I had been drumming with a variety of groups for six days straight. On this particular day I’m working with kids in long-term psychiatric care. We work on a Brazilian rhythm called Samba where the first half of the pattern is on the downbeats and the second half is on the upbeats. The first half is played with one hand, and the second half is played with the other. It’s a great teaching tool about stability and perspective.

The metaphor is that sometimes we’re grounded (on the beat) and sometimes things feel up in the air (off beat). The bigger concept is that there are two sides (at least) to everything. Sometimes we get to choose which side we’re on, and other times we simply have to dance between the two.

I shared with the group an idea from Africa about how the lions hunt. You see, the old lions lose their teeth but not their roar, so they wait on one side of the plain while the youngers hide on the other. If the prey comes toward the old lions, they simply roar and scare them into running the other direction where the young ones are ready to pounce. If the gazelle would only face their fears, they could readily overcome (literally leap over) them. If they run from them, however, the things that they fear are waiting to gobble them up.

The moral of the story isn’t about bark versus bite, but rather about how opportunity may lie within the crisis if we only have the wherewithal to see it. There’s also the idea that the good and bad go together and it may not be easy to distinguish between the two. 

One of the middle school kids drew this to help illustrate the story…