Elephant Musth

I've encountered this story about orphaned elephants in three different books that I've read in the past two months. The story is also referred to on the christianitytoday.com website. Look for "Guys and Dads." I first read the story in Don Miller's book "To Own a Dragon." I highly recommend the book to you. A must read for helping boys who don't have dads in their lives. But back to the story. It basically goes like this...male orphaned elephants are moved to a nature preserve. When the elephants approach adolescence they go into musth cycle, which shows up as a green pus that runs down their right hind leg. This causes the young elephants to be very aggressive and sexually frustrated. Because they had no male adult elephants to be aggressive with, they took their aggression out on the rhinos. The young elephants would approach the rhinos while in the water and spear them from the side with their tusks. They would then hold them under water until they drowned. You can see the problem this was causing on the nature preserve. The young male elephants needed older male elephants to spar with. They needed to be disciplined by the older members of the herd. When older elephants were around the younger boy elephants, musth would only last about 3 days. Without the older male elephants, mutsh lasted weeks. Now I know we aren't elephants. But God brings a certain design for His creatures to practice in life. Boys need Dads. If boys don't have biological dads as a presence in their lives, then we need to be their "spiritual" dads. Boys need adult males in their lives. If you belong to a church, help the boys there to grow. Your presence is always welcomed at campus Life. Volunteer with us and help boys to grow up as godly men. How has your dad or lack of having a dad, effected your life? Let us know.
These are the days my friend!
Jim "Train"