sternly ordered him to be quiet; but he shouted even more loudly, ‘Son of David, have mercy on me!’
Words of Grace For Today
Now where was I? Oh, yes, back to that coffee and skunk smell that started all this.
When I opened that bag of Starbucks it reminded me of last summer. Well that started a few years earlier actually when they legalized marijuana. Everywhere you could smell it. At first I just thought that we’d been invaded by skunks everywhere. But no, this was not that good Texada Gold from Powell River that people had drying on their porches, that wafted sweet and poignant from more than a few houses. This was more like the skunk weed itself that grew along the Sunshine Coast Trail as it wound it’s way from the Powell River at the Townsite and up to Wildwood. It was an unwelcomed interruption in the run I made for years up that path. Almost took my breath away, and I learned to pause for a good breath before turning the corner where it grew the most, holding my breath for a good ten paces and then let my breath heave away as I walked a bit before I could run. It was that strong and unpleasant, well that’s a polite way to say it.
After a few years of that same smell around Cold Lake and out at the random camping area on Hilda Lake, where it seems people come to get drunk and or stoned more than anything else, I was a little more than peeved when that smell started to invade my camp, a half kilometre away. First it was once a week or so, then it was almost every morning. I admit I cursed the potheads for smoking so often and close to my camp.
Then I went out to check my squirrel trap one morning. They’d nested in and stole a not insignificant amount of insulation from my insulated tarps, so the squirrels had to go and that was the nicest way to help them on their way. But that morning instead of a brown-red squirrel’s fur I saw a cat, black and stripped white, not a cat!! It was a skunk caught in the trap!
Between not covering it and taking it down to the water in pants, boots and a jacket that had to hang out for months before they were usable again, and the unpleasant remainder, and the strong downwind smell off the beach where it met it’s demise, I was pretty sick of that smell.
I have to say there are things of greater importance to cry to God for mercy, but this one brought me to a special prayer as well:
Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord. Lord, hear my voice! Son of David, have mercy on me!
That is a prayer that is good to pray everyday, about every challenge to living abundantly, graciously, and generously. After all there’s always enough to share with others, though the skunk smell ought not be a thing we share, eh? Not today?