A passenger on a recent U.S. Airways flight boarded a plane carrying what other passengers are saying resembled a duffel bag thrown over her shoulder. Her assigned seat was next to Jonathan Skolnik who realized, as she got closer, that this was no duffel bag at all. “We could smell it. It was a pig on a leash. She tethered it to the arm rest next to me and started to deal with her stuff, but the pig was walking back and forth … I was terrified, because I was thinking I’m gonna be on the plane with the pig!”
Skolnik was greatly relieved when the woman and pig were asked to deboard, not because the pig was illegal but because he became unruly. Classified as an emotional support animal, he actually became emotional himself so he and his owner were escorted off the plane.*
Which now gives us empirical proof that pigs really don’t fly.
I found this story while mediating on another one. In Mark, chapter 5, the story is told of a demon-possessed man who meets Jesus and gets exorcised. He admits to being possessed by thousands of demons, all of which Jesus casts into a nearby herd of pigs, who then (all 2,000 of them) run madly off a cliff and drown. The story of this healing miracle ripples quickly through town. Our demon-possessed guy is healed! Oh, and also … our pigs are all at the bottom of the sea!
The townspeople find Jesus and beg him to leave. They want nothing to do with this kind of power, nor do they appreciate the loss of their pigs.
Why would normal people be put off by a display of Kingdom power? From the story, you get the sense that while they didn’t much like the demons, they weren’t so put off by them that they were willing to give up their pigs. It seems that what bothers them is how Jesus chooses to solve their problem.
Let me say that again this way: What so often bothers us is how Jesus chooses to solve our problems. It is as if we get our demons and our pigs confused. What we want is for our demons to disappear but for our pigs to fly. In other words, we want the issue to go away without us having to change anything.
But as it turns out, pigs don’t fly.
Which means that if I have an addiction and want to be delivered of it, I also have to be willing to let go of whatever triggers kick my cravings into high gear. If I’m dealing with depression and want healing for it, I may have to let go of my bias against medicine or therapy. Or I may have to find room and discipline in my life for exercise. Or I may have to figure out my limits and live inside of them so I don’t continually toss myself into the darkness by ignoring good boundaries.
If childhood wounds have created adult dysfunctions, I may have to let go of unforgiveness, or anger. I may have to find healthier ways of dealing with debilitating feelings of unworthiness or inadequacy. If I want healing from the wounds, I also have to let the scars go.
It makes me think of that woman carrying a pig onto an airplane for emotional support. Maybe it works for her (I sure don’t want to debate the therapeutic benefits of emotional support animals). But where the rest of us are concerned, I wonder if we might be guilty of carrying our “pigs” around for emotional support when Jesus wants to see both the demons and pigs destroyed. When the demons go, the pigs have to go, too.
Here’s the moral of the story: Pigs really don’t fly. Don’t hang onto them hoping one day they will.
*Source: http://abcnews.go.com/US/proof-pigs-fly/story?id=27222136
