A familiar pattern has set in lately in the realm of popular culture, social media and the 24-hour news cycle.
It goes like this.
An individual, either a celebrity or a complete unknown, says or posts something outrageous. There are many recent examples, including PR executive Justine Saccoor, Duck Dynasty patriarch Phil Robertson. Outrage erupts shortly after, with ever-increasing vitriol. Opponents, supporters, pundits, and hangers on race to outdo each other with the cutting remark that will end all cutting remarks. Most importantly, these "insights" must be short and tweetable, so that they go viral as people reflexively share them over and over again. At no point should they trigger deeper reflection and contemplation, as that requires slowing down and thinking things through. Slow thoughts rarely go viral. Knee-jerk snark does.
I am not without sin in this regard. I've participated quite happily in not a few of these uproars where mob mentality rules online. I've enthusiastically retweeted the witty comments of people who supported my own position on whatever was happening.
Lately, though, I've come to not only tire of playing a role, however small, in this phenomenon, but also to worry about what it's doing to me, and to all of us.
I've also become hungry for parables.
There's a reason Jesus taught in parables: these tight little stories defy easy interpretation. Some of them are downright opaque, in fact, until you slow down and let them roam through your soul. Filled with images, they trigger activities in our brains that we don't seem to use much these days: imagination, contemplation, puzzling out. Most importantly, I think, they resist knee-jerk responses and require time to figure out. Many of them we're still unpacking two millennia since they were first told.
When I was growing up, an Oblate priest named Jack Hennessy would visit our church from time to time. He'd do missions or fill in on Sundays. I always enjoyed his sermons, mostly because he'd read from a book called The Way of the Wolf by Martin Bell. This was an entire book of modern parables, and I loved them, though I didn't always understand them. The story of Barrington Bunny, a rabbit who saves a field mouse during a snowstorm, nearly always left me sniffling. One story always left me puzzled, though. I don't remember the title, but it was about Jesus healing someone, and then saying "aha", as if he was surprised by what he'd done. To this day, that story remains a bit of an enigma to me. Every once in awhile it comes to mind, and I work on it a bit more. I've never completely unlocked it, though. Each time I think about it, however, my brain stills and focuses, and I move out of a mode of unconscious reacting into contemplation.
In this time of sound bites and pundits who try to gain attention by saying something outrageous, it would be nice to see a return of the parable. I'm not sure they'd be a good fit for Twitter, but maybe Facebook and Google Plus. Or, we could tell them face-to-face over coffee or a nice slow-cooked bowl of soup, and put our smartphones – and snark – aside for a while.
Kevin Aschenbrenner is a Victoria-based writer, poet and communications professional. He holds an M.A. in Culture and Spirituality from the Sophia Center at Holy Names University in Oakland, Calif. He blogs at www.dearpopefrancis.ca.
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