From an NPR story today: There is a species of army ant that is completely blind. They get about by sniffing trails left by the ants in front of them. They, in turn, leave chemical trails of their own. The system works smoothly when everybody's going in a straight line in one direction...
But when the lead ants start to loop, bad things can happen. If the ant-in-front loops and intersects with its old trail, the whole crowd then turns in on itself and everybody gets caught in the endless circle. There are some amazing videos of this phenomenon on Youtube. Here's a computer simulation:
Apparently, these ants will continue following the leader in an endless circle until they literally starve to death.
So maybe you've realized this about me. I'm always looking for ways that stories like this can help us see ourselves (and specifically the church) in a new light. I watch this video and think instantly of our patterns of passing on the faith through the centuries in the church. Someone ahead of us went a certain direction and so we just keep right on following, forever circling.
Frequently, it seems to me, this happens in the form of tradition. We've always done it that way. Never mind that it might not be actually getting us anywhere. That's just how we do it. The ants in the death circle would be "freed" almost instantly if just one or two ants could see what was happening and just decided to turn right. But they can't. They are too focused on keeping in step with the one who went before them.
Other times, I think, this happens for the exact opposite reason. We can see plainly that the way we've always done it is leading us in a slow death spiral. We are desperate to find another way. We notice someone going off in a new direction and we jump in line and follow. Even if they are going off in the completely wrong direction, at least they are going somewhere - so we follow. If you watch a few times, you may notice that the "lead ant" seems to realize that he doesn't know exactly where to go. He very briefly hesitates, then turns right and circles back until he falls back into his own steps. Which wouldn't be a big problem except that eventually every other ant ends up following his lead.
Here's the thing. I don't believe that "creation" was a one time event for God. I think God is in the business of bringing new things into being. Breathing life into old dead bones. Taking things that are broken and making something whole, something new. Tradition can be a rich and meaningful way to belong, but it without the ability to change and adapt, we will almost certainly find ourselves in a death spiral. Innovation is absolutely essential, but change for change sake (or simply following the lead of somebody else who charted a new course) can be equally deadly.
The hardest thing of all, but the truest and most important, is to identify the path that God sets before us. That path will ALWAYS be consistent with the way of Jesus, but it seems equally true to me that it will also always be experiencing newness (new creation, new life, and yes...new direction) based on our particular contexts.
Those ants have me thinking...
I'll probably come back to this soon.
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