All Saviors Disappoint
Posted on | January 29, 2010 |
This week’s cover for the ‘New Yorker’ shows four cartoon frames. A small figure walks towards us. As it gets closer we see that it’s Obama, walking on water. The final frame shows a surprised Obama as one leg disappears beneath the surface.
Very witty. Some people really felt that, like Jesus, Obama could walk on water. Now he’s suffered some set-backs. We grin.
But the metaphor has a deeper level. All Saviors, including Jesus, disappointed their followers (think about the crucifixion and you’ll see what I mean). And that is the whole point.
Saviors are not here to do everything for us. They arrive and ask US if we want to be part of the solution (’Together We Can’) — and then we have to get on with saving our own lives.
So I’ll say to those disenchanted voters, did you even try to be part of the solution? Really? Or did you simply hand over a broken country to a new president and say, ‘Here, fix this mess’ ? Frankly, you wouldn’t treat your car mechanic that way. Why would you be less patient with your president?
The savior’s task is not to save you, but to get you to save yourself. So - are you up for it?
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Hi—I’m Allan Hunter, author of The Six Archetypes of Love and Stories We Need to Know as well as two books on writing for self-exploration, Life Passages and The Sanity Manual. If you’re looking to live your best life I hope you’ll find lots of inspiration here.
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January 29th, 2010 @ 5:31 pm
Thank you for that. I am frustrated by my frustrated friends. I’m not sure what people expected but we have avoided a crushing depression, and are slowly repairing a multitude of problems. Times are tough, really tough, and thinking that anyone can magic everything back into order in a year is madness.
There’s a great book called “The Science of Good and Evil” which talks (in part) about our inclination to categorize certain people as either saintlike or evil. But the truth is that Mother Teresa was no Mother Teresa and that’s actually an uplifting message. If you assume that great changes are made by people who are better, somehow different from you, you can never see your own potential. It’s only when you realize that anyone can make great contributions, and everyone is fallible that people can take chances, try, fail and not be discouraged and try anew.
I’m prone to curmudgeonliness but seeing the outpouring of support for Haiti as reminded me how important a billion little contributions can be in bettering the world.
January 29th, 2010 @ 6:09 pm
Dear Marnie,
What a lovely and intelligent response! I posted my thoughts this morning and waited… expecting some outpourings of spleen and rage as the only response. Instead I got your thoughtful and highly perceptive insights.
And I could not agree more. The response to Haiti lets us know that there are far more generous and open-hearted people out there than we can easily count, and that is up to us to do things. we can’t wait for or expect another Mother Theresa to appear. we’ve got work to do. And when we do it we’ll be amazed at how much saintliness there is in thousands of ‘ordinary’ people…
With a smile, Allan