I saw this picture on the National Geographic news feed. I have looked at it a bunch of times. I have showed it to people. It's like an inkblot test. People tend to try to see in it what they want to see in it. Is it a picture of a carnivore with a snack or a mother with a small baby? Is this a picture of the cruel world or the tender one?
It is the expressions of the faces that are so hard to read. The larger animal, a fox?, looks so calm and peaceful. There does not look like there is any malice in the face. The animal in the mouth does not look like it is struggling. It even looks like it is smiling. Am I seeing things? I checked the picture caption and it did not help. it did clarify that the larger animal is an Ethiopian Wolf. The smaller animal is not labeled. While I wish that I could see a loving mother lifting her cub to safety, i'm convinced that the smaller animal is a giant molerat and it is resolved to its fate.
Would I go quietly? Many times in history people have been faced with huge choices and they had to decide if they would go along or they would resist. Racist policies got into law because well meaning people just went along. The Jews were taken off to destruction and most people turned a blind eye. We look back on history and fashion ourselves as virtuous and heroic. We imagine that we would have been different. We would have stood up. We would have said, 'NO.' More than likely, we would have gone along.
The bible challenges us to see the heroic in daily living. It challenges us to wake up in the morning and start running. We need to run in pursuit of the future. Author Graham Greene, wrote in The Power and the Glory, “There is always one moment in childhood when the door opens and lets the future in.” I would say that after the door opens we have to keep kicking it open else it will slam shut and we will stay in the past. What are the heroic struggles of our day where can no longer just go along, but must step out into the future God is creating?