Adapted from the stories in Friedman’s Fables by Edwin Friedman, and a sermon preached by the Reverend John H. Nichols to the First Parish of Wayland on March 9, 2014
Do you ever get the feeling in your family, your congregation, or some other group of friendly, well-meaning people, that things tend to fall into certain patterns? Somebody will say something that elicits a familiar reaction from someone else, and before you can blink you’re halfway down a well-trodden path that doesn’t lead places that are as helpful as you would like? One of my favorite spiritual leaders, Rabbi Edwin Friedman, had a knack for telling stories that make us look at those patterns in a whole new way. Rabbi Friedman has passed now, but reading his books and studying with his disciples has been the most fruitful area of religious exploration for me in my ministerial formation.
This morning I am going to tell you two stories. The Rev. John Nichols, who I am grateful to for his paraphrasing them for sermon format, describes that they are “parables about our responsibilities to ourselves and our responsibilities to others. These parables speak to people who love theologically liberal institutions –faith communities which are open to new ideas and seek to help people – but know the ways in which those same liberal helping institutions sometimes get in their own way and frustrate their own work.”
Here is the first story. Once upon a time there was a Friendly Forest where all of the animals had agreed to get along and they had done so successfully for years. And in this forest there was a lamb, who loved to graze and frolic about. One day a tiger came to the forest and said to the animals, “I would like to live among you.” They were delighted for they had no other tiger in the forest.
The lamb, however, had some apprehensions, which she expressed sheepishly. But the other animals said, “Don’t worry. We’ll talk to the tiger and explain that one of the conditions of living in our forest is that you must also let the other animals live peacefully in the forest.”
So, the lamb went frolicking about as usual, but it wasn’t long before the tiger began to make menacing gestures toward the lamb. The frightened lamb appealed to her friends who told her, “Don’t worry. That’s just the way tigers behave. It’s in their nature.” The lamb tried to ignore her fears and convince herself that her friends were right. Perhaps the tiger wasn’t stalking her all of the time, but there were too many times when, out of the corner of her eye, she caught the tiger looking at her and licking its lips.
She went to her friends, again, and said, “I just can’t take it anymore. I’m going to have to leave the Friendly Forest.” Her friends wouldn’t hear of it. If the lamb were to leave it would shatter their image of what the Friendly Forest was all about. They said, “Surely this whole thing can be worked out. We’re all reasonable here. Stay calm. This is just some misunderstanding that can be easily resolved if we all sit down together and communicate. The important thing is communication.”
But the lamb wasn’t so sure. Such attempts at “communication” usually end in some suggested compromise, but what was she going to compromise? If the tiger agreed to be less aggressive would the lamb have to tolerate some aggression? Why did the tiger’s aggression have to be her problem at all? She tried to explain this, too, but her fellow animals said, “Look, maybe the tiger doesn’t understand. Don’t be so bashful. Speak up when these things happen.”
Finally, one of the less subtle animals in the forest did say, “This is ridiculous. If you want a lamb and a tiger to live peacefully in the same forest, you have to put the tiger in a cage.”
Here are some questions that Friedman poses along with his story: Why do the animals in the Friendly Forest excuse the tiger’s behavior but try to make the lamb adapt? Does the intrusive or aggressive party to a dispute ever have any justification for claiming they have equal rights? And how can we tell when an individual’s assertion of their point of view has gone beyond the bounds of individual rights to free speech to become aggression?
Is it possible that a group with an orientation toward seeking consensus often gives extremists a strength they don’t normally have and don’t deserve, because it permits them to block the consensus until they get their way? How do you feel when the only reasonable resolution to a problem is, “We just have to stop the tiger”?
Edwin Friedman, who has developed many of his thoughts through the study of families and congregations, has said that oftentimes, groups are faced with a choice between trying to keep everyone happy, and doing justice. Everyone cannot always be kept happy. Most people can be content with justice.
