A prickly subject

[Disclaimer: no animals were hurt in the making of this blog]

Last night a hedgehog decided to sit on our drive, just at the time Sally came back home in her car. The poor thing was very confused and did not know which way to go (the hedgehog, not Sally). In the end it ran up the drive and curled up into a ball in front of the garage door.

Unfortunately Sally needed to get into the garage so the hedgehog needed to move. The problem is that the hedgehog’s defence mechanism when it feels threatened is not to run away but to roll itself into an even tighter ball and stay put.

Talking to it did not work and neither did trying to open the door to make it move, so in the end we got a broom and VERY GENTLY nudged it away from the garage door to safety.

How often do we react like the hedgehog? When we experience something that makes us feel threatened (change?!) do we roll ourselves into a defensive ball of rhetoric and intransigence and refuse to move, even when it is in our best interest? If so, we should not be surprised when sometimes God has to give us a gentle nudge with his celestial broom!

This post also gives me the opportunity to share the joke voted the top joke at last year’s Edinburgh Fringe Festival, by Dan Antopolski:

“Hedgehogs – why can’t they just share the hedge?”