Their unwavering confidence causes the lions to run off. In a stunning display of courage and cunning, they walk right up to a pride devouring a wildebeest. Their bows simply aren’t strong enough to bring down big game, so they steal the kill off lions. I was watching a remarkable documentary on the hunters in southern Kenya. This battle toward a life worth living is far more art than science. "One of the essential messages of The Alchemist or The Hobbit, The Aeneid, any of the great stories, is this. Would you mind reading an excerpt? I’d be happy to. In the first sentence here, it refers to that book, The Alchemist. Sam and you both are big fans of a book called The Alchemist. We took that metaphor of killing lions and we applied it to what life is like in young adulthood, especially for young men needing to develop a sense of courage, a sense of self in the face of adversity. It was a rite of passage that demonstrated courage in the face of adversity. He couldn’t marry and he couldn’t own land until he had killed a lion. Where did that come from? In ancient African cultures a young man was not considered a full member of the tribe, an elder, a man. … So that’s how this book was born.Įxplain the central metaphor of the book, killing lions. I said, Sam, if we put this down on paper, I think we’d have a lot of young men. We got about three months into those phone calls, and I asked, Sam, your friends, guys you hang with, have anybody that they can talk to about this stuff? He didn’t even pause. Then entered a girl and understanding and working through love, romance, the feminine heart, decision-making, faith in God, bringing justice to the world, all those things that millennials care about and are asking questions about. About a year out of college, we started these Wednesday night phone calls because he was in the deep end of the pool and taking on water-work and money versus following your dreams and your passions. My son, Sam, is an English major, graduated, wanted to be a writer. We had this conversation in the studio of Ransomed Heart Ministries, the ministry Eldredge leads in Colorado Springs, Colo. His latest book is Killing Lions, a guide to young men that he co-wrote with his son, Sam. That 2001 book has now sold nearly 5,000,000 copies. John Eldredge served for 12 years on the staff of Focus on the Family before releasing a book that became a publishing phenomenon, Wild at Heart.
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