Holy Squirrels!

Apparently, January 21 is Squirrel Appreciation Day.

This makes me giggle. There are considered to be adorable, until their rodent ways come out and they chew through something important to us. (When camping, we call squirrels mini-bears – as they can chew into the food stores and ruin a trip in a hurry!). We joke that they often get flattened mid-road due to their indecisive nature… something that’s a little off is described as a little bit squirrelly. There’s a gag that squirrels are nature’s tennis balls for dogs – something to chase! And perhaps most commonly, we consider our temporary distractions to be ‘squirrel’ moments.

However we feel about squirrels, yesterday we were meant to appreciate them.

As someone who often has those ‘squirrel moments, where my attention quickly and unexpectedly veers off course, it can be hard to be appreciative… yet perhaps those interruptions can be moments of grace, that are helping us to refocus.

Perhaps our squirrel moments come to us when we need a break in whatever piece of work we’re engaged in…. or they disrupt a flow of conversation where there is increasing tension. Maybe the squirrel moment can break a cycle of sadness in our minds, or just draw our attention to something even better than what we intend to focus on.

Perhaps our squirrel moments are Spirit moments, where the holy presence in the world is breaking into our inmost selves and inviting us to pause, reflect, take a breath, and recognise that more is happening in our midst than we are aware of. We can use those moments to reground our actions, to reorient our thoughts, to recenter ourselves.

Maybe we have much to learn from squirrels, and from their namesake distraction.

Or maybe it’s just a rodent that society wants us to appreciate for a day (unlike our feelings towards them the other 364 days a year).

However we feel about them, we can at least honour their lessons to breathe deeply, stretch well, and celebrate that life can be a little bit nutty.