Deer Crossing: Levels of Caution
I recently listened to a YouTube audio clip featuring a lady named Donna, now referred to as The Deer Lady. In this three-or-so-minute sound bite, Donna complains on a call-in radio program that deer crossing signs in her area have obviously been inappropriately placed; she insists that the signs attract deer to too-heavily trafficked places and that these signs surely have something to do with all the deer she has hit lately. Donna suggests that the signs be placed along more rural roads where deer can cross more safely.
As if the signs were meant to signal deer to "cross here." As if deer could actually read and, if they could read, as if they would actually pay attention to signs meant for them. As if we humans do.
The conversation must have been a great boost for the radio station's listener-ship; that YouTube site registers to date nearly 11-and-a-half million hits. Too bad Donna the Deer Lady isn't an aspiring actress or recording artist; eleven million people would constitute more than a following (how about it Tim, Kara and Kyle??*).
Of course I smiled broadly as I listened, laughed out loud as the radio announcer stifled his giggles and shook my head at Donna's misfortune to have made her opinion so public. She evidently experienced the ridicule you'd expect; her second phone call to the station weeks later (also on YouTube) made that clear. Though obviously a good sport in the way she admitted her folly, Donna asked listeners to please stop posting deer ornaments and signs in her yard and to quit filling her mail box with jokes already. She knew now of course that the signs along busy highways were there to alert people because deer make a habit of crossing in those specific areas. While Donna attempted to explain her misunderstanding, she probably should have left well enough alone. The public doesn't typically offer much grace for ignorance; while we may forget our own stupidity, we'll never forget the stupidity of others!!
But I am left wondering--did Donna the Deer Lady deserve to be mocked so? Was the expressed scorn of neighbors far and wide appropriate? Did her "point" warrant the thousands of comments that have collected on the site where you can still listen to the conversation between her and the radio announcer--a conversation, thanks to emails, Facebook and YouTube, she'll never whole life long be able to extricate herself?
Interestingly, that annoying parable about the speck and the log has lodged in my mind ever since listening to and laughing at that conversation. Beginning his lesson with the words "don't judge," Jesus then asks why we tend to look for the speck in the eye of another and pay no attention to the log hanging out of our own. It's a good question if not a crazy picture that surely must have resulted in loud laughter among people present back then. I have on occasion had a contact lens fold up and go AWOL in my eye. It once took both Paul and me half a day to find one of them with no small amount of lid-stretching and eyeball-rolling on my part. Imagine if Paul had approached to help me with a log hanging out of his eye socket and saying, "Here, Cath, let me help you find your contact." The log in his eye would certainly get in the way and/or do further damage to my own eye since we're about the same height.
But can that little parable about judging others be applied to Donna the Deer Lady? When we laugh ourselves to derision, are we noticing a speck in her eye and ignoring something far more significant in our own? I'm not sure. Thinking a sign posted on the highway to alert drivers is actually meant for deer seems outrageous; some who have listened to the YouTube clip for sure doubt Donna's sincerity.
I've also been thinking of some of the stupid things I've thought and done over the years. When I was in middle school I attempted to groom our family poodle and ended up cutting all the tiny dog's hair off. We lived in snow-buried Illinois at the time and I can't imagine how Bee Bee's haircut made him shiver. I took apart our dishwasher once, thinking I could clean it better that way and no one--not even the service person we called for help-- could put that thing back together again. I scrubbed our oak kitchen cabinets with something that left the wood bare and white; watered a plant on top of the bookshelf that overflowed onto our amplifier, frying it into oblivion. At the time of my wonder-deeds, I thought I was doing something that made sense. The family members my deeds most affected could make no sense of them despite my expressed motivation ("His fur was matted!" for one). There are countless incidents like this, and some of them would live in infamy if my dad were still alive--thank God at least some of the memories seems to have been buried with him. I should probably remember some of these things when I'm beyond exasperated with people I love.
But there's the point. Love doesn't ridicule, does it? My parents' and husband's love for me allowed them to see my stupidity through a different lens than the public who listened in to Donna the Deer Lady's complaint. She's an unknown and therefore, as far as most of us are concerned, deserving of whatever comments and pranks come her way.
It occurs to me sometimes that, when compared to Almighty, Eternal, Omniscient God some of us want to pay attention to, we are very young and ignorant as a human family. God knows we have much to learn, but when someone makes a crazy assumption and goes public, we forget. I'll bet Jesus would say we're responding to specks and ignoring the logs.
Still, I'd say it's good advice to make sure you know what you're talking about before you tell it to the radio station.
*I'm listing here the websites of my children just in case I've said something stupid enough to attract even negative attention; they'd love nothing more than 11+ million people to notice them. If you have bad comments for them, however, leave them on my page. I love them.
Kara Morgan Opera Sitcom: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0IzY_Gsfo4Tim Morgan: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4trXeWpcwc
Kyle Morgan: http://www.myspace.com/kylemorgansongs
Kelle Alonso: http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151076425915876&set=a.10151076424845876.424982.515015875&type=1&theater
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