This is the second story. Once upon a time, there was a man who came home one evening and announced that he was dead. Immediately his neighbors tried to show him how foolish this was. He walked. He talked. He spoke. He breathed, and all of this is the essence of living. None of these arguments had any effect. In fact, no matter what reason was brought to bear against his assertion, no matter how sensible the argument, the man insisted he was dead.
He seemed to have a way of putting the burden of proof on other people. He never quite said, “Prove that I am not dead,” but that seemed to be the message. Every now and then someone thought they had him pinned down with proof of his aliveness, but the man always wriggled away.
Eventually many of his friends began to tire of the game, and they went away. His wife and family were beside themselves. They came at him constantly with attempts to disprove his assertion. As the mixture of fear and frustration thickened, they decided to call in a psychiatrist, who came and went into a private room with the man.
After thirty minutes the psychiatrist bolted from the room. He said, “This man is hopelessly psychotic. He has lost all sense of reality. If you want, I’ll call the hospital.” To which the Man Who Said He was Dead replied, “Oh really? What kind of therapy would you prescribe for a dead man? Who’s losing whose grip on reality, Doctor!”
Then they decided to call a clergyman. They decided that an evangelist might shake the man out of his delusion. The evangelist came and went into a quiet room with the Man Who Said He was Dead. Twenty minutes later the evangelist bolted from the room and, clutching his Bible to his chest, he ran out of the house.
They now decided they needed to call the family doctor, who had known this man since infancy. The doctor came quickly, considered the situation and then asked the man in a no-nonsense way, “Tell me, do dead men bleed?” “Of course not,” said the man. “Then”, said the doctor, “Let me make a small cut on your arm. I promise you I will treat it quickly and bandage it so that it will not become infected.” The man said “Dead men do not bleed or get infections, Doctor.”
With everyone watching the doctor made a small cut, and the blood came gushing out. There were gasps of joy. Some laughed. Some applauded. Everyone seemed relieved. The doctor said, “Well, I hope that puts an end to this foolishness.” As the doctor was accepting congratulations the man was heading toward the door. As he opened it, he turned back and said, “I’ll admit that I was wrong. Dead men do, in fact, bleed.”
Sometimes people come up with a fixed idea, and we can’t convince them otherwise. We use all our persuasive powers, and, for all of our efforts, all of our arguments, all of our pleas, the idea only becomes more fixed in their minds. Some parents might recognize this behavior from experiences they’ve had with their children, but all of us are capable of it.
And we, Unitarian Universalists, are particularly inclined to misunderstand it because we like to think that everything is potentially reasonable and discussable. But, sometimes people do what they do, and continue to do what they do, simply in order to get a reaction from us. This is hard for us to understand, because it doesn’t make sense in any conventional way. But it makes a lot of sense to the person who is getting the reaction they want. What if the wife of the man who thought he was dead had not spent hours arguing with him, but had simply said, “I’m not feeding any dead men in this house?”
Once more, the wisdom of Rev. Nichols: “The world of human relationships is tricky, and sometimes it is hard to understand. There are some things we can know about ourselves, and although it takes some hard work to know them, they will guide us through. We can know what we believe. We can learn how we react to situations and we can try to avoid those reactions that are not helpful to us or to others. We can know the limits to what we will or will not do to help other people. We can determine that we will not be trifled with, and we can determine what we can do when someone does not seem to be acting in good faith.”
In my experience, there are few examples out there for how to act in the midst of the tricky, incomprehensible relationships that we find ourselves in. TV and movies primarily rely on magic and violence to resolve such discomfort, and only a few contemporary authors, like Marilynne Robinson, can chaperon us to spaces of productive persistence in human relationships. Rabbi Friedman himself offers more questions than answers, which is a familiar refrain to the Nth degree for UUs. Nonetheless, our covenantal faith calls us to remember both our principles and our relationships. Â The stakes are very high, and the way forward is unclear. May we encounter these uncomfortable truths with courage and grace. Peace, Salaam, Shalom, and May it be so.
Delivered at Northwest Unitarian Universalist Congregation
April 29, 2018
© Rev. Jonathan Rogers