Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Evangelical
We Cannot Lose: A Thought Based on an Artificial Parrot

We Cannot Lose: A Thought Based on an Artificial Parrot

Last updated on: July 8, 2016 at 9:56 am by John Mark N. Reynolds

We Cannot Lose: A Thought Based on an Artificial Parrot 2016-07-07T14:26:23-04:00 John Mark N. Reynolds

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

The Professor

My Nana was a strong woman surviving a childhood that would send most people spiraling into a dark place, yet my first memories of her are sitting on her sun-porch with her laughing. She was “Mrs. Cucumber” and I was “Mr. Tomato” and we were up to some nonsense. Whenever times got tough, she would smile and remind me that she had been through the Great Depression. She would gently point out that times had been very bad, nobody wanted them back, but they had made goodness in them.

She had grown up in the country, not the sanitized rural life of the Little House on the Prairie television show, and so she never had much stomach for the back to nature movement. I always felt that she escaped a lack of electricity and indoor plumbing for me and I had no right to set the family back.

When I was a boy, she had no pets, the one defect (from my child’s point of view) I can recall. As a result of our complaints, she purchased a series of plastic parrots which sat on a perch in the kitchen. They had most excellent names: The Doctor, the Captain, the Professor. She pointed out that they provided many of the benefits of an actual bird, color and an object to listen to talk, but none of the liabilities.

And for some reason, I believed her. I granted her the plastic parrot and assumed it was sort-of-real.* Plastic parrots were not, I think, something I naturally liked, but by the time she was done I loved them.

So it went every time I visited her. There was not much stuff, but there was a great deal of happiness and happiness never has to make do. Happiness has.

I do not recollect a single toy or other gadget on the sun-porch, just Nana and her imagination. The woman who could get me to accept a plastic parrot as a pet could do anything with nothing.

I am sitting in my home office tonight looking at my not-so-real parrot put there to remind me of Nana. It makes me laugh to remember and realize that we cannot lose.

We look doomed to bad politics and hard times. Nana grew up with Stalin and Hitler across the water and demagogues like Huey Long and Father Coughlin polluting our politics. Americans were joining the Communist Party USA and we had a homegrown Nazi movement!

Nana won.

Nana prayed, did her duty, and wrote hymns. She knew the limits to what one person could do and did what she could. Mostly, she was good, decent, and joyful herself. Her faith was tested by bad people, hypocrites, and mocked by fundamentalists and theological liberals.

She refused both extremes for the sane, the humane, the Biblical. She was creative. . . and loved God. When the culture demanded she change God’s law, she helped create an alternative culture: hymns, poems, stories, a family.

God help me, but I prefer her “folk culture” to most of the educated fools who thought Stalin’s Russia was the future or that called ugliness art and worshiped it. She got more beauty out of a plastic parrot than Soviet realist painters got out of all of the fabulous wealth of Russian culture.

I think that part of that sanity was knowing what was possible and making do when the possible did not include what might be wished. She knew that when “He who could, did not, it must be better so.”

Mostly, Nana transformed what she had into something better. She could take a plastic parrot and make it sort-of-real. She could take pinto beans and make them tasty. Don’t get me started on her meatloaf. Nana could not lose, because she kept living. Her sun-porch was a playroom, or a solarium, or a conservatory, or a library, or a place where I tried to build an Egyptian temple out of the contents of a desk.

Once I read an atheist complaining about “imaginary gods” and the Christian imagination. This was a fair complaint if one must be an atheist. As my Nana taught me: God has given humanity an imagination that can transform anything. The atheist imagined we had invented God, but in fact God enables us to joyfully invent everything else.

God allows an Oxford professor to take an exam book and scribble: “In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit . . . ”

God allows a poet to peer at the stars and create the divine Comedy.

God let my Nana make lawful magic with only a plastic parrot and a soul created in His image.

Cheer up! Look about you! Create beauty, fun, and joy. Nothing can defeat us if we will allow the Divine imagination to take even the ugly things, our own great depressions, and make them beautiful.

I just pointed out to The Professor, the parrot hanging on my bookcase, the simple truth: We cannot lose. Give us a plastic parrot and a sun-porch and we will find our fun.

Ha!

———————-

*Readers of Plato will note that my Nana was preparing me for Timaeus.

Spiritual Reflections

Previous Post

July 7, 2016

"I kind of ruined my life by going to college." College, Debt, and Administrative Bloat

Next Post

July 9, 2016 Saying: "I do not know."

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Apologetics Art Culture Education On Books On Education Philosophy Politics Pop Culture Spiritual Reflections Uncategorized

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 July 2025 June 2025 September 2024 July 2024 June 2024 December 2023 June 2023 September 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 April 2021 March 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 December 2019 November 2019 October 2019 September 2019 August 2019 July 2019 June 2019 May 2019 April 2019 March 2019 February 2019 January 2019 December 2018 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What does "Jesus" name mean?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Anointed one God saves Savior Messiah

Books by This Author John Mark Reynolds

See All Titles »