At the Crossroads

A rabbit sat at a crossroads. The middle of a crossroads. It’s a dangerous place for a rabbit. Innocent yet aware. Afraid yet brave enough to be there. Right in the middle. Not venturing one way or the other, just… just sitting there.

It’s the middle of night as well; rabbits tend to inhabit the night. In some ways the most dangerous times for others are the safest for rabbits. Fewer predators. In this case, fewer cars. Being run over at this time of night at the location of this crossroads is highly unlikely, so the cross roads isn’t completely unsafe. As long as you don’t move.

In the crossroads there’s street light. Two actually. Through some unconsidered action on the part of the utility workers there are two lights at this crossroads. That doesn’t have anything to do with the rabbit, except that it makes the crossroads unusually bright, as crossroads go. Perhaps safer, as crossroads go. Unfortunately the placement of the lights means that there is darkness behind and before… in both possible directions.

The rabbit must move. Eventually the rabbit must move, but what will cause it to move is the mystery. Unlikely to be a car, but it could be a car. A predator, fox or cat, or even a dog, though dogs don’t tend to wander the night as much as others. Perhaps hunger. In the middle of the crossroads there is no food. Perhaps the smell of grass on the lawns that line the streets the intersect at this point will prove to be so enticing to that the rabbit will choose to leave the relative safety of the crossroads to satisfy a hunger.

Are rabbits curious? Will the wonder of what is beyond draw the rabbit out of the light and into the darkness of possibility? Or are they simply content to stay where they are until moved by predator or car or the hunger that drives the most basic of animal behavior? Curiosity kills cats and mother's inventions, but does it drive rabbits?

And why do I even care? I care because I too often find myself at a crossroads and when I spot a fellow creature at a crossroads of its own I can’t help but notice. Care? I really can’t offer care. I can’t become its owner, no one owns a rabbit, not a wild one like this. And so what do I have to offer? Protection? To protect would be to cage and to cage would be to interfere with its God given right to decide its own destiny beyond the crossroads. Do I scare it away from the middle of the crossroads in an attempt to prevent the tread of a tire from becoming its fate? Doing so may drive the rabbit to the jaws of a predator and then how have I helped? I can’t care for it, I can simply care.

Somehow I have to believe that my caring, the fact that another being cares, is enough to sustain a rabbit as it sits at a crossroads and ponders “where next?” Sometimes caring is all we can offer. Sometimes it’s the best we can offer.

“The fruits of the Spirit are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such things there is no law.” (Galatians 5:22-23) Goodness and self-control pause hand and hand at the crossroads.