Pastor John Ortberg has a delight discussion on porcupines in his book, Everybody's Normal Until You Get to Know Them. Porcupines are members of the rodent family, says Ortberg. They have around 30,000 quills attached to their bodies. Each quill can be driven into an enemy, and the enemy's body heat will cause the microscopic barb to expand and become more firmly embedded. The wounds can fester; the more dangerous ones, affecting vital organs, can be fatal.

The porcupine is not generally regarded as a lovable animal, Ortberg continues. Books and movies celebrate almost every other conceivable ani­mal. Dogs, cats, horses, pigs like Babe or Arnold Ziffel in the old TV show Green Acres, spiders as in Charlotte's Web,  dolphins like Flipper, bears like Gentle Ben, and killer whales as in Free Willy. Even skunks have Pepe Le Pew. There are no famous porcupines.

"As a general rule, porcupines have two methods for handling rela­tionships: withdrawal and attack. They either head for a tree or stick out their quills. They are generally solitary animals. Wolves run in packs; sheep huddle in flocks; we speak of herds of elephants and gag­gles of geese and even a murder of crows. But there is no special name for a group of porcupines. They travel alone.

"Porcupines don't always want to be alone. In the late autumn, a young porcupine's thoughts turn to love. But love turns out to be a risky business when you're a porcupine. Females are open to dinner and a movie only once a year; the window of opportunity closes quickly. And a girl porcupine's ‘no' is the most widely respected turndown in all the animal kingdom. Fear and anger make them dangerous little creatures to be around."

People can be like porcupines, can't they? How often, even in the closest of relationships, we can hurt one another. Even worse, toxic feelings have a way of intensifying if not dealt with at the earliest possible moment. It is not enough to ride out these storms. Someone needs to calm the storm. That someone, of course, is Christ.