As promised, here are two more “stories with a moral.”

The third story is of uncertain origins, but Jonathan Smith, the celebrated historian of religion at the University of Chicago, identifies it as a Yiddish vaudeville routine.  And it goes like this:

It seems that Moses comes before Pharaoh and says, “Let my people go.”  He says he’d like to but doesn’t think they’re smart enough to survive on their own.  But he agrees to interview their wisest man, and maybe reconsider.  So Moses goes out and grabs Abe, the first Hebrew he sees, and brings him to Pharaoh.  The following dialogue ensues.  Abe says something in Hebrew.  Pharaoh raises his hand; Abe raises his fist.  Pharaoh holds up two fingers; Abe puts up one.  Pharaoh takes out an egg; Abe takes out an apple.  At that point Pharaoh cries out, “Stop!  No more!  This is the wisest man I’ve ever met, wiser than all my magicians and sages.  I’m convinced.  Your people may go.”

Now Abe is no fool and beats a hasty retreat.  But Moses stays and says to Pharaoh, “I don’t understand.  What just happened?”  Pharaoh replies, “Such wisdom I have never seen.  I said to him that the world is flat and he said, No, it’s round.  I said that there were many gods, but he said, There is only one.  I said to him that the world emerged from an egg, but he said, No, it evolved from a seed.”

Moses goes out and catches up with Abe.  Still confused, he says, “Abe, what happened in there?”  Abe replies, “I said to him that no matter what he decreed, we’d leave anyway.  He said, We’ll stop you.  I said, We’ll fight.  He said, If you think you can win, you’re jackasses.  I said, Up yours.  Then he saw who he was dealing with and decided to be friends. So he took out his lunch and I showed him mine.”

It’s a shame to ruin a good story by insisting on drawing a lesson from it, but I’m going to do it anyway.  It seems to me that we are in Moses’ shoes.  He’s seen the signs, heard the differing translations, and now his job is to make some sense out of both the signs and the translations.  And how does that apply to us? The cultural, educational, religious, governmental, and, yes, political entities that surround us send us enigmatic signs, mixed signals, and our job is to interpret them and make sense of them as best we can.  It’s a crazy business, when you stop to think about it. It always has been, of course, but never more so than now as we struggle to understand the mixed signals that come at us from all directions—especially from those in positions of authority, starting at “the top,” from whom we should expect straight answers—as we confront the unprecedented pandemic that dominates our lives.

Somehow we have to find a way to deal with the confusing messages that are “out there” as well as the ones that are “in here”—that is to say, our differing interpretations of the mixed signals that are coming to us from “out there.” And at no time has that been more true, more difficult, and more existential than now.  

How much empathy can we generate for those who interpret the signals differently or who are operating out of meaning systems, definitional communities, different from our own? If we are willing to try to understand, we can share experiences of difference—of race, of gender, of sexual orientation, of occupation, of religious belief, even of political identity, for example—up to a point.  But no matter how hard we try, we come to a time and place where we have entered another’s “world” as far as our experience will let us. After that we can only say, “I believe you, but I cannot truly know what you mean in my own heart”.  But that in itself is not a dead end—it’s a confession of consequence that avoids pretense and opens the door to empathic growth, to greater understanding—even if agreement is still out of reach.

There are no easy answers to the challenges we face.  But I long for a sense of a community where there is tolerance for conflict and celebration of difference alongside a passion for seeking common ground, where we can experience “the magic” of conversations of consequence.

If you will permit me to say it, it’s the kind of community where love can flourish—and I don’t mean love in the “sloppy” or even romantic sense, but what is meant by the Greek word, agape: seeking the greatest good for another without expecting anything in return.

And with that meaning of the word in mind, I’ll paraphrase, from a different context, the wise words of my friend and former colleague, Stan Dotson.   As he put it, “important, creative, and healing things can happen when three loves come together”—

• love for the concerns and the values that the members of the community care about;
• love for the individuals of the community and the lives they lead;
• and love for the community itself

–and while there is nothing easy about it, it is the interplay of these three offerings of agape that energizes and solidifies the community that chooses to embrace them.

Which brings me to the fourth story. I was reminded recently of a high moment in the life of American theatre, and I leave you with it in closing.  Raisin in the Sun tells of a black family in Chicago left destitute when the father died.  Their circumstances were made more desperate when the oldest son squandered the father’s life insurance.  The daughter in angry frustration said, “I don’t love him anymore.”  The mother said, “But I thought I taught you to love him.”  The daughter replied, “There is nothing left to love.”  The mother’s response was, “There’s always something left to love.  If you ain’t learned that, you ain’t learned nothin’.” 

I have high hope that in this dangerous, fractured, and contentious world, you and I will find our place in a community where there will always be something to love.

Endnotes

1. Link to Mullinax blog:  https://twolostsoulsart.com/feathers
2. Humes, James C. Speaker’s Treasury of Anecdotes About the Famous. New York: Harper & Row, 1978.
3. Smith, Jonathan Z.  “Playful Acts of Imagination.”  Liberal Education, 73:4 (November/December, 1987), 14-20.
4. “Knowledge, Ignorance, and Climate Change,” N. Angel Pinillos. NY Times, November 26, 2018
5. Dotson, Stan, Dean of LifeWorks, Mars Hill College.  Unpublished comments, 2005.