A Squirrel, a Pickle, some Nuts and my Prayer

Growing up, I was terrorized by squirrels. They would chatter at me from the sidewalk, run in front of me, letting my friends pass, but not me.  I do not know what I did to upset the squirrel gods in this or another life, but it must have been awful. My mother who would escort me home can attest to how squirrels had it in for me.

Squirrels annoy me still! And they make me laugh. They relentlessly ransack my bird feeder. They do crazy dives, hang upside-down and chase their brethren in the pursuit of seeds and play. They sit, sunflower in hand-like paws, haughtily nibbling away as I rudely encourage them to leave. Then suddenly they are bounding after a buddy, or two, racing up a tree, diving branch to branch. Each season these little guys are the neighborhood jesters.

In their antics, I realize humans have forgotten an important aspect of living – the season of frolic and play! Sure we know how to be weekend warriors and soccer moms, mud-runners and ice plungers, but do we really relish the joy of being foolishly exuberant? Playful even?  And (shall I say it), go a little nuts?

Sure, this is Be a Fool week and National humor month, but how many people get involved, actually play? How many “grown-ups” are lovingly called, and accept being called, a fool? How many of us spontaneously belly laugh til we ache?? In my experience, adults grow cautious and closed as we grow up.  Life is just too darn serious! Few play the fool and have fun, just for fun. I think life would be a whole lot better, more peace-filled, healthier and, sure, more fun with a bit more squirreliness running around. Laughing releases endorphins; generates feel good emotions and health in the body. Humor creates space to breathe in life, and really live.

In Christian Gospel writings, Jesus declares, “Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 18:3. It is a child who brings an open, believing, playful, trust to life where fun, love, wholeness, and forgiveness are possible from moment to moment. Built in is a very unique and marvelous take on life and living that I wish more adults could adopt – especially those in our halls of politics and political-correctness.  The world of reasonable adults brings a hard-bitten, well-reasoned dogma where fences and defenses are built, where hate is groomed, where ideas get cemented and change is an enemy.  Adults seem to give sway to the world according to money, power and fame rather than a world built according to the Word of humility, love and peace.  

Children are candid, not knowing the adult games of fudging the facts and being “politically correct”. Have you ever just played with someone under 7 years old? Their voices of veracity usually come out of devastatingly loving hearts. They call life as they see it and say what is on their heart. Yet we adult-types often scold the truth out of them and turn the love into hard and fast rules.  An example: a nice normal 6.5 year old child, in apparent gateway to extreme bullying and violence, told a classmate that he smelled of pickles. The pickled child complained and the dill-declaring youngster was rebuked. Where is a lesson in good humor? Or speaking the truth in love? Where is an opportunity to strengthen the character of both children? Not only are we discouraging genuineness, we are pandering to idea that human children are weak.  Exorcising such benign honesty, being playful and fooling around right out of children’s lives, creates weak, rigid and morally expectant adults.

Playing the fool has not always had such negative connotations. For centuries the Trickster, a vital archetype, used to be such an important part of most all cultures and their tales around the world. The trickster would disobey normal rules and conventional behavior of the day in order to bring a new truth and integrity to a community. The Fool was an actual profession in Medieval courts, an important member of the royal entourage to give the ruler a truthful assessment in a humorous or off-beat way or to give an alternate perspective to a royal’s own reservations about a plan.  

In native American culture, this character was called the Coyote. The Coyote was often a clown, the fool in a situation or sometimes he was seen alongside the Creator Chief with powers of transformation and resurrection. The Coyote’s purpose was to engage in changing the world (physical and spiritual) around him to create something sacred for the lives of his people.  All mythic tricksters and rebels help their people survive one invasion and calamity after another while maintaining their spirit and soul.

“The shamanic rascal is capable of juggling realities and transforming fantasy into something powerful. This Coyote spirit can help guide us in many ways: by mixing up all our rigid assumptions, by instilling in us the hope of an underdog, or simply by making us laugh when we most need it.”  (Jon Spayde – “Tricksters of the World Unite – How going crazy will help save America”  Utne Reader May/ June 2004)

And don’t we really need such humor now?! In The Way of the Wacko, Jon Spayde describes, crazy wisdom as “a rich strain of illogic, paradox, and play that erupts throughout history to interrupt, mess with, and renew ideas and faith of an era. It is intuitive, boundary-busting, ever-youthful, turbulent and even scandalous.” (Utne Reader, May/June 2002). We need a “crazy wisdom” to take over our spirits and souls individually and nationally.

Our world is broken and battered by death, violence, hate, illness, injustice, bigotry, and abuses of every kind. We do not know how to forgive. We take everything as a slight against us – “It is me against the world.” And I do not use “us” because there are more me-s than us-s. Bonds today are very surface. We would not hurt people with whom really related. Relationships require humor, levity,humility and forgiveness to really make them work.  Relationships – individual, communal, or organizational lack depth without an ability to find playfulness for

 life.  I picture the squirrel community hashing things out through tree climbing races not weaponry races, with which squirrel dares to collect and share the most nuts for hibernation season rather than horde them, or by who hangs the longest by her tail to grab the last tomato frustrating that tomato-hording human.

I think we are in dire and serious need of fun! Seriously, we all need chill pills and to get some hilarious, outrageous, crazy, wacky fun. In college my roommate and I were well-known for turning our exam stress into some tension busting lunacy such as flipping everything we could in our room upside down; or creating “Better Cheddar” soccer games or putting a sign on our door that read “The International House of Flapdoodles” to signify out loud our wackiness. We worked hard to be wacky and it benefited our community life and friendship as well as stimulated our learning and growing as students. It helped us reach and grow our imaginations without harming others.

I write this one week after Easter when, in the Christian tradition, life pulls one over on death! Death has lost and life and light has won. Yet so many fellow “Christians” act as if bad news and death still hold sway. Why do Christians take on the worldly stature of serious business in the church as though real life has not won the day?  Why argue and rail about things that ultimately do not matter like music or money or whose name goes on memorial benches when we can be relishing and sharing the good news – that God has had the last laugh on death, destruction, sorrow, hate, violence and the whole worldly caboodle of negativity. All the while we should be showing the crazy joy of life’s victory from the soles of our feet through our enlivened souls.

Don’t you want some laughter and healing in your part of the world? Take in a big breathe. The Spirit is alive in you. Whatever is going on around you just let out a loud guffaw.  Look that bad news in the face and for this moment issue an enormous flying chuckle, a chortle or make a funny face. Stick out your tongue. Wave and smile at a passerby. You will find it is contagious, and begins shattering the blackness in your life. Be filled with energy, joy, a little awe and a renewed appreciation of life.

I think we need a willingness to be playful amongst us again to bring perspective and change. We need more than one of these types to bring light and laughter to a broken, violent world.  Or better still we need to laugh more – at ourselves and the world around us. For God’s sake, do not take everything so damned serious.

I am making the squirrel my religious totem, to remind me to live a little, to go a little zany for LIFE. Life is not all about gathering nuts, it is about being a bit nutty to loosen tension, open hearts and make life worth living.

Give life a chance. 

Won’t you do something a little nutso today!?!