It was a sunny day. The grass was green, the sky blue, and the air fresh. Time in the pool was over and while we were waiting to eat you and a few other kids were having fun with a soccer ball. Bouncing it off an elastic net. Only they were bigger and it was every man for himself – not taking turns. So I made sure you got the ball and when I did you made sure it hit the net. Afterward I played goalie and you practiced your bend-it-like-Beckham kick. We had a great time.
If I weren’t there someone else might have played with you or you might have had just as much fun doing something else. But the way you and the soccer ball and I came together then stayed with me. All this time. Whatever life I put into your day you put that and a whole lot more into mine. It was heart-opening.
So even though everybody’s moved on and I probably wouldn’t recognize you, I still think of you. And how it felt watching a boy with a big appetite for action and a small body who needed help getting in on it. Wanting you to make it.
A lesson in what separates humans from our common ancestor: empathy. And differentiation, its companion that helps empathy define right from wrong. Put the two together and you get Conscience. The big differentiator between human-animal and animal.
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That is, when human puts its big differentiator to use. I was about your age when I read Jack London’s The Call of the Wild. A novel he wrote in 1903 that tells of rough treatment of animals in a rough environment. But all I remember about it is a wolf. A species of predator that was particularly feared by human predators, who distrusted humans in return.
So when the wolf was separated from the wild and had to adapt to dependence on a human, its plight got my sympathy. I wanted the wolf to be loved, and I wanted the human caring for it to be kind. To put their distrust aside and be friends.
There’s a bit of that tension in every human relationship. Since we’re animals and predators too, domesticated but with a wild streak. Resistant to every form of discipline. Getting in the way of conscience, making it seem like we’re more interested in fighting with one another than being good and getting along.
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For realists and idealists to work out among themselves, as to which side of human nature will prevail. Which is why these experiences have moved me – the wolf’s tale and yours. Why they don’t belong among the dispensable things of everyday life that get left behind. When they stand for ideals. For something worth living for. Causes worth serving. The side of human nature that’s Good.
Like Loving friendship. With a person if possible, but a wolf will do. When I visited a wildlife preserve in West Virginia years ago, I came upon a solitary wolf in an outdoor enclosure. Wolves are social animals, and I could see that this wolf was lonely. Nobody else was there, so I sat for a while by the chain-link fence to keep it company.
And when I left brought Lonelyheart into my imaginary home where every living thing is loved and has everything it needs. She’s in a forest now, above a lake with a wolf pack. And when the day is over and I sit by the lake on the other side, I hear a chorus of happiness from the wild. Hoots of loons and howls of wolves mixed together in the moonlight.
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The Call of the Wild is personal to me. The love story at the heart of every Loving Friendship. So whether this particular book means anything we can share the call for Love behind it. My hope for you, that you have everything you need including someone to write to. A pen pal who does it the old-fashioned way, without electronics. Think you can handle it?