6:2<\/p>\n
The young man stared at the broken creature and did not see a meal to be eaten or a resource to be taken. He saw pain and sorrow and felt a great upwelling of pity. For many years the man had cared for his family, nursed them back to health when they were sick, treated their wounds and performed everything in his limited power to heal them. He was no stranger to pain and suffering; to him it was another part of life like eating and sleeping. But family were not found in the woods, did not exist outside the limited scope of his small home.<\/p>\n
But for some reason the helplessness of the tiny creature half hidden under the wild rose bush touched him, and he realized that he had the ability to change its fate, that he must do something to help. He gathered up the creature in an old hide, trying to be careful and not injure it further. And once he had it tightly swaddled he wrapped a few strips of rawhide around the bundle and tied it to his chest like it was a small child in a harness.<\/p>\n
And then he set off back home.<\/p>\n
As he arrived back at the wood-and-hide shelter he called home, he could hear his family and neighbors starting to wake and move around. Suddenly the young man felt doubt. What right did he have to bring not food but another mouth to feed into their already meager lives? What good could this injured creature bring? He could readily imagine the scorn and disbelief of his mother when he presented her with his burden. The anger of his fellows as he wasted their meager resources on something broken and better discarded.<\/p>\n
He stood on the edge of the small collection of dwellings, undecided and conflicted.<\/p>\n
But he could not return the animal to its suffering, to a long and lingering death. And he could not bring himself to end its life; it was small and helpless and could not protect itself.<\/p>\n
The young man looked up to the sky and silently asked for guidance. He raised his tanned and muscular arms to the heavens, threw back his head and closed his eyes. Inhaling deeply he brought his arms gently back to his chest and opened his eyes to the beauty of the morning and smiled. A sense of something greater than himself, greater than the desires and selfish opinions of those around him, filled him to bursting. He would do as the spirits moved him. He would protect and care for this creature and, when the time was right, return it whole to the woods where they could then resume their proper roles: hunter and hunted, players in the game of the gods, and then there would be balance.<\/p>\n
His heart sang and he was filled with contentment. All was good.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
6:2 The young man stared at the broken creature and did not see a meal to be eaten or a resource to be taken. He saw pain and sorrow and felt a great upwelling of pity. For many years the man had cared for his family, nursed them back to health when they were sick, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[29],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/macblaze.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4721"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/macblaze.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/macblaze.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/macblaze.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/macblaze.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4721"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/macblaze.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4721\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/macblaze.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4721"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/macblaze.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4721"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/macblaze.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4721"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}