THE PIGEON

Shortly after we arrived in Germany last spring, I planted a number of geraniums in flower pots to place on the railings of our apartment balcony.  The flowers grew well over the summer and fall, and when the first frost was near I (Russell) decided to move the plants inside and try to preserve them over the winter.  When I did this in Belgium a number of years ago I lost about half of my plants over the winter.  However, this time I lost only one of twenty.  Eileen and I were both glad to move the plants back outside two weeks ago as we don’t have a lot of room in our apartment.  We were one of the first in our building to put flowers out and ours were relatively quite large.

A week ago I noticed that a few of the flowers were looking rather beaten down and I thought maybe the wind had messed them up.  Then while eating lunch one day last week I noticed a pigeon on the ledge of our balcony.  I chased it away but it came back two more times.  By the time I came home that evening almost all my flowers were beaten down.  I realized that the pigeon(s) were attempting to nest in my flower boxes!  My feelings toward the pigeons were not very missionary like, which only brought to my mind President Kimball’s quoting of a poem “Don’t shoot the little birdies that fly up in the sky” as a rebuke. We have been given instructions by our landlord to not allow the pigeons to be near our balconies.The dilemma is how to get rid of the problem?

The pigeon reminded me of Goldilocks – testing out one of the plants to nest in was not enough – who had to try sleeping in all the bear’s beds.  My sympathies were clearly with the bears and not with the squatting trespasser. Not knowing what else to do I brought my flower pots back into the apartment.  I guess I will wait until we get past the time the pigeons are laying their eggs and then move them out again. 

As I have thought more about my analogy of the pigeon to Goldilocks, I find myself wondering if perhaps God views me like the pigeon or Goldilocks.  He has provided me a beautiful world to live in, a wonderful family, the fullness of the gospel of Jesus Christ, relative prosperity and good health.  And all too often I make a mess of those things in my attempt to satisfy my shortsighted “needs” or desires.  I am glad God is patient and forgiving with me, and I will try to be more so with my neighbor the pigeon.