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“For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.” –– Colossians 1:19-20
Signs of God’s intentions for Creation may come from places we do not expect. Each week The Economist offers an obituary acknowledging a single individual recently fallen. Those remembered include the universally renowned, the culturally noted, the unknown individual with an intriguing life journey, the notorious, the infamous, or those with some unique contribution that is far more well known than the individual who contributed them.
Such was the case, as this week I read about Dr. Frans de Waal, a Dutch primatologist and ethologist, who for decades taught at and conducted his research through, Emory University. “In 1975, De Waal began a six-year project on the world's largest captive colony of chimpanzees at the Arnhem Zoo.”(Wikipedia) Up to this point in the 1970’s, primate study “was mostly a matter of recording violence, aggression and selfishness. Those were the ‘animal instincts’ that human beings were supposed to rise above.”(The Economist) Yet, one day at the zoo, Dr. de Waal began to realize something very different, and would eventually transform our perception of animal behavior and provide a deeper understanding of Creation and the wondrous way we are wired for relationship.
That day at the zoo, de Waal was watching as the young male chimps were fighting again. “They were running round their island, teeth bared, screaming. Two in particular were battling until one definitively won, and the other lost. They ended up, apparently sulking, high in widely separate branches of the same tree.” Then de Waal “saw something astonishing. One held out his hand to the other, as if to say ‘Let’s make it up.’ In a minute they had swung down to a main fork of the tree, where they embraced and kissed.”(The Economist)
What de Waal had witnessed was nothing short of reconciliation. In his ongoing research he would he would come to understand that reconciliation, heretofore not recognized in primates, was “essential if the group was to cohere and survive,” a truth we humans have repeatedly failed to comprehend. What he had witnessed in his research formed a question he would continue to pursue throughout his life. “What if he could convince people that their better instincts –– altruism, cooperation, peacemaking –– were as innate to them as violence was, and ‘animal’ too?” (The Economist) Hmmm. Seems like I have heard something that sounds like this concept before. Where did I hear that?
“The wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the young goat, and the calf and the lion and the fattened calf together; and a little child shall lead them.”
“Then God said, “Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness.”
“Through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.”
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