What can a lion teach us about relationships? Read on!
Getting together with "loved ones" for the holidays? It's October as I write this, and already I'm hearing people moan about gathering with relatives or friends at Thanksgiving.
The problem? The Great Divide.
Is it religion? Immigration? Climate change? Sexual orientation? What's The Great Divide in your circle of relationships?
We have disagreed, passionately, at the national and local and family level before. But the anger, the inability to have a civil conversation, the assigning of demonic motives to those whose opinions differ, has reached a level that threatens our ability to say "we are one country." Perhaps worst of all, so many cannot say, about those closest to them, "we are one family."
God calls us to love our enemies and to love our neighbors and families. It's been said that they are often the same people. Love, in this sense, does not necessarily mean "like," "approve of," or "agree with." It also does not mean "control."
We are called to love each other because we all bear the spark of our Creator, we are all God's beloved children, family to each other regardless of culture, color, creed or who we cuddle with. We are called to bless _ not curse _ each other.
Perhaps the people we disagree with the most are most in need of our love and prayers.
I find it much easier to want to control than to want to love. I'm comfortable around people who agree with me, and act in ways I understand and support. If I can just persuade others to see my point of view, and act as I want them to, I'm ready to call them brother or sister. But seeking my comfort in relationships is a form of control.
The need to control each other, and the frustration when that doesn't work, fuels the fires of self-righteous indignation and even hatred, that are burning in our political arenas, family homes and sometimes in our places of worship. The desire to control is overwhelming the possibility of staying in relationship.
So, about the lion. This is a true story about a young priest working at a mission in Africa. He got to know people who rehabilitate lions that have been in captivity. They prepare the lions to live in the wild, then release them to be lords of the jungle.
Lions are really big and very strong. They are dangerous carnivores.
One day, the priest went with a trainer to check on a recently released lion that wore a radio collar. They would drive for a while, stop and extend an antenna, and see if the lion was nearby. The priest got more and more nervous about this mission, and vowed that if they found the lion he was not leaving the vehicle, no matter what happened.
When radio contact was made, the trainer got out and started calling the beast. The priest cowered in the jeep, hearing the big cat crash through the undergrowth toward them. Suddenly it leaped from the bushes and landed on the trainer!
And licked his face.
The trainer did not have control of the lion. He had a relationship with it.
Got any big, strong, scary folks you dread encountering? How can you build relationships that let them be who they are, and yet maintain bonds of civility, even affection, that are big and strong also?
We are called to love, forgive and bless each other, even as God loves, forgives and blesses us. This is the only way I know of to bridge The Great Divide.
