Photo by: Nils Rinaldi
Writing from Normandy France for the BBC News magazine, journalist Natasha Breed writes of her reaction at seeing a caged King of the jungle—as a traveling circus rolls into town.
“I have spent years working with wildlife film crews following lions in Africa, and I have learned to read the big cats’ moods in their eyes. Meeting the gaze of a lion, I have experienced that stomach-lurching intuition that tells me if I make one wrong move I am toast.
The pupils dilate, and the gaze becomes 100% focused – and suddenly I have felt what it might be like to be a wildebeest coming face to face with his nemesis.
But this lion’s eyes barely flicker as I approach him. There is no gleam of interest, no unwavering intent, no spark of fun. Usually, for any cat, a moving target is always going to be fun to chase – whether it ends in a meal or not.
He is not even wary of me, as any self-respecting lion in Africa has learned to be, when a human approaches on foot. This animal is weary, dispirited, and – something I have never seen before – he is bored.”
For some reason this description of a circus lion stirs up deep emotions in me. I suspect that, as part of the world that has caged him for our own pleasure, I feel the loss of a proud beast robbed of his freedom.
But am wondering whether I’m also sensing something that parallels the loss of our own kind— living in the confinement of man-made rules and traditions. Circus animals aren’t the only ones who have been robbed of the free-range and spirit of adventure for which they’ve been created. (1Tim 1:5-7)
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