An article from the Cathedral Times
by the Very Reverend Samuel G. Candler,
Dean of the Cathedral of St. Philip
Hey, I admit it. I am a fan of the television show, Duck Dynasty.
One of the reasons I like it so much is because it appears on a network called "A&E," which is to say, the "Arts and Entertainment" network. Arts? Duck Dynasty features an unabashedly redneck Louisiana extended family, the Robertsons, in which every adult male in the family sports a long beard. They actually model good community values in a new era"”and every show concludes with some kind of meal and a moral. BUT, the show would NEVER have appeared in the early years of the A&E Network!
Perhaps it is Si Robertson who steals the show in this amusing series. He is a Viet Nam veteran who spouts forth crazy non-sequiturs which often makes sense. In one of his outbursts he talks about the little word, "Hey," that word we say in all sorts of situations. He says, ""˜Hey' can mean anything. It can mean yes, it can mean maybe, it could mean no, it could mean next week. Hey, the bottom line is you have to understand me to understand "˜hey.'"
I like Si's analysis. When I heard it, I thought of a particular biblical word, the word "Ho!" "Ho!" is the word Isaiah used to get his people's attention. At Isaiah 55.1, Isaiah says, "Ho! Everyone who thirsts! Come to the waters! .... Why do you spend your money on that which does not satisfy?"
Yes, why do we spend money on that which does not satisfy? Messages on our screens and airwaves urge us, over and over again, to spend money on things that do not satisfy. But, Hey! Those things we are buying are just bringing us boredom and even misery.
Harold Bloom, a crusty old fellow, published a lovely book a few years ago, with the grand and simple title, Genius, in which he ascribes to one hundred people that lofty and enviable description, "Genius." What he tries to say is that genius is worth reading about. Accomplishment and success are worth emulating. "Hey," he says, he is tired of bad writing! And he's right. The study of mediocrity breeds mediocrity. Bloom makes this analogy: If someone is a furniture-maker, why should he or she study chairs whose arms and legs fall off. No, they study designs that have worked.
The same goes for religion, theology, and spirituality. Much of what passes for spiritual writing these days simply does not work. Hey! It is dishonest drivel; and people buy those books hurriedly in the grocery store check-out line, like a last-minute bit of candy. Much of what we buy, in the interest of spirituality, is really stuff that feeds our illusions of quick gratification.
Hey, my favorite illustration of this self-delusion is the language learning programs. I have seen them in shopping malls and in airports, and their big advertisement is simple. Learn a language now! Learn Arabic in thirty minutes a day. Learn Portuguese!
And I think to myself. Hey, I would like to learn Arabic. Then, I buy the program. But, what happens? Hey, I do not learn Arabic. In fact, I bought the wrong thing. All I really bought was a set of CDs or tapes. I did not buy"”I could not buy"”the thirty minutes a day it takes for me to truly learn. I realize this sheepishly. Then I wait six months, and I repeat the same routine.
"Hey!" Si would say. What is wrong with this picture! "Ho!" Isaiah would say. Wake up! Why do you spend money for what does not satisfy? If you are thirsty, hey, come to the water that truly satisfies. This is why Jesus said, "Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, "˜Out of the believer's heart shall flow rivers of living water.'" And then John adds, "Now he said this about the Spirit, which believers in him were to receive" (John 7:37-39). (Hey! Pentecost is this Sunday! May the Spirit be strong!)
