Just Renters
The house that we think of as “our” house does not belong to us. Not because we are still paying the mortgage on it. This becomes evident one morning while sitting in a moment of calm before the day has begun, watching the bird feeder which my husband lovingly is filling. He has dumped out the seeds too big to fit through the wire mesh of the feeder. About 10 little birds, sparrows and juncos and sometimes a dashing male cardinal, are feeding on the seeds on the snow-covered ground. They are not scared off by the lone squirrel who comes to eat the peanuts from the mix. Larger birds flock to the now-full feeder. The largest birds, too big to land on the feeder, sometime take over the small bird territory, eating seeds on the ground.
The snow is falling as we prepare to go to work, cleaning up the kitchen and locking up the house. The birds fly around in my mind. So vulnerable they seem yet so brave, so tiny yet enormous in their freedom to take to the air. I want to hold them in my hand and stroke their soft, downy feathers, give them love. But truth is, this is purely a selfish wish on my part for they don’t need my love. They don’t really even need the bird seed my husband religiously puts in the feeder. There are bushes out back with berries which they love. It is I who need them, to make me feel happy, to make me feel loving, to make me feel alive and connected to something larger than myself.
As we pull out of the driveway I take another lingering look at the birds in the brightening light. And then it hits me. They get to stay there all day as we drive off through the snow to our respective jobs in the cement jungle of a nearby city. We drive past horses, grazing in a neighboring meadow. Same deal. Often I make an effort to remember the birds and the squirrels and the horses to bring calm to a fraught work day. Yet I usually get so caught up in my frenetic, little life that I forget to think of them. Or if I manage to conjure them up, the image of them in my mind is thin, pale and lacking in substance.
I imagine the animals laughing at us as we have to drive off to go to work. Our house belongs to them. Sometimes they even invade our living quarters. When we first bought the house, it had 50 or so little brown bats in the attic who would occasionally fly around the bedroom at night. One year we had a pair of squirrels. We even had the company of a milk snake one afternoon. And every fall as the weather turns frigid, the field mice run in.
A little more thought on the subject reveals to me that in actuality we own nothing. Not our house, our spouse, our children nor our pets, not even the body we inhabit. All of these things are on loan to us, rented to us if you will, by the Maker of the sun and the moon and the stars. Such a wealth of beauteous bounty is there for us, ours to enjoy for the mere act of attention. The trees, the summer breeze, the blanket of snow in winter, the flowers of summer, the butterflies, the deer who eat our lilies, the possum, the ever-changing species of birds, the occasional coyote and the thousands, if not millions of insects underfoot in a terrestrial universe, to say nothing of the universe above our heads and the trillions or gazillions of stars, the planets, the sun, the moon. And yet we are so caught up in the dramas of our mundane lives that we fail to duly honor the ever-present gifts except in periodic snatches, when we turn our attention outside ourselves to the piece of earth we rent. We may pay a sum to rent a piece of the earth but that piece contains a seemingly infinite multitude of gifts given for the taking. Or rather, I should say, for the renting.
MOONSIDE 
Thoughtful read. Thanks.
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February 10, 2024 at 5:44 AM
Thank YOU very much!🙏🏽
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February 10, 2024 at 10:11 PM
Beautiful…🙏 You have described so tenderly and perfectly, what each one of us will do good to appreciate and realize, in these words here!
“Such a wealth of beauteous bounty is there for us, ours to enjoy for the mere act of attention.” Indeed 🙂
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February 10, 2024 at 10:44 AM
Thank you so much, Ramble! 🙏🏽😊
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February 10, 2024 at 10:29 PM
You have zeroed in on the truth, but in a lovely way to read and remind us of it.
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February 10, 2024 at 11:21 AM
Thank you so much, Julie. 🙏🏽😊
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February 10, 2024 at 10:25 PM
Your comment about wildlife invading your residence made me think of our extremely industrious birds, who after a couple of decades appear to have finally figured out their springtime nests are much more suitable for the holly bushes than behind our window shutters. I always admire their dedication and construction skills. And yes…we’re all renting…time and space alike!
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February 10, 2024 at 12:54 PM
You’re so right!
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February 10, 2024 at 10:37 PM
Thank you for painting in our mind’s eye the glorious wonders of this earth. 🙂
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February 10, 2024 at 8:46 PM
Thank you, Nancy! Thanks so much! I reread some of your stories. They are all amazing! Your writing is very vivid. I could see the stories on the screen of my mind. And have no trouble imagining them on TV.
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February 11, 2024 at 10:27 AM
Thank you! You’re very kind. That was so nice of you to go back into my blog and cruise around! 🙂
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February 11, 2024 at 4:23 PM
It was my pleasure. Each story was astounding. Real TV stories.
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February 11, 2024 at 6:03 PM
I’m pleased you enjoyed them and took the rime to let me know. 🙂
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February 11, 2024 at 6:27 PM
I am reading this post at 4 am in the morning and I loved how you put a new perspective to see things. When you believe you own nothing, and there’s nothing to lose you start to act differently.
