Short Story: 13 Horses explanation (Part 2)

Hi, this is a follow up explanation to the parable "13 Horses". If you missed it, you can find the story here. 13 Horses (Part 1)

I wrote this story as a parable to explain the proper understanding of drives and emotions in our lives. In the story Logan stands for Logical Reason, meaning the intellectual part of our soul, where the image of God is found. Reason is something we have, and which animals do not have. Reason separates us from animals, because animals follow their drives and emotions without hesitation, where we are meant to rule over our drives and emotions with reason. Logan is a symbol for Reason, and each of his horses stand for a drive or emotion.

All humans have two main drives, Survival and Procreation. The horse named "careful" is a symbol for the drive of survival or self-preservation, and the horse named "Thunder" is a symbol for the drive of Procreation or desire. It is no coincidence that Logan receives Thunder on his 13th birthday, as the drive of Procreation is inactive until puberty.

These two main drives, Survival and Procreation are the large strong horses in front of his team. Logan has 13 horses total, so there are 11 horses in his team that were not mentioned in the story. These are the 11 primary emotions. They are Love, Hate, Desire, Aversion, Pleasure, Pain, Hope, Despair, Fear, Daring, and Anger. The two main drives of Survival and Procreation are in the front of his team, and the 11 other horses behind are all emotions.

Logan's Father is a symbol of God the Father. He is patient and loving, and teaches Logan how to handle his new Stallion. It is critical to understand that God gave us all of our drives and emotions. They are all good, and they all have their place. At first Logan had a lot of trouble with Thunder, and wanted to sell him. His wise Father reminded him that Thunder was an indispensable part of his team. There are two extremes of the understanding of the Procreative drive, and they are both wrong. At the one extreme there is the belief that if it feels good, do it as long as you aren't hurting anyone. The other extreme is to repress the Procreative drive as if it was bad or sinful. When Logan was whipping Thunder, he was doing his best to repress the Procreative drive, to "break" the horse. This does not work in practice. A house divided against itself cannot stand, and when we try to repress or bury one of our drives or emotions, we become emotionally damaged people.

What is the answer then, what are we to do? The answer is to thank God and praise him for our drives and emotions, and honor them as far as we can. We must speak gently to our horses, wait for them, and guide them back on the path when possible.

I will share a short personal example concerning anger. A few years ago I had heard about some of evil acts of ISIS, and I began to research ISIS on the internet. There were dozens of pictures of ISIS members posing as they murdered innocent people in various horrific ways. A powerful anger rose up within me, and I began to imagine and visualize what I wanted to do. I fantasized about purchasing a large automatic weapon and taking personal vengeance against ISIS. The images were seared into my brain, and I was paralyzed in thought for about 45 minutes. In a sense, my horse of anger began leading my wagon down a different road. One option would be to start whipping my horse of anger with harmful self-talk. "What are you thinking?!?, how could you imagine violence like that? What is wrong with you? Why are you so stupid?

The right approach is to first praise the horse as much as you can, then consider whether it would be reasonable to let anger lead your wagon, then either let anger lead or gently lead it back to the original road. In this case it is obvious that it wouldn't be reasonable for me to start a personal war against ISIS, but I could go so far as to say "thank you God for the gift of my emotion of anger. It is true that we should be angry when the innocent suffer, but I must let my anger be guided by reason, and I can serve you where I am. I believe you also are angry when your children suffer, and vengeance belongs to the Lord." Either way, I did not go after ISIS, but it is critical to honor the emotion. There is a time for everything, and there are many instances where we should let anger lead, while avoiding sin. Jesus was angry at the merchants in the temple, we should be angry if someone or something is attacking our family and we need to defend them. There is a role for every drive and emotion.

I hope this story is helpful to you in some way, I chose to write about "Thunder" because it is a drive introduced later in life, so the drama is contained within the story. I realize the allegory isn't perfect, you would almost never have 13 horses in a team etc., but I did the best I could to make it work as both a story and a teaching tool. I would welcome any comments below, and thanks so much for reading!