The Birds

Today as I was leaving the parking lot for lunch, I noticed a beautiful cardinal (male, bright red, pointy-headed) flitting around the car parked next to mine.  As I got closer, I saw that he was fighting with himself - he was flying over, under and around the side mirror, pecking at his reflection.  When I got even closer, he flew over to a nearby branch to wait me out.

And when I returned a little later, there he was again, this time on the windshield, swiping at his reflection with well-placed beak jabs.

I got a chuckle out of it, but at the same time I winced.  I have to say that I have done an awful lot of fighting with myself over the years.  It isn't pretty.

What I mean by that is that I see in "other people" things that I don't like ... and then if I will take time to reflect, I will most likely realize how guilty I am of doing those same things.  I get irritated about someone's whining about something but if I stop and think about it, I suddenly realize how much whining I am doing myself.  I am whining about their whining.  I get put off by someone's negativity only to recognize, later, my own engaging in negativity.  I don't like someone to one-up me, and so my response is to one-up them.  "I don't like people to act all superior," I think superiorly.

It isn't pretty.

But it's pretty common.

Jesus said, "Be sure to take the log out of your own eye before you go after the speck in someone else's eye."

Yes.