Jim Taylor's Soft Edges

Wednesday February 28, 2007

Ogopogo has rarely been seen in the winter months.
        Ogopogo is, of course, the legendary denizen who inhabits the depths of Okanagan Lake. Ogopogo may be a mythical creature, like the Loch Ness monster – but don't try telling that to the people who have witnessed the humps of Ogopogo's long sinuous body breaking the calm waters before sinking into the depths again.
        Over the last century, dozens of people – including several I know who are not given to hallucinations – claim to have seen Ogopogo.
        When our daughter Sharon brought granddaughter Katherine to the Okanagan last summer, they spent hours on the lakeshore, watching for Ogopogo.
        Katherine couldn't see Ogopogo.
        "She doesn't like all those noisy boats out there," Sharon explained to Katherine. "So she's staying underwater until they go away."
        The boats had gone when Sharon and Katherine came back again during the autumn. Again, Katherine was disappointed.
        "The water's getting too cold now," Sharon told Katherine. "She's gone south to Penticton for the winter."
        Turning to us, Sharon asked, "Is my nose growing longer?"
        Thus does one rationalization lead to another, and another, until a whole house of innocent deceptions is built up. Sometimes even its propagators find their deceptions convincing.

Harmless deceptions
        Think about Santa Claus. What started off as a middle-eastern bishop who distributed coins to needy families – St. Nicholas – became "Sint' 'Clas" in Dutch folklore, became commercialized in North America as Santa Claus, and is now more visible during the Christmas season than Jesus.
        Santa Claus lives at the North Pole. Santa Claus has an army of elves making toys. Santa Claus flies through the air. Santa Claus has eight tiny reindeer – nine, if you count Rudolph – who can also fly. Santa goes down chimneys – even in homes that don't have chimneys. Santa Claus visits every child in the world during a single night.
        And nobody expects these myths to harm the children who hear them.
        Even the most rigorously non-religious parents still tell their children about the tooth fairy.
        We expect our children to outgrow these innocent fantasies.

Sacrilege! Heresy!
        Only when stories get stamped with the imprimatur of Holy Writ do we start teaching children to take legends literally. The oldest of the four gospels about Jesus, the Gospel of Mark, doesn't mention his birth at all. Nor do Paul's letters, all of which pre-date Mark. Only the later gospels, written some 70 years after Jesus' birth, refer to shepherds and stars and foreign celebrities.
        People already knew Jesus was special. Now they wanted assurance he was special from the beginning.
        This summer, I expect that we'll go out on the lake looking for Ogopogo. I doubt if we will find her. I don't know what explanations Sharon will invent to appease Katherine. Whatever they are, I don't expect Katherine will suffer any long term emotional damage from them.
        She will get what she needs, at her level of development.
        I wish we could take the same attitude to biblical stories.

Jim Taylor