BALOO, LEO AND SHERE KHAN

A friend of mine sent me a picture story about Leo the African lion, Baloo the black bear, and Shere Khan the Bengal tiger. “The threesome were rescued as babies from the basement of an Atlanta drug dealer’s home when it was raided by authorities. They were starving, traumatized and had bacterial infections. They were brought to Noah’s Ark Animal Sanctuary where they’ve lived in the same habitat together for 13 years. The only time the three were separated was when Baloo was sent to surgery. [While at the drug dealer’s home, Baloo had been mistreated so profoundly that the harness that was put on him had grown into his skin.] The two cats were distraught and cried for the bear’s return when he was at the vet’s.

“Since then no one has separated the group. They clearly bonded during their earliest memories and never wanted to be apart. Now they live together as if they were brothers of the same species. They play together, nuzzle one another and are extremely affectionate. This threesome is the only lion, tiger and bear living together in the world. They’re just that exceptional. Humans could really learn from the bond that these three have. No one ever told them they couldn’t love one another, so they did just that. And now, even all these years later, they continue to do so.”

One has to wonder, then, about certain animals being natural enemies. Yet the story is about more than that. Is it not Baloo’s, Leo’s and Shere Khan’s reminder of that line from South Pacific that we human beings have to learn how to hate? Hate does not come naturally to us. What does come naturally is hate’s antithesis, namely love. We do not have to learn how to love. We know instinctively how to love and we know instinctively when any action of ours is not a loving action.

Instinctively: being a loving person is part of our DNA because we are all creations/children of an all-loving God. Love flows from our very being whether we believe it or not, whether we realize it or not. That is why we have to learn how to act in contradiction to this natural impulse to love the other. Others have to teach us how to be unloving and, ultimately, how to hate. What is more is that we have to accept that teaching as a valid and correct way to respond to the other.

Today when we watch the news, we ask ourselves how ISIS can be so cruel, so hateful; how they can in seemingly good conscience and with no remorse, behead innocent people. The answer is that they have been taught how to hate and have somehow come to believe that such actions are tolerated and even taught by their Prophet. That may shock us but it should not surprise us. Not too long ago in our country Christians clad in white hoods and sheets came to believe it was fine with Jesus to hate and hang innocent black men.

Such hateful actions were wrong back then and are so now. The pictures of Baloo, Leo and Shere Khan nuzzling each other are heart-warming to anyone who sees them or can imagine them. But they are more than that and must be. They are a reminder that our basest instinct is not to hate but to love. We are given the opportunity many times a day to choose between love and hate. How we respond is up to us.