I want to ride a zebra

Normally at this time of day my thoughts are of sending food to the dining room, scrubbing floors, cleaning counters and doing dishes. Not today though. It's a three day weekend off from the galley. Booyah.

My and my fellow galley teammates spent most of the day at a place called Tala Game Reserve. It's only a 40 minute drive from the ship and it hosts many of the animals you might think of when you picture Africa. No predators. Except for a few mercy shippers with cameras. I posted the best pics on fb page. Go ahead and check them out. Feel free to friend request me too because that is where most of my pics will go. Anyway, blah blah blah.. enough about facebook.

You get to tour the park in your car which you are strictly instructed to remain in at all times. That lasted about 7 minutes. Sometimes you have to get out to see the best stuff. Like a big mama hippo with two babies. What impressed me mostly was how comfortable most of the animals were with us getting very close to them. At one point we had to shoo an ostrich off the road to keep going. Even the rhinos were ok with me standing pretty close to them. These huge powerful animals with deadly sharp appendages acted just like cows. Quietly grazing while we snapped photo after photo. We all were enticed by the comfort the animals showed and we all wanted to get closer and closer to them. Maybe we could pet an ostrich. Maybe we could ride a zebra. Of course not. Although the animals are used to people gawking at them, there remains an ancient lack of trust for man. It is our fault after all.

I like to imagine that every animal knows how life is supposed to be. They have some distant memory of the perfection of Eden and they resent humanity for messing it all up. They want to just all get along again. The rhinos know that they wouldn't need the horn for protection and the wildebeest know they wouldn't need the speed if only we had stayed strong. I believe all of creation is desperate for restoration. Humans too, but I think we just can't really identify our desire sometimes. I'm always wishing that my relationships didn't collapse so easily, that I could show love to everyone I meet, that there wouldn't be so much injustice out there. The time is coming. No, it's here. The kingdom is here. The ethic of Jesus is present and slowly redeeming this place. Broken hearts are being restored every day. I know this because he restores me continually.