Broken Windows & Little Foxes

Once, when I was eight or nine years old, I was loafing around the spacious backyard at my grandmother’s house, looking for snakes, large insects or evidence of the UFO she said she’d seen a few weeks before. Not finding any reptiles or invertebrates, the UFO angle was looking more and more promising — an absence of creatures which scurry along the ground, to borrow a phrase from Genesis, suggests alien alteration of the environment. That, or a proliferation of cats. Mee Maw had about seventeen of them. But UFOs were a much more exciting possibility.

Anyway, all of a sudden I heard a conspiratorial whisper.

“Psst. Hey kid. Over here.”

One of the basement windows was speaking to me. I was always terrified of that basement. Even with its dozen or so windows, it seemed supernaturally dark — the portal to a terrestrial black hole into which anything good or bright might fall. The dirt floor was simultaneously damp and hard as concrete, the air permanently chilled and it smelled like the innermost chamber in an undiscovered Egyptian pyramid. Now, one of its black eyes, the broken one, was calling me.

“See that rock at your feet?” the window said. “Pick it up.”

Evil windows are not to be disobeyed. I picked up the rock.

“Good. Throw it. See if you can hit one of the other windows.”

I knew that throwing a rock through a perfectly good window, even one that functioned as a threshold to oblivion, fell well beyond the bounds of good behavior. The broken pane sensed my hesitation.

“It’s okay. Really. The old lady won’t care. If she cared, she’d have fixed me. She hasn’t. I’ve been broken for weeks. Do it. Do it. Fire away.”

The tempting transom, it turned out, was wrong. Mee Maw, not to mention my parents, cared a great deal and memorably communicated their sentiments both verbally and non-verbally. Broken windows, however, are not in the habit of lying. Generally, they speak the truth. It may seem like such a little thing, but a single broken window sends the silent message that no one cares. Then, there’s that odd passage from the book of the Bible no one ever reads — Song of Solomon 2:15 — Catch for us the foxes, the little foxes that ruin the vineyards. I’m no expert on Hebrew poetry, but I take that to mean that the little things can make a huge difference for good or ill. 

This is a good time of year to take a walk around your own property — your life, your heart — to see if there are any signs of neglect that signal some slippage in your commitment. Are there any little foxes ruining your vineyard or broken windows inviting vandalism? Here are some questions I’m asking as I do my own self-inspection:

• Is my language looser than it used to be?
• Am I comfortable with media content that once made me blush?
• What kind of jokes am I laughing at these days?
• What kind am I telling?
• What kind of books am I reading?
• Am I reading?
• Angry often? Why?
• What am I doing to take care of my body?

You and I are different, so you may need to ask other questions. If you’re so inclined, add them to the comments section below. It might help others identify the broken windows or little foxes in their own lives.