In northwest New Jersey, near New York and Pennsylvania, bears stand upright on their hindlegs. They look like men and women. I saw it with my own eyes.
Some people are like bears. They’re troublesome. I know one. Once, my supervisor told me, “Don’t poke the bear.” Those were my orders. I heard her with my own ears.
Recently, a friend and I walked in the woods of a park in northwestern New Jersey and a mother bear, and her cubs walked right by us. They were not more than forty feet away. We didn’t move and they went by. It would have been dangerous for us if the mother bear thought her cubs were threatened. I hardly breathed.
“Don’t just do something! Stand there!” my church pastor joked. But he wasn’t joking. “If you’re not sure what to do, don’t do anything! People say, ‘Don’t just stand there! Do something!’ But sometimes that leads to doing the wrong thing, and things get worse, so, sometimes it’s best not to do anything at all, and just stand.”
“And the waters were healed to this day, according to the word of Elisha that he spoke. And he went up from there to Beth-el. And he was going up in the highway. And little boys came out from the city and mocked him, and said to him, Go up, bald head! Go up, bald head! And he turned behind him and saw them, and put a curse on them in the name of Jehovah. And two bears came out of the forest and tore forty-two boys of them.” 2 Kings 2:22-24 (KJ3)
Don’t poke the bear.