Published 2001-09
Bud Powell
Trinity Covenant RCUS, Colorado Springs
Random Acts of
Kindness?
When I was a boy it was great
fun to drive with my family to Crater Lake, in southern Oregon. In those days it was an all-day trip for my
dad’s Model A Ford, so we did not go often.
Usually on a holiday like the Fourth of July a couple of my uncles would
join us with their families [or we would
join them], and caravan our Model A’s up the mountain to one of the most
beautiful spots in the world. For us
kids it was almost a religious ritual.
Centuries ago, the volcano
blew its top and a lake of pristine blue beauty formed in the crater. I can still remember the breathlessness that
came with the first view of the lake as we rounded the mountain top.
It was fun to feed the
chipmunks. There were hundreds of
them. We came with peanuts, bread, and
cookies and they would come scampering across the rock—dozens of them. It was great fun.
I was at Crater Lake a few
years ago. I was now a grandfather and
my uncles were gone—only my mother and a couple of sisters-in-law were left in
her family.
There were still chipmunks
at Crater Lake. There were also signs
everywhere—Do Not Feed the Chipmunks. It
seems that when chipmunks were given food that was not natural to them, they
developed diseases and the population was placed in jeopardy. They would be much healthier if they gathered
their own natural food.
There is a lesson in all this. Random acts of kindness and senseless acts of
beauty can be dangerous. We loved the
chipmunks and it was beautiful, we thought, to see them scamper across the
rocks and run off with bits of peanuts and cookies stored in their cheeks. We were killing them in our ignorance. Our senseless acts of kindness were deadly to
them.
Man was not created to act senselessly and randomly,
in spite of the bumper sticker. Man is
to use his head, to gather scientific knowledge, and act in wisdom and
judgment. Romantic foolishness is the
cause of a great deal of evil in the world and not just to chipmunks. The stakes are much higher when humans are
victimized by random acts of kindness and senseless beauty, financed by tax
dollars and administered by romantic fools.
