Protecting Each Other

I have some friends who own horses. Recently, one of their mares got badly bruised protecting another mare from a male horse. I’ve heard of animals shielding their young, but I was a bit surprised that an animal would put herself in danger to protect a friend.

Humans are separated from the ‘lower animals’ by their ability to reason, to have empathy, and to have compassion. Yet, most of the time, we are hesitant to put ourselves in harm’s way for anyone outside our family. If a friend is in trouble, we might offer to pray for them, bake a casserole, or distract them by taking them out. However, we are reluctant to jeopardize our friendship by getting too involved. If a friend is having marital issues, financial problems, or living in an unhealthy situation, how many of us would be willing to get bloodied or bruised trying to protect her? True, most of the time our friends don’t want us to get involved. They want to fight their own battles and not be indebted to anyone.

I don’t appreciate people outside my inner circle telling me how to live my life. However, I routinely ask my close friends to look after me, to point out when I veer off course. I seek their advice concerning marriage, finances, parenting…pretty much everything. Ok, so I might not always listen to their advice…at least not right away, but I invite them to be involved. I ask them to protect me from myself.
 
I’m glad that my friends’ horses didn’t have the ‘reasoning power’ that we as humans have. Otherwise, one mare would have decided that it’s none of her business to get involved in a lover’s spat, and the other mare would have insisted that she can take care of herself. Perhaps these animals could teach us a thing or two…