“Then the wolf shall be a guest of the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid…” Isaiah 11:6

This passage taken from the first reading found in the Book of Isaiah, presents an ideal situation in which the wolf and the leopard look beyond their survival instinct and sit peacefully with those that are usually a meal. As the reading discusses, when the spirit of the Lord comes down, wisdom and understanding will come over all of the creatures, allowing the unique combination of animals to gathering free of fear or danger.

Although the reading from Isaiah presents a number of examples of different types of animals coming together, who in nature act as enemies feeding on one another, I cannot help but wonder if, in the presence of the Lord, different people within the species homo sapiens would take similar action. Currently a large portion of society on all levels is divided. These divisions can be based on race, religion, financial situation or hometown and can occur within a group of people as small as a school or as large as between different nations of the world. I am very guilty of conforming to divisions and creating division in my own life.

I have a tendency to associate only with people I know really well and these people usually have a similar background to me. I can see this all over the campus at Creighton University. The people from different parts of the country cluster together and people who are in different groups on campus, such as sports teams or sorority/fraternities, stay in close proximity to one another. The people, myself included, who fall into different groups are not always enemies but are just the same, yet they do not associate with people from the other groups. As stated in the reading, God will not judge us based on the outside, rather on the justice we show to all people and our faithfulness to him. I need to work on not isolating those who are not a member of my “group” and I need to open up my group to include all God’s people. These differences, while not terribly prevalent on college campuses, are much inflamed when it comes to the world wide stage. Every time we turn on the television or radio or even just open up the newspaper we see the fighting and death caused by political or religious enemies. I think we all need to work on showing love and understanding toward those who are different from us. This will help us on our way to the Table of the Lord.