Lions

Today I want to talk to you about lions.  Lions?  After talking to us about ELEPHANTS.  Yep.  Well, I can probably promise you one thing - you won’t be trying to eat a lion piece by piece….anyway back to what I was going to say.  Elephants are not really related to today’s topic.

I suppose many of my memories and images and thoughts of lions instantly relate to Aslan from C.S.Lewis - The Narnia Series.  And from the very start he constantly warns that he isn’t predictable, because he’s wild, he’s not tame.  When he roars, after the Stone Table, he tells the girls to cover their ears before he roars because it will be too loud for them.  I am pretty sure I heard that a lion’s roar can travel ONE MILE.  So yes, it must be really powerful.

But, as you know, it’s not just the ROAR of a lion,, but the size of one.  They are not small creatures.  You see zoo keepers that have lion cubs in their houses to start with so that they can be trained to do certain things so that if they get sick, they won’t deny the keepers access to whatever needs to be done to catch them to medicate them and get them better.  I do believe they do this because they know that a completely wild lion is CERTAINLY not to be trusted but a lion that has been trained is more likely to be somewhat docile.

We have a cat in our house, Tara, who loves the solitary lifestyle.  She spends most of her day in our bedroom.  And of course, cats are a small lion/tiger/whatever big cat.  And I believe the male lions in particular are solitary souls.  They look after their pride by being ever watchful, ever careful, ever alert.  If they don’t do this, they can risk losing their pride to another male and possibly even also their lives.

One thing I want to speak of, though is Androcles and the Lion.  The lion had a thorn caught in it’s paw that it couldn’t get out and was trying to indicate to people that he needed help.  Of course, most people ran away but Androcles stood where he was and realised the lion had a very painful paw and he very gently removed the thorn for the lion.  

Now this act of kindness had a repercussion that was completely unexpected.  You see, this was the time of the Roman Empire when they threw Christians to the lions for the amusement and edification of others to prevent them becoming Christian too.  Androcles was a Christian and the lion came out but then refused to kill him and he realised that this was the lion he had helped some time ago.

So you see from this incident, it goes to show a couple of things at least.  One is that no act of kindness is ever disregarded.  Two, that lions are trustworthy.  OK, I still wouldn’t want to see a lion in front of me - I’d probably faint in fright or freeze and you wouldn’t get a response from me.

But when you look at lions, there are a lot of characteristics that can be taken not only from them themselves, but from stories as well.  And the qualities displayed - although I probably wouldn’t like the solitude part of the character, are definitely some I would wish to be known for, as I am sure many of you will be too.  What do you think you can take from lions?  What qualities of lions would you like to display?