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February 11, 2024 at 4:00 AM
To think it is one thing… to act differently seems to be harder. At least for me. Thank you for visiting and reading. 🙏🏽
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February 11, 2024 at 11:08 AM
Wow! We are just renting space…here on loan, where God has permitted us to live in this space, to thrive and prosper. He not only protects those beautiful birds, but so too does he clothe and feed each and every one of them. How much more does He care for us??
And when our lease ends here, He will set us up in a forever home, (rent-free) -in a MANSION in the skies.
Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much better than they? (Mat 6:26)
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February 11, 2024 at 11:34 AM
Wonderful response! Thank you!🙏🏽
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February 11, 2024 at 11:35 AM
Your post was so thought provoking and truly applicable; therefore it stirred up the Spiritual Landlady in me. 😂🤣
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February 11, 2024 at 11:39 AM
Wow!! 😄👍🙏🏽
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February 11, 2024 at 11:42 AM
So beautifully written, as usual.
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February 11, 2024 at 12:20 PM
Thank you so much, Lana! Happy Super Bowl Sunday! Not my cup of tea but it is to most Americans. Hope all is well!
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February 11, 2024 at 12:40 PM
Your ability to paint a picture with your words touches my heart. We inhabit this gracious world, bringing to it our demands, needs, and self-indulgences, and yet the Lord provides for us, just as He does the birds of the air and the bats in the rafters. To pause to be grateful wouldn’t take much effort, yet I am sad to admit how infrequently I do it. Thanks for this beautiful reminder of our own mortality and our need to be filled with gratitude for all we have and are.
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February 11, 2024 at 4:00 PM
How infrequently I do it, too, now that we are back in NYC.
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February 13, 2024 at 11:01 AM
Great to hear from you, Ellen. As usual, you feel very subtly the issues of relationships between people, people and animals, people and things…
I agree, we were given the opportunity to learn something, touch something, feel something. These touches are very fragile, and you need to touch and feel differently very carefully and affectionately.
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February 12, 2024 at 8:52 AM
Yes, you are right… carefully and affectionately!🙏🏽
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February 12, 2024 at 10:00 AM
🧡🧡🧡
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February 12, 2024 at 3:16 PM
🙏🏽👍💥
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February 12, 2024 at 9:05 PM
It is very interesting point of view on our presence here on the planet Earth. Do we deserve to have all these things around us? Do we behave properly? Do we respect and grateful to what fall down on us for nothing? Your post, Ellen, generated too many questions and thoughts.
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February 12, 2024 at 11:18 AM
Good questions you brought up. I would say no to all of them. At least to answer to my own conscience. I try. It gets harder be a recluse with my husband in a small New York City apartment. I so miss the nature that surrounded us in the country. It is here, too but there are so many other stimuli to attend to.
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February 12, 2024 at 9:15 PM
It was time we sold our house and moved into condo apartment in Toronto to be closer to museums, concert halls and other entertainment facility. We loved that kind of style of life a lot. However, someday I found that I missed the morning coffee on my deck in the rays of the rising sun, the garden, the songs of birds, the smell of spring lilac coming through the window to the bedroom, the racking of leaves. And we escaped from the city to small town close to Niagara Fall. Who knows, probably another day we would again come back to the apartment, but as long as I capable to maintain our small house we’ll stay here.
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February 20, 2024 at 9:00 AM
Sounds good… wish we could have stayed where we were but lots of reasons why we couldn’t. I understand your reasoning very well. 🙏🏽
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February 20, 2024 at 9:10 AM
🙂🌹
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February 20, 2024 at 9:20 AM
Without being connected to nature, there is an emptiness. Your words reminded me of this:
“I once had a sparrow alight upon my shoulder for a moment, while I was hoeing in a village garden, and I felt that I was more distinguished by that circumstance than I should have been by any epaulet I could have worn.”
― Henry David Thoreau
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February 12, 2024 at 3:32 PM
Exactly!! Great quote! Thanks for including it1🙏🏽👍
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February 12, 2024 at 9:03 PM
Your writing is always a pleasure to read. I enjoy your composition and the way you share your observations. I laughed with you about the animals owning your home.
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February 13, 2024 at 11:03 AM
Thank you so very much, Ka! 🙏🏽 Yes, the animals ruled our house. 😄
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February 13, 2024 at 11:08 AM
This reality hit me hard, thinking about my daughter. She’s my one and only. Now it’s making me want to be with her as much as possible, as often as I want. Sadly, she’s in the university/dorm during the weekdays. 🥺😟😔
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February 18, 2024 at 11:25 PM
It IS the hardest lesson of all… knowing our loved ones are just for rent. ❤️
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February 19, 2024 at 9:56 AM
This is so uplifting and beautifully written, Ellen! 🌺
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February 28, 2024 at 9:49 PM