Trash Talk

The raccoon is a horrible, yet intriguing animal. I say horrible because they get in your trash and love to spread it all over the place making you pick up nasty, fly infested, wet trash from the ground and put it back in your trash can; just to have the raccoon come back the next night and make the mess all over again. If you haven’t guessed, yes I have had a raccoon problem since the day I moved into my new house. This raccoon seems to love watermelon, mango, and well paper towels. I have caught him a few times and all I have to do is open the back door and then close it quickly and he runs off. He does this I think only to fool me into thinking he’s gone, because, no kidding, 3 min. later he’s back again digging through the trash.
I have lately been trying to think of how to dispose of this problem (not like killing it, just hurting it) so I have been thinking about paintball and this raccoon. I think that might startle him enough to stay away. I don’t know, maybe not; maybe I should just start putting a plate together for him and leaving it at the creeks bank by our house so he can just eat that. I even read that raccoons don’t like urine or ammonia. Well I’m not sure if my neighbors would appreciate me using my trash area as a bathroom and I haven’t bought any ammonia lately, so maybe I just need to come to grips with the fact that I have a pet raccoon.
So, the raccoon is horrible, right? Well, it is also an intriguing animal because of how smart they are. I mean an animal that knows how to snap the lid off of your trash can and dig for food. That’s one smart animal. The wildest thing is the gumption in which the raccoon goes after this food. I have been thinking about this for the last week. In my trash can there is something so good, so appetizing that this raccoon will do whatever it takes to get it. This raccoon will risk death (by me) in order to maybe find something worth eating in that trash can. Even if I don’t put anything that even smells like food, that raccoon will attempt to open and dig for something in the trash.
I think about life and church in general when I see this raccoon. I think about if there is anything in my life, or anything that we as a church are doing that make people want to do whatever it takes to get in. I’m not talking about just sitting around waiting for people to come to us at a building, or creating some great program for people to come to. I’m talking about are we being so missional, so community minded, so appealing that people are trying to get a piece of what we have? Are we putting enough good stuff in the trash can of community that people are clawing and prying to get in? I want to put something into society that is so good that people will do anything to get to it.
What’s the answer to this problem in my mind . . . love. The love of Christ, the love that has no end. The love that pursues from before time to the end of time. Love that is so intriguing that people will do anything to experience the joy of it.