Monday, October 24, 2005
The Prophet sighed -- A Bear Story
The Old prophet sighed. As he was walking thru the woods he came upon the corpse of a young bear. Not killed for food, or in self-defense, but for sport. Killing just for the meanness of killing something smaller than you, because you could.
The prophet took a cloth and wiped his head, with a cloth for just such a purpose, he’d carried it since he lost his hair. The sun was shining down on him. He paused and said a brief prayer, asking God for mercy.
God didn’t always answer when he prayed. But this time he did.
“Elisha. Elisha” spoke a still small voice.
“I am here Lord, your servant hears you.” Said Elisha.
“Go off the beaten path, you will find two bears..”
“Bears, Lord” “Bears Elisha”
“Bears. Okay”
“When you find them,” said the Lord. "Tell them I have heard their cry.”
“The cry of the bears?”
“Yes. There is a gang of youth that is responsible for the death of their cub, and also for the cub they had last year.”
“I saw the one Lord, and knew it was killed for no good reason”
“Is there ever a good reason to kill? Don’t answer Elisha, it’s a rhetorical question”.
So Elisha went where he felt God was leading him and saw two bears, obviously in grief, weeping.
At least it’s not an ass, Elisha thought to himself. He walked to within a few feet of the bears and waited for them to notice him. (Always a good idea with wild animals, even if you were a prophet of the living God).
It wasn’t long before they noticed him. “Don’t be afraid” said Elisha. “We’re not,” said the papa bear, “The Great Spirit told us you were coming”
“Yes,” said the Prophet, wiping his head again, “He told me to tell you that he has heard your cry”.
“ah,” said the mama bear, “Then you’ll be taking care of it”
“Taking care of it?” said Elisha… “Well, God just told me to tell you he heard your cry.”
“That’s good enough for us,” said the papa bear. “That means He’s going to take care of that wild gang of evil children” “That’s right” said the mama bear, “before long they won’t stop at our children”
“Yes,” said papa bear, “Before long it will be your children too”.
“Well,” said the prophet, “What did you ask or rather what are you expecting God to do?” “Well, sir. We asked God to make us instruments of his vengeance, to allow us to be His hands to stop that evil gang before they kill again.”
“Really” asked the prophet? “you don’t mind if I just, um, ask do you? I’ll be right back”
The prophet walked off a little ways from the two bears.
“God? Excuse me, Lord?”
“Um, Lord?” “I know you’re there, do you have a minute?”
The prophet went on like this for awhile, and then said this.
“Lord, I know you hear me. You always hear me. You’re not really going to let these two bears get killed, because of their misguided sense of what they think ‘tell them I heard their cry’ means are you?”
silence. “I mean,” the prophet continues, “if those bears kill that evil gang, well you know the village will turn out and destroy the bears! That won’t be right Lord!”
sigh. ‘well,’ the prophet muttered, ‘Abraham prayed for a few righteous men in Sodom & Gomorrah, I can try to intercede for these two bears’
“Lord, I know you hear me, but you are not answering me, so maybe this is some kinda test?”
“You want me to figure this one out don’t you?”
At that moment the sun broke thru the clouds and shinned full strength on Elisha…..
“Sigh. I’ll take that as a yes.” The prophet muttered as he started back to where the bears were.
The Bears looked up expectantly (or was that hunger the prophet wondered?) as Elisha returned.
“Okay, I’m going to have to wing it this time, cause the Great Spirit must be having a talking fast. He does that from time to time”.
“I can’t just let you kill those kids, evil though they are, so in turn you get wiped out by the villagers… Then Bears would want revenge, etc. etc. It’s be like a big problem, as I foresee the whole Isaac and Ishmael thing down the road.”
“We wouldn’t want to start a was between us bears and the sons and daughters of Eve!” said the mama bear… “What should we do?” asked the papa bear.
“Well, for the next week, stay in woods near the hut just outside of the village where I’m staying.” “we can do that”
“Okay, then lurk when I walk the path near the woods. If I curse the kids, I’ll have you guys attack them. This way it will be me doing the killing, and you will only be the instruments… and the village will leave you alone, and no more innocents be they of the earth or of the sky, will be hurt.. at least not by those kids.”
The bears agreed.
…and it didn’t take long. The next morning as Elisha was walking and praying 41 of the ruffians showed up. Rather than ignoring them as usual, Elisha stopped and stared at them. His scrutiny made more than a few of them uncomfortable.
Unbeknown to the Prophet (but not to God) the animals were praying.
“Oh Great Spirit, if the Prophet curses those kids to die by our paws. Please receive them into your kingdom. Allow their deaths to be an atoning sacrifice, we forgive them.”
The Great Spirit smiled. He took a moment to speak into the spirits of the two bears.
“Don’t worry.” He said, “I understand Atonement. Even when it is violent, even when it is bloody – See?”
For just a moment the bears got a glimpse of a nail scarred hand.
The end. A short story from the imagination of Seraphim Bonavarius de’Angelo
"Another time, Elisha was on his way to Bethel and some little kids came out from the town and taunted him,
"What's up, old baldhead! Out of our way, skinhead!"
Elisha turned, took one look at them, and cursed them in the name of GOD.
Two bears charged out of the underbrush and knocked them about, ripping them limb from limb--forty-two children in all!
Elisha went on to Mount Carmel, and then returned to Samaria."
(2 Kings 2:23 – 25)
But you only had 41 in your story! Well yes, the 42nd one looked like the Son of God....
