Mice and Men

Last week we noticed that we had a mouse in our house.

I put out the old snap type mousetraps, and within two days we’d caught two mice.

Then nothing the next few nights, so we figured they were all gone.

But the next evening we actually saw one run across the room.

We saw it (or another) again the next night.

Evidently the remaining mouse or mice had learned to stay away from the traps.

We’d need different traps that these clever mice weren’t familiar with.

So I went to the hardware store to see what the options were.

They had an expensive electrocution trap.

A trap that very quickly does them in with a tight elastic noose.

And glue traps that they stick to until they collapse from exhaustion or suffocate.

They also had traps that catch them live so you can release them in the woods.

I’d already tried those for years, but they’d never caught a mouse.

I bought all three of the new types of traps.

When I got home, my wife and daughter both objected to the glue traps.

They’d read that they didn’t humanely dispatch the mouse.

I said if we wanted to be rid of the mouse or mice any time soon we had to try everything.

So I set out the whole new arsenal.

Within a couple hours my daughter was calling for me to come downstairs.

A poor mouse was struggling in a glue trap.

She said, You set it up, now you’ll have to deal with that mouse.

I wasn’t sure what to do with it.

I’m not a cruel person; I like animals.

But this was a harmful pest, a potential health threat; vermin invading our home.

Even if I could free him from the glue, I couldn’t release him anywhere nearby.

They’re able to find their way back if you release them closer than five miles away.

And if you go five miles, they’re not very likely to survive in the new environment.

So I filled a bucket with comfortably warm water.

Launched him in on his glue trap raft, and watched him sink.

He struggled for four seconds.  The end was pretty quick.

It bothered me—but he was just a mouse.

Far, far below us in the hierarchy of life forms.

When mice pose a threat or a significant inconvenience to us,

They just have to suffer the consequences.

They don’t merit much weight or consideration in balancing our interests against theirs.

What is a mouse that man should be mindful of it?

In power and glory and significance—we rank a lot closer to a mouse than we do to God.

What is man that God should be mindful of him?

And not merely staying mindful of us.

But choosing to be born into this world as one of us.

Tuesday 3rd Week of Advent

Mt 1:18-25                                   Read this Scripture @usccb.org