Last week, my daughter, Sara, acquired two kid goats.  She has christened them Minny and Luna.  They are very cute and very affectionate.  They like to climb onto Sara's lap if she's sitting down or onto her back if she's bottle-feeding the sister or over each other.  They love attention – from anyone!  They call “maaa, maaa, maaa” every time someone comes out the door or anytime they see us sitting at our picnic table eating supper (just ask Derek how much he loves that!).  But their attention-seeking ways are not limited to humans.

The other morning, I was looking at them out an upstairs window.  Since they are so small and inexperienced, they spent their first week here in a small fence made of panels, and so for awhile, the cows had access to them.  Some were quite intrigued with the goats.  One calf, in particular, stood at the fence and just stared and stared.  Eventually, the calf lost interest, turned and walked away.  Immediately, the goats began their chorus of “maaa, maaa, maaa.”  A mama cow nearby heard their plea and came to investigate what was wrong.  In a few minutes, the whole herd came running to the goats' aid. The kids got what they wanted, quieted down and gloried in the cows' attention!

Jeff asked me the other day if I had seen Minny and Luna fighting.  I had not so he described what they do:  they stand up on their back hooves, kind of dance around each other for a bit with their front hooves in the air and then butt heads with surprising force.  Luna is less into this type of interaction than Minny, perhaps because she is still recovering from an unfortunate de-horning experience (inflicted before she got here), perhaps because she just has a more gentle and cautious nature.

It got me wondering why, if she wasn't really interested in fighting, she would engage in fighting at all.  Really, it would take less effort for her to not fight, even in play, than to engage – no jumping up and dancing around on hind hooves, no painful headbutting.  And then I wondered how like humans Luna is. 

We humans, too, like to have someone pay attention to us, and if that involves fighting and headbutting, well then, so be it.  I wonder if we, like the goats, feel that throwing our weight around or checking out who's the strongest is at least a way of getting attention and engaging with others.  Perhaps it's not a way we would prefer, but what else is there to do when someone is dancing around you, metaphorically, with their “dukes” up?  Perhaps we feel that to not engage, to keep all our “hooves” on the ground, would leave us open to either being pushed over or passed over, neither of which feels desirable.

But what if, instead, we were to put all our energy into engaging with others in positive, affectionate ways?  Goats will be goats, headbutting and all, but we as God's children have a higher calling.  We are called towards love, to respond in love, to extend love, to receive love in all its many forms.  Let's keep our feet firmly planted on the ground and pay attention to the people around us with kindness and respect and remember who really is the strongest of all.

He has shown you, O mortal, what is good.

And what does the Lord require of you?

To act justly and to love mercy

and to walk humbly with your God.

Micah 6:8