In Today’s News: Rat Island


 rat-island  In today’s newspapers:  Good news from Alaska’s Rat Island.  The rats are finally gone!  Over two hundred years ago, a Japanese shipwreck spilled rampaging rats onto this remote island in Alaska.  The rats decimated the local bird population and ruled the roost for 229 years.  Now, after an intense campaign that involved helicopters and aerial attacks with poison, the last rat has gone to its reward.  The Rat Eradication Project cost $2.5 million, but the money appears to have been well spent.  Birds are returning to the island and residents are sleeping better at night.

The lesson?  We all have some rats running around inside us—those sins that so easily beset us.  There’s no need to put up with them for so long.  If we really wanted to, we could wage an individual campaign for personal holiness.  We could eradicate some internal rodents.

As we look into our own habits, attitudes, words, and behaviors, if there were one thing you or I could change for the better – one rat to eradicate – what would it be?

We can start with that one.