have you ever seen a rat swim?

standing on the shores of the potomac, amazed by the silence, the stillness, the smoothness of such a body of water, a splash disturbed my peace. i looked down and less than two feet away from my toes, a small mammal was making its way through the water. being of ohio (and california), i thought, ooo... a river otter! or beaver! but no... it is too small and look at the skinny wretched bare tail snaking through the water, it's a...

RAT!

i had to contain my repulsion. you see, in one of my cali apartments, when i would sit in the bedroom on my cell phone with folks from back home (it was the only room in the place with reception), i would look out the window and watch the rats scurrying around the dumpster, along the ivy covered wall and up the drain pipe. in one sitting, i once counted over half a dozen rats.

and so this rat, breast stroking with beads of water rolling down her back, her tail swishing to do its part of the work, seemed entirely unnatural--from my perspective. to me, rats were natural in amongst the garbage, in the nooks and crannies of place built for me, hanging on as scavengers of a bigger life being lived.

but this rat (as all rats) was not made for the dumpster, but for the shores of the potomac. God made this rat to live in beauty, not squalor.

is this not also how we see each other? making wild assumptions that we are where we are for a reason, when in fact God made us all for the beauty, not the squalor?

this little rat pushes me to change the way i see everyone, slowing before i judge and approaching everyone as God made them... not as i choose to see them, or defined by the environment they occupy.