Nocturnal Visitors and other Philosophical Musings

We got home from church today and discovered that we had a visitor. This visitor has been around for some time, though only Josiah has seen him with any regularity. However, today, Lori discovered his hiding place and we all went out to greet him and officially welcome him to our compound.

Can you see our visitor, hiding behind the palm fronds?

I'm talking, of course, about an owl. Josiah has seen him flying around our yard several times at night, and most of us have heard him from time to time, but this is the first time we were all able to see him and get a good look at him. He was hiding behind the fronds of one of the palm trees that grows next to our wall, and if the other birds hadn't given him away, Lori probably never would have seen him. Now, we're wondering how many times he's been roosting there, watching us go about our business in the yard without us ever knowing he was there. Talk about clandestine surveillance!

But as we were gathering near the tree he was hiding behind, trying to find the best angle to take a picture of him, I was struck by a strange thought. Here we were, gathering around this interesting visitor, trying to get a good look at him, commenting on how beautiful and cool he looked and just generally marveling at our good fortune to be able to see, up close, one of these amazing creatures. But it occurred to me that the Cameroonians who live on the other side of the wall he was roosting on would likely have had a very different reaction. In many Cameroonian cultures, the owl is a very bad, very unlucky omen; often it symbolizes the coming of difficulty, disease or death. As a general rule, Cameroonians don't like owls, and if he had been discovered roosting in the next yard over, they probably would have chased him away or tried to kill him. What was a wonder and blessing to us would have seemed a burden and a curse to them.

Here's a better look at him

Which got me thinking about the passage in 2 Corinthians chapter 2, verses 15 - 16:

For we are to God the aroma of Christ among those who are being saved and those who are perishing. To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life. And who is equal to such a task? (NIV)

As we live out our Christian walk, people will react to the aroma of Christ that we carry with us. And sometimes, they will react negatively because they smell in our life the aroma of their death in rejecting Christ. But I think the important lesson is that we're not responsible for their reaction; that is God's job and the work of His Spirit. We just need to be sure we're roosting where He has called us to be. He'll take care of the rest.

PS - Both pictures were taken by Josiah, who took the trouble to climb a ladder to get a better shot at him.