"And the God of all grace, who called you to his eternal glory in Christ, after you have suffered a little while, will himself restore you and make you strong, firm and steadfast." I Peter 5:10 [NIV]
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| Image: Scientific American c.1962 |
Looking up into the blank white of our little pop up canopy at the Local Wares farmer's market, I listened for the light pitter patter of scattered rain drops. Of course it was raining.
While actually extremely grateful for the break in the heat, I couldn't help but be disappointed by the low foot traffic. No body wants to walk around in a cold drizzle just to get a little shopping done.
Boo.
Watching my fellow brave vendors duck under tents and frantically grab the additional Velcro tent siding, all manner of plastic covers and bags in an attempt to keep product dry, I found myself pondering if we humans would really be better off if we got everything we wanted? What if we always had perfect weather? What if we always had plenty of food on the table, or never got sick? What if our little brand spanking new farmer's market weren't struggling to compete with the older better established markets in our area? What if we had so much foot traffic that we sold out of our products?
Hmmm.....
Turns out, a scientist by the name of John Calhoun wondered pretty much the same thing all through his career in the 50's and 60's. By the 70's, he had created a mouse utopia that would come to define all mouse utopias. It was seemingly, mouse heaven.
This thing had condos, little hide away nooks and crannies, all the food and water and snackos they could possibly want. Utopia.
Then it all went terribly, terribly wrong.
Fit and healthy male mice started "hoarding" female mice of a certain health and appearance. These female mice were dubbed "the beautiful ones." And they lacked for nothing. The male mice would defend a certain number of the beautiful ones, make sure they had food and were protected from the increasing number of squabbles and societal deterioration. And, very shortly after this development, the beautiful ones stopped breeding. They stopped doing pretty much everything but eat and sleep. There didn't seem to be a reason for them to do anything else. No young to raise. No food to procure.
In short. No purpose. No challenges. Just ... existence.
A vast number of papers, predictions, and observations came out of this little experiment. Much of what was learned is actually still hotly debated by people studying human psychology in a variety of situations. But the one thing that stuck out for me? The little boogers NEED challenge. They NEED a sense of purpose and encounters that challenge the brain.
If tiny little mice can fall completely apart whenever they were provided with a Utopia and lacked for absolutely nothing? .... what would happen to human brains? To human society?
I know. People aren't mice. In fact, one of the biggest arguments against any conclusions drawn from Calhoun's mice study IS the fact that human beings adapt. The mice couldn't make any changes to their environment, they weren't able to change their behaviors in order to present a more positive life experience.
Humans can and do. And while this IS a valid point, I can't help but think of the very simple correlation between things that impacted the little mouse community - ok, HUGE mouse community - and the things that impact OUR societies and communities.
Do we REALLY, really benefit from getting everything we want? Well, for the scientific community of testers and box checkers, the jury is still out. But I don't think we have to search the papers and theories and documentation put out there by "people in the know" to glean what we should about our own mental health and fitness in this regard. It's very plainly expressed in black and white. To butcher one of my favorite movie quotes: "they conceal information like that in books." LOL
One book, to be exact.
When Peter wrote the verses penned in this first book named for him, he very clearly pointed out that we, as a species, are going to be tested. Our faith is going to be challenged. We are going to have to face some pretty intense obstacles in our lives. Word for word? We are going to suffer.
And. In this humble writer's opinion. We need to.
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| Image: Scientific American c. 1962 |
Would the EMT that suffered 3rd degree burns be the empathetic EMT he or she is when addressing a fellow man with the same condition if they couldn't attest to the pain that specific injury's caused? Or they psychiatrist working through a patient's clinical depression that has learned a trick or two about survival due to her own mental health issues, would she be the best psychiatrist in her field if she couldn't reach out and at least touch the issue with a degree of personal understanding?
These scenarios are deep. But I think it's even simpler than that. When we get everything we want, when we face no troubles, no challenges, no rain clouds - we no longer NEED to be NEEDED. And we no longer NEED ourselves.
To hurt, to struggle, or as Peter put it, to suffer - MAKES us reach out. We reach out to others. We reach out to Jesus.
We reach out to Jesus.
Plus, we'd miss out on all the rainbows. So there's that.
