Tonight I'd like to begin by sharing a story that a friend sent to me, true story, about

an elephant whisperer.

His name is Lawrence Anthony and some of you may have heard of him because he's a renowned

conservationist who died in March and his fame comes primarily because in South Africa there

have been these herds of wild rogue elephants that have been so violent that it's become over time

the habit to just to kill them and he found a way through his presence and sensitivity and

capacity to communicate to actually calm down and rehabilitate, so to speak, these these elephants

and what was so powerful is that after he died, I think let's say it was March 7th, there was this

solemn procession of these herds of elephants, two of them, to his compound over the next two days

and it said that elephants do more in their own dead somehow. They attuned to the fact that this

friend of theirs had died and solemnly just crossed, you know, miles and miles and then for two

days kind of stood vigil in front of his compound. So I read a little bit more about him because I

was, that kind of gave me chills, you know, the good kind of chills of sensing this level of nonverbal

relatedness and intimacy that's possible and he described a bit of some of his experiences

working with these elephants, one female and her baby, she was really, she was kind of a leader

and particularly animated, angry and violent and he described and if she hadn't in some way

cooperated with him that they would, her and her babies in the whole, herd would have been killed

off. He managed to talk to her and then attend, just take her in in a way that made contact.

He describes this moment of recognition in some way that there was caring, that there was safety,

that there was kinship. Okay, so I bring this up because my sense is that true service

and true fulfillment comes from this capacity to cultivate these connections, this kind of bonding,

this kind of, having this attunement where we can communicate our love and our understanding

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