Thursday Thoughts (10/27/2016)

 It seems that are things in life that defy explanation. There are things, that no matter how hard we try to wrap our heads around them, we just cannot understand. Perhaps, such complex issues are what push humanity to dig deeper, and strive harder to explain what we believe to be unsolvable. It may be, that you too have experienced this in your own life. At the end of a long sleepless thought filled night you may come to the conclusion there just is no answer.

One of the most mind numbing conundrums, that leaves me lying awake at night is the question, “How can Peppermint Patty not know that Snoopy is a Dog?” Ok, stop your laughing. Doesn’t this bother anyone else that this poor adolescent has no clue that Snoopy is a dog. I find this a bit disturbing. I began wondering, at what point does a child learn to recognize what a dog is. I would think most speaking toddlers would point and say, “doggie”. At the least a toddler would recognize that there is something not human about an animal. Even if you dressed your dog up in a baseball outfit, I am fairly certain that any child over kindergarten age would know that it was a dog.

Even more mind boggling is that none of her friends tell her it is a dog. The conversation could be simple, “That’s the weirdest kid I have ever seen.” Charlie replies, “Well he’s a dog so…” Really, not one of the Peanuts gang tries to correct her? I think Charles Schultz has hit a home run with this whole narrative. How many of us simply let our friends and family go on thinking something that is not true? Of course, trying to analyze a comic strip character is impossible. I am sure that somewhere Charles Schultz probably explained his thoughts on Peppermint Patty. The whole idea got me thinking.

When, and how, do we encourage concept changes in others. The bible tells us that in the last day’s people will call evil good and good evil. Maybe it is like calling a dog a person or a person a dog. Some Christians may assume that the bible is talking about non-believers, but what if it is all people? Christians today often throw out bible quotes to defend their stance without doing the hard work of discovering the context. Is it possible that we have become like Peppermint Patty? We just call things the way we see them, not the way they really are. Is it possible that we would embrace an evil, thinking that evil could actually bring about good?

I wonder if humanity is Peppermint Patty and God is trying to reorient our understanding of what we say about things. Unfortunately, the Church sometimes ignores the reorienting and simply buys into the idea that Snoopy is just a weird looking kid in the neighborhood. Perhaps, we need to spend some time at the feet of Jesus, so we can begin to see things in God’s reality and not our own.

Just a thought.