The Tale of Two Bad Mice

You shall not murder. Exodus 20. 1 - 17

Once upon a time when I was a little girl, we read lots of Beatrix Potter and lots of Rumer Godden. Beatrix Potter wrote stories about cute and mischievous little animals, and Rumer Godden wrote stories about cute and mischievous dolls who came to life. Rumer Godden's most famous work was The Doll's House, about a family of dolls named Plantaganet who live in a well appointed two story house with a Mr and Mrs, a son and a dog and a nanny named Tottie. In my child's mind, I blended the two stories, and I always thought the two bad mice also lived with the Plantaganets.

I now live in what some might call a doll's house, way up in the mountains, with lots of spaces for magical characters like mice and do to live, and we seem to have a family of mice living with us. We see evidence of them regularly. They leave deposits everywhere they go, and they have a terrible habit of taking bird seed to beds and chairs to hide, I suppose for when the weather gets bad. Sadly, they are not welcomed in this doll's house. You see, the mamas don't like their babies sleeping in cribs where mice have played. And mice running around in the kitchen where we are feeding folk isn't a welcome sight. And when I turn back the covers at night and find stashes of bird seed under my pillow, it is rather disconcerting.

And so we have initiated a full court press to rid the house of the mice family. Traps all over the place lie in wait for any of them who dare to venture out of their spaces at night. And this morning, we hit the jackpot! (or so a trapper would say.) From my loft prayer nook this am, I heard squeaks and scratching, and I knew the traps had worked. Too fearful to go and look, I just suffered in silence thinking about those little creatures. But worst of all, when I walked into my bathroom, there was a small mouse struggling on the sticky trap right beside the shower.

And I thought about the Exodus reading, one line of which is above, appointed for today.

I have no answer, nothing wise to say, only a raised awareness that we were created to live in harmony with all of creation, and this example of disharmony is only one of many that indicate we are not honoring our Creator.