The Porpoise Diving Life – Day 77 – Wild Animals

Day 77

Wild Animals

Nobody I know has ever been killed by a Porpoise.  Fact is, I’ve never heard of anyone being hurt by one.  I think a collision with a Porpoise is the closest I’ve ever been to a place in the Guinness World Book of Records. No kidding.

I was just north of Huntington Beach, California one afternoon. A place referred to as Dog Beach (Yes, you can actually walk your dog there. You should be careful where you sit though). I grabbed my boogey board and headed for the water. I walked further and further away from shore, toward the place where the waves begin to crash upon you. It’s at this point where you begin to dive beneath the cresting swells versus standing tall and getting your brains unnecessarily rattled, like the numbskull tourists. Just before I ducked beneath the onrushing wall of seawater, I saw the image of a Porpoise silhouetted inside the curl of the wave in front of me. The Porpoises were actually darting back and forth inside the curl of the waves. Had I dove in headfirst; I could have been the first human Porpoise casualty in history.

Observing wild animals at a distance can lead one to the conclusion that they are tame, safe or less wild than they actually are. I saw a photograph in the newspaper one day of some idiot standing inside the Lion’s cage at a zoo. Of course, this genius had a Bible in his hand and was supposedly stepping out in faith to demonstrate the truth of a particular verse in the Bible. Like any faith on Earth, Christianity has its share of whacko’s. The point is, the Christians who are routinely observed by the public aren’t really the wild one’s. They’re typically the whacko’s or the caged one’s. You want to keep your distance from both types.

There’s something sad about seeing wild animals subject to various inventions of human captivity. Although I enjoy the mysterious pleasure of observing a Giraffe at the zoo in San Diego or Seattle, there’s always the sense that something’s strangely awry with this picture.

I started to think about how those wild animals became captives in a refuge, zoo or preserve. It dawned on me that I’ve never seen wild animals lined up at the entrance waiting for the gates to open to get in. In fact, the one’s that are in these places are probably dieing to get out (although I haven’t had the guts to ask one of them for fear of being overheard by some kid and his mom standing nearby).

Most wild animals in human captivity get there because their habitat has been encroached and ravaged by man. Man has either over-harvested the particular species or has plundered their natural environment to a degree that it will no longer sustain them. In some cases, man has expanded our habitat thereby trespassing on the home of the wild animals. Hey, the wild animals were there first! If that Porpoise would have collided with me inside the curl of the wave and seriously injured or killed me, who would man blame? (Actually, we’d probably blame it on a shark. The day after my death, the waters off Dog Beach would be filled with guys in boats trying to kill or capture the killer beast!). Unfortunately, this is the reality of the relationship between man and the creations that inhabit the wild kingdom. This isn’t natural. It’s a tragedy.

Christianity was never intended to be a domesticated religious amusement. Erwin McManus suggests, “Perhaps the tragedy of our time is that such an overwhelming number of us who declare Jesus as Lord have become domesticated – or, if you will, civilized. We have lost the simplicity of our early faith. Beyond that, we have lost the passion and power of that raw, untamed, and primal faith.”[i] McManus is not a lone voice crying in the wilderness. He’s got plenty of company calling out the same message. Domesticated creatures have a tendency to forget what it once meant to be a part of God’s plan to be an indispensable part of this, His Wild Kingdom. God doesn’t forget.

When I was younger, we watched this television show called Wild Kingdom with host Marlin Perkins. Marlin and his co-host would travel around the world taking video of wild animals in their natural habitat. Sometimes, they would bring weird looking smaller animals on the show and tell the audience about them. I was mesmerized by this show. These guys were revealing creatures to me I had never seen before.

I had a similar experience when I started learning about Jesus. The first Bible I ever really read willingly, on my own accord, has page after page of underlined verses in the New Testament. It was a time in my life when I possessed the gift of a simple faith, to use McManus’s words. It was also raw, untamed and primal. I was living the first leg of a spiritual safari into the Wild Kingdom of God. I was awed and amazed by Jesus. I was traveling across new terrain. The insights, visions and tastes of this new, seemingly borderless adventure were refreshing and invigorating. I couldn’t get enough of Him.

What happened? My journey placed me in contact with other sojourners, some of which were vastly more experienced than I was at all this. I listened intently to their stories. I began to regularly hang out with them. The stories of their journey and their interpretation of my environment began to take the luster off of my childlike wonder and amazement. The borders of what was a borderless habitat became boards of a box where Jesus lived. I found myself waiting at the gate to get in every Sunday. The Wild Kingdom I began to explore became a zoo, refuge or preserve where I came to feel like a captive. I had become domesticated. So had my Jesus. There arose a heartfelt sense that there was something strangely awry with this picture. I had become confined to an aquarium named religion. Although I was so-called secure and well fed, I was lost. I yearned to be a Porpoise darting through the curl of a cresting ocean breaker, exploring life with Jesus…again.

I’ve recovered from all that. It hasn’t been easy. This has been a process, not an event. I’ve had a lot of help along the way.  Over the intervening years, I have been freed to roam the open oceans of life with Jesus…again. I know I’m not alone. “Jesus is being lost in a religion bearing his name. People are being lost because they cannot reconcile Jesus association with Christianity. Christianity has become docile, domesticated and civilized.”[ii]

Jesus does not live in an aquarium. Don’t expect to find Him there. If you feel like a domesticated captive gasping for the sustenance your keeper throws into your tank each week, exhale and swim down the drain. Don’t stop until you find yourself outside the confines of your captivity. Yes, it’s risky. So is spending the rest of your life simply enduring life inside religion with Jesus standing on the outside of your tank imploring you to come out. If you feel like you may be one on the outside befuddled by those on the inside who claim to be swimming with Jesus exclusively in their tank, relax. They’re the captives. You’re looking for God, not an aquarium to swim in anyway. You’ll find a pod of like-minded sojourners to swim with. Consider the following from Dallas Willard:

“Every group tries to tell us: “We have Christ in here with us.” This may be true but he also is always on the outside. It is people in the church that Christ calls, and what he is offering is a special fellowship they do not now have. Christ is really out in the world, where we have not yet had the courage to follow him fully. Only “outside” is great enough for him.”[iii]

If all else fails, buy a boogey board. Ride a few swells. Who knows? You might run into God out there.

NOTES


[i] McManus, Erwin Raphael The Barbarian Way- Unleash The Untamed Faith Within, Nelson Books, A Division of Thomas Nelson Publishers Copyright © 2005 by Erwin Rafael McManus, p. 12.

[ii] McManus, Erwin Raphael The Barbarian Way- Unleash The Untamed Faith Within, Nelson Books, A Division of Thomas Nelson Publishers Copyright © 2005 by Erwin Rafael McManus, p. 17.

[iii] Willard, Dallas The Spirit of the Disciplines – Understanding How God Changes Lives, HaprperSanFrancisco, A division of HarperCollinsPublishers, Inc. Copyright © 1988 by Dallas Willard, p. 245.

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