Protect each others hearts

The ghost grey giant seemed to appear from nowhere. Yet they were everywhere. It started with one, and then we were surrounded.

It didn’t seem possible that the world’s largest creature to have walked this earth in the last few million years could step so silently through the drought stricken broad leafed woodlands of Northern Kwa Zulu Natal. As one appeared, so did another, then another, until we were firmly in the firing line of a fast moving breeding herd of these magnificent mammals. We gave them a respectful space and they veered off East, eyeballing us through a fine film of dust kicked up by their stiff legged shuffle. They seemed content as some sort of unwritten contract of trust between their security and our silence had been established.

The situation changed when their path was impeded once more by the presence of two construction vehicles filled with worried looking workers.

With every closing meter, the worry turned to fear and an already packed bunch huddled even closer for protection.

For some time in my life I have made a study of human energy, and I have strongly believed that energy is infectious. Virally infectious both positively and negative. Perhaps until that moment I had thought that this might be purely a human construct, and yet what I saw in the next few minutes helped me to understand that energy knows no boundaries. Human or otherwise.

As the panic permeated the hustling herd, their behavior changed visibly in front of our eyes, and it mirrored that which altered their demeanour. Tension turned to trumpeting and trepidation, and the young elephant calves almost disappeared amongst the enveloping ears and tactile trunks of all their mothers. Those trunks capable of a caring caress and yet completely equipped to kill.

Separated by nothing more that an uneasy air and a set of flickering hazard lights, both the breeding herd and the workers hugged closer together. Each one triggering off a more terrified response in the other.

Perhaps they were close for a reason. Perhaps they were protecting each others hearts.

This was a concept which would crop up many times during our week together, and a raft of reflections would emerge around this phrase:

“Protect each others hearts.”

Could I still give candid feedback to those I love, and yet still protect their hearts? Might I be able to allow my children to venture into a void of their own vulnerability, and just be there to protect their hearts which could build even bigger through every breakage?

Could I consider the hearts of others who I sometimes walk straight past, or carry a media fuelled perception of some unfounded kind of unworthiness?

Could I protect my own heart in the turmoil of constant comparison and endless evaluation?

And whose hearts could I reach out to to help me during life’s inevitable struggles?

There is an African saying which reminds us that :-

“In Africa, if you want to go fast, go alone, but if you want to go far, go together.”

And as we grouped together on that last morning, perhaps we too were huddled close. United as a group who had shared an extraordinary experience, and maybe feeling a touch vulnerable at the thought of the threats of the other world into which we would be leading.

In that other world, just as in this one, we could do worse than simply being mindful of that caring commandment.

“Protect each others hearts.”

As we left in deep thought and decluttered contemplation we knew this would be practiced by at least two men, coming from completely different walks of life, yet leaving as true friends.

They would be protecting each others hearts.

Even with their own.

(With gratitude to Helgaard who shared this as a family value far too valuable to be kept from the world.)

Steve