The Lion Roars Because He is Agitated

 “If you’re really listening, if you’re awake to the poignant beauty of the world, your heart breaks regularly. In fact, your heart is made to break; its purpose is to burst open again and again so that it can hold ever-­more wonders.” -Andrew Harvey

The Lion roars because he is agitated. He sees danger everywhere but no one is noticing. People are drinking cocktails and endlessly shopping for new and fascinating things. The Lion watches from a distance. He sees the cliff and he sees the crowd stumbling toward it.

The Lion faces a dilemma: the people are free to do whatever they want.

He opines: “Who am I to interfere?”

He ends his dilemma with this:

“Yes they are free, and so am I.”

The Lion rushes toward them and blocks their path. As they try to get around him they taunt him and call him a bully. The Lion runs to the edge of the cliff and bellows:

“If you are going to walk off this cliff you will have to get past me first.”

The frightened crowd of people look at each other and then glare back at him.

The Lion Stands His Ground

The Lion roars:

“You are all cowards and weaklings. You wander aimlessly through the forest and arrive at this cliff understanding nothing. Had I not stopped you, you would lay shattered on the canyon floor for the vultures to eat. It is that you have failed yourself and betrayed that which is most precious to you. Like spoiled children you yawn and rub your eyes as if you just can’t get enough sleep, saying, “Life is so hard, just leave me alone.”

He continues:

“Yes, Life is hard but it’s virtually impossible until you overcome the shock of your birth and the fear of your death: a price we all must pay to enter into the Kingdom. Otherwise the shock of your birth and the fear of your death remain as hidden obstacles that control and confine the choices you make. If you think that it is the government, or the church, or your parents that are to blame for you wanting to end your misery, think again. You say ‘they betrayed me’ but it was actually you all along.”

The Response of the Righteous and the Powerful

At this very moment the Lion’s roar echoes throughout the valley. He grabs one person after another by their throat and drags them away from the cliff to the top of the mountain. Bleeding and infuriated, the people divide themselves spontaneously into two groups.

The first group, “the Righteous”, admire the Lion’s roar as an expression of passion for Truth. But the second group, “the Powerful”, hate the Lion for disturbing their sleep, and begin to plot against him. They speak among themselves saying:

“We weren’t hurting anyone, Who does he think he is?”

The Powerful then ambush and capture the Lion, pushing him into a golden cage; they demand that both groups worship him as their savior.

The Righteous, who recognized the Lion’s roar as an expression of love, were awakened to his radiance. For a moment their hearts were bright and happy as the Lion’s blistering light burned through their arrogance and vanity. Yet lurking in the shadows, their fears and sense of superiority eventually prevailed once again. The makings of a true spiritual renaissance succumbed to something more manageable (religious doctrine) that they could study and pass down to future generations.

The Lion meant to both indict and inspire the people. He howled:

“You have betrayed life with your self-pity and lovelessness. Your condemnation, blame and withdrawal create the prison of your mind where you lie in squalor. You are infinitely rich and yet you act like a refugee on the land.”

To soothe the people, the Powerful play some calming music and hold hands with the faithful so that the Lion and his rudeness do not disturb the slumbering congregation. The overwhelming burden of personal responsibility must be muted and ignored. Both the Powerful and the Righteous found the music, stained glass and hallowed halls much more to their liking.

The Lion dies but his mission remains incomplete. The Powerful made sure that the Lion would live forever in his golden cage, embalmed in a stone statue roaring in perfect silence.  His stuffed image comforted the people and they went back to sleep.

The Powerful and the Righteous built and established religious institutions. Now the people could read about the apostles and sing glorious hymns to the Lion. Every week they would drink his blood and re-enact his murder and resurrection, cheerfully certain that this guaranteed their passage to heaven. They swapped stories of the good old days when the Lion was alive and how great it must have been.

Neither group troubled their consciences about the state of the Earth since they believed that it was in a fallen state anyway, so it didn’t matter if they poisoned it to death. The only thing everyone cared about was their final resting place in heaven with the Lion. Beyond this, the risks and personal implications were just too great to even consider.

What Both Groups Miss

Both the Powerful and the Righteous missed the fact that the Lion’s message was not some distant philosophy but rather a reality always available to them, and not dependent upon the Lion or his memory. No, it is the living eternal Truth that stands free on its own, not mediated or administered by anyone.

Jesus created a firestorm in Jerusalem when he taught that the rain falls on the just and the unjust alike. After his capture and murder, criminal authorities hired theological taxidermists and ventriloquists to turn the most exciting message the world had ever seen into an ego-salvation scheme; one that we know now as the equivalent to a thief stealing your money and then loaning it back to you at interest.

The Lion roars because he is agitated. The Lion is the Son of God and the Son of God is Love.

He roars because he sees the world differently; a place where everyone understands that we each share the same origin and essence and so must act like it. Obvious to him is that life is the highest expression of Love and that the Earth is a realm of wonder and delight. He makes sure that we remember.