Parable of the Chipmunk

The local chipmuck population has discovered my screened porch. I am sure they knew it was here all along, but now they have discovered a way inside. To be accurate they found a way in and a way out. They have used these entrances and exits to run laps around the porch and occasionally take an excursion into the main part of our house when our living room door is open.  

I was sitting here on my screened porch this morning and saw a chipmunk run OUT of my living room and onto the porch. Not INTO the house, but OUT OF it!  Who knows how long he has been in the house? Minutes, hours, days? Perhaps he was visiting with the mice in our dining room. 

He ran out of the living room onto the porch and immediately exited through a hole in the screen and outside. So I closed the hole behind him with wood. A few minutes later he – or his identical twin – came through a hole in the opposite side of the porch, squeaked at me, and proceeded to run back outside again. I get the impression he is taunting me, or at least playing games with the big, clumsy human. 

So I closed that second hole using wood and a staple gun. Now I am waiting  with the staple gun in my hand to see if he finds another way in. I am ready this time. So far so good. As soon as I wrote these words another chipmuck (or the same one) got back in somehow and ran around my feet! How are they getting in?  

Now I am watching him to see how he gets out. Found it! But where did he come in? I thought all I had to worry about was insects getting onto the porch, but I obviously have bigger problems. After three amateurish patches, it looks like this is going to need a bigger fix.  It is a good thing that my son is a carpenter. Sounds like a good Father’s Day project! 

My chipmunk problems remind me of spiritual problems. We tend to view our lives as closed systems which we try to fix. Financial problems? Money will fix it. Worries trouble our hearts. The solution? Plug the holes with the help of therapists or self-help gurus to keep them out. Distracting thoughts enter our minds during meditation or prayer or when we are trying to sleep? Keep them out with spiritual or mental techniques.  

Big problems like suffering and death? Use all the medical and pharmaceutical resources at our disposal to dispose of them. Supplement these with alternative therapies, all the while employing prayer for supernatural healing. If all else fails, we explain away suffering, disease and death as parts of the divine plan.  

All these strategies are like repairing the holes on my screened porch. The truth is that pesky critters are going to get in somehow eventually. New screens eventually result in new holes. We can repair the holes in our lives all we want, but the truth is that life cannot be permanently fixed. Pain and death happen.  

Human existence is not a problem to be solved. It is a reality to be lived here and now. It is a game to be played, a drama to be acted, a song to be sung, a dance to be danced. Do my chipmunks worry about medical or theological problems? Are they anxious about suffering and death? No, they just play the holy game of “in and out” with the dumb human, who takes it all too seriously. 

Jesus said something along those lines about the birds of the air and the lilies of field. He calls us, “you of little faith” and concludes, “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life.... but seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. All the rest will take care of itself.”  Good advice from the Author of life. 

Pondering Propaganda

The most recent issue of The Atlantic is about “The New Propaganda War.” The cover story is entitled ”Democracy is losing the Propaganda War.” All the time I was reading it, I had the unsettling feeling that the article itself was as much propaganda as the examples the author cites. I wonder if any other readers were aware of the irony. In any case, it succeeded in getting me to ponder the ubiquity of propaganda. 

Several years ago I stopped watching television news because it was so sensationalized. Newscasts majored on the minors, while leaving many important stories untold. Now I read the news instead of viewing it. Aware that there is no such thing as perfectly objective and impartial journalism, I diversify my reading material. Just like a good investment portfolio is diversified, so is a good news portfolio.  

All the while I realize that I am not objective in my choices of news sources. I am biased. So are journalists. In recent years many journalists have become media influencers rather than news reporters. “All the News That’s Fit to Print” has became “Any News that Advances the Cause.” Everyone has an agenda. This is true of both right and left, conservative and progressive.  

I still think there is such a thing as objective truth, in the sense that there are historical facts. But "what really happened” is always placed within a narrative framework which spins the facts to advance an agenda.  We all have unexamined and unseen agendas, which are hidden even from ourselves. For that reason I seek out views that challenge my beliefs and presuppositions.  

I did the same thing with my Christian religion a decade ago. Religious people are experts at propaganda. All religions do it, but Christians are especially good at it. We call it evangelism or apologetics. Combine the two – politics and religion – and the self-deception is complete. Religious nationalism is the most belligerent bully on the block. 

I spent over two years deconstructing my Christian theism and the worldview that stemmed from it. Religious deconstruction set me free from the theological assumptions and presuppositions I had blindly followed for decades. It set me free to see beyond the intellectual models that we mistake for truth.  

“What is truth?’ That is the question that Pilate rhetorically asked at Jesus’ trial. The Roman prefect did not wait for Jesus to answer. Instead he turned to the crowd and declared Jesus innocent of all charges. That was truth. Yet in the name of expediency he quickly bent to the will of the mob to crucify Christ.  

In the same way truth is crucified on the cross of political and religious agendas in our time. I believe in spiritual truth even more than I believe in historical truth. I know no way to discover truth, except to ask Pilate’s question persistently and ruthlessly until we glimpse unvarnished reality for ourselves. Then we must live the truth by faith.