“Did you see that?!” Linda exclaimed.
Bud the Lab snore-snorted loudly, jumped up from his coma and woofed at about the same timed as I regained consciousness myself. Linda was pointing under the branches of a low-slung white spruce tree adjacent to our camp. I peered out of the window of the travel trailer but all I could see in the dim light of evening were shadows.
“No, I did not see that,” I said. “What exactly was that?”
“Well there were some cute chipmunks running back and forth looking for scraps when all of a sudden a fox ran into the middle of them, scattering them in all directions. Then the fox started sniffing around where the chipmunks were searching for food. I don’t think the fox was after the chipmunks but was after whatever they were after — scraps I think.”
“Yeah right, a wild fox that tamely wanders into camp, right onto our doorstep no less, and who doesn’t eat chipmunks,” I said, as argumentatively as I could.
“Well, the fox could have easily caught one of the chipmunks but he didn’t even try,” countered Linda. “It just started sniffing around at what the chipmunks were sniffing. It seemed pretty tame to me.”
We continued to argue about foxes as wild animals and as predators, just like we have argued about anything and everything through the 40 years of delightful incompatibility that is our marriage. We were still standing forth as we took Bud for his late evening stroll. Right in the middle of Bud’s walk and our debate, a large, beautiful, bushy-tailed red fox came wandering out of the bush along the trail. He was almost nose-to-nose with us when Bud spotted him. Bud barked, dashed and hit the end of his retractable leash, nearly knocking me on my keester as the fox ran nonchalantly up the trail.
“That fox is definitely not afraid of humans or their ferocious dogs,” Linda said. She smiled at me and Bud trying to untangle ourselves.
“Yeah right, like Bud is really ferocious,” I said, trying to get another dispute going, since the fox debate was kind of running itself out of steam, or what’s even worse, I was losing it.
“That red fox was absolutely gorgeous,” said Linda. “Did you see its beautiful black pointing? You know, I am positive it is habituated to humans.” It was obvious that Linda thought there was still a little more life in the fox debate.
“I think you are right,” I conceded, just to frustrate her.
And as usual, Linda was right. The next evening as we were grilling our freshly caught fish and vegetables on the campfire while enjoying our wine and the sunset over Bridge Lake, Foxy came right up beside us, sat down and asked for some trout. And if that wasn’t enough, Foxy’s mate and at least one of their kin did the same thing. The foxes sat like well-trained dogs as they waited for food. The German couple that tended the campsite later informed us that there was a whole family of red foxes who made their living begging food from campers. They told us that the male fox liked to borrow shoes or gloves from one camper and leave them on the doorstep of another. He seemed to like to trade for his food.
Foxes habituated to human food are like any other habituated wild animal. Once they have sampled the taste of human fare they seem hooked for life. Some bears I have known that were habituated this way have been trapped, tranquilized and transported hundreds of miles into foreign wilderness. When they are released, their paws hit the ground, ambling straight for the nearest human settlement. They have no idea where it is but they will just keep going till they find it. Compelled, almost driven, they refuse to make their living any other way than by way of their habituation to humans and their food. It is far more than a preference, far more than mere laziness; it is an incorrigible craving. They seem incapable of being corrected, amended or reformed.
The red foxes that Linda and I met at Bridge Lake were habituated to living from free human food handouts just the same way. And as I reflected upon their habituation, it got me thinking about habituation in a positive sense, habituation as it could apply to the spiritual disciplines of the Christian life; to silence, solitude and prayer; to contemplation, meditation and scripture; to gratitude, obedience and praise; to fellowship, community and communion; to justice, kindness and walking humbly with God. Usually whenever these spiritual disciplines are brought up in the church, they are often attached to a huge guilt-ridden “should.” It strikes me that over the years, Christians have probably been “should” on enough by the church and its preachers concerning these means of grace. It seems to me that the results of this approach have not had a very positive effect amongst 21st-century Christians, kind of like what you would expect from force-feeding foxes human food. If the spiritual disciplines I have listed in triplets above are truly means of God’s delectable grace, they will form habits instead of needing to be habit formed; they will habituate the Christian like the delightful taste of human food habituates the fox.
Through them the Christian will “taste and see that the Lord is good” and be moved to continually and habitually seek refuge in Him. (Psalm 34:8) I truly believe this. The key is not to be brow-beaten to work hard to form habits; it is rather to be invited to “taste and see” and be habituated; to be invited through Christian proclamation and promise to partake of the means of grace that are the spiritual disciplines and trust that they will produce an incorrigible craving to follow Jesus. With regards to the means of grace, we are to be habituated like a fox.
