We had an uninvited guest for dinner not too long ago night. As I sat in a chair next to my patio door reading a book, a 200 pound black bear sauntered up the steps to the patio, walked past me, and tore down the bird feeder hanging on the deck. Even when my husband opened the door and yelled at him TWICE, the bear was not too eager to leave. I don’t like the fact that their hunger makes them braver than usual. They are unafraid of people this time of year when there’s not much for them to eat.

    When we raised bees, the local bears routinely knocked down the hives to steal our honey. When they continued to do this even after we put the hives on our front porch, we stopped raising bees. We weren’t going to all that work (and pain) just to feed the wildlife. We gave up gardening for the same reason. Each year, the deer beat us to the harvest. We once had a deer walk right up onto the first step of our porch while I was standing about three feet away! It was determined to eat the pansies I was going to plant!

    Hunger makes animals braver than they should be. They should know better than to walk right up to people like they sometimes do. It gets a lot of them killed.

Our human appetites can hurt us...

    Similarly, our human appetites can hurt us, too. Does your appetite for food, material possessions, praise, power, control, status, etc. make you lose your common sense sometimes? It caused Esau to give away his birthright as the oldest son in his family:

When Jacob had cooked stew, Esau came in from the field and he was famished; and Esau said to Jacob, “Please let me have a swallow of that red stuff there, for I am famished.” But Jacob said, “First sell me your birthright.” .. . . And Jacob said, “First swear to me”; so he swore to him, and sold his birthright to Jacob. Then Jacob gave Esau bread and lentil stew; and he ate and drank, and rose and went on his way. " (Genesis 25:29-34)