Kirkepiscatoid

Last night in my EFM class, we were thinking of "metaphors for our lessons this week" and I brought up one of my deep dark secrets.

My year of EFM has been studying the Exodus as told in the book of the same name. When I think of "manna", my mental image is of this shapeless but roughly round wad of stuff, white and full of substance.--which takes me straight to the Shmoo of Lil' Abner comics fame. Even as a Sunday School kid, I imagined the manna that the Hebrews found each morning upon awakening as a field of Shmoon, all dying of happiness at the prospect of being eaten--finding happiness by bringing happiness.

The problem, of course, if you had ever followed the Lil' Abner story, was that the Shmoon multiplied so quickly, they could never be made extinct (although the residents of Dogpatch did try.) So the people no longer had any ambition, and simply sat around eating Shmoon and didn't work. (Actually, when you read the wiki link above, there are a lot of parallels in the saga of the Shmoon that sound supiciously like the story of Moses, the Exodus, and the time in the wilderness.)

In short, the more I thought about the story, the more I thought about how when I compared manna with the Shmoon, it reminded me of the very fine line between humility and codependency.

I've thought about that in an Advent way during this week, when the theme is "peace." Sometimes I secretly wish there was suddenly no war, no abuse, no violation of human rights in the world, no homelessness, no suffering, and no untimely death in the world. But frankly, that would be like the difference between giving us Shmoon instead of manna. We would become complacent about this gift and never work on repairing any of the fractures within our own souls. We would stagnate instead of grow.

Shmoon have a tendency to "over-gift." Manna is always "just enough." I thank God for the difference!