Dilemma

I have a dilemma. I have encountered a situation where what I have said and what I do are not in sync. Let me illustrate.

I have said for years, “Sometimes you have to help the greedy to help the needy.” This has particularly been true when it comes to helping people who stop by the church or happen upon you on the street and ask for assistance. I realize some are just con artists. Yes, some will only use a financial gift for drugs or alcohol. Yes, there are stories of people who make more in one day in their begging cup than some do working an eight to ten hour shift. Still, I feel, in the spirit of giving alms to the poor, that I should still drop a few shekels in their cup, hat or hand.

Here is where my dilemma come in. I hang two bird feeders out during the months when it is cold, the ground is snow covered, and natural seeds are sparse. The feeders attract all manner of birds common to this area in the winter. There are cardinals, chickadees, sparrows, blue jays, finches, doves and some others I cannot identify. The doves are in the third or fourth generation which live in our neighborhood year round. They are too large to hang onto the wire cage feeders, so must rely on the seeds which drop to the ground while others are feeding.

We also have an abundance of squirrels. In the Fall, our hickory tree produces an abundance of nuts. The squirrels busy themselves eating and gathering the hickory nuts. Some they bury in the yard, others they carry off to store elsewhere. The squirrels also like to climb on and feed their gluttonous selves on the feeds I have put out for the birds. Don’t call PETA or ASPCA, but I do use many means of shooing them away from the feeders. One of the means is my bb/pellet gun. I do not shot them to kill them, using just enough power to “sting” them, and make them scurry away. Last year, it got to the place where all I had to do was open the sliding patio door and they would hightail it. Dang it, I put that feed out for the birds, not the squirrels!

Can you see my dilemma? When it comes to humans, if I am willing to risk feeding the greedy to feed the needy, why do I resent and chase away the squirrels from the bird feeders? St. Francis I am not when it comes to the squirrels.

I guess I am like many others who have a double standard in determining who or what to help. I guess I have a double standard and a limit to my generosity. I don’t mind frequently filling the feeders for the birds, and resent the squirrels sucking out the seeds like there is no tomorrow.

It makes me wonder where else in life do I have this dilemma. If I have it with the bird feeder, where else does it manifest itself in my life? What if it were me instead of the squirrels who was hungry in the winter? It makes me wonder about how we, collectively as a society, have the same dilemma, the same double standard?