Strange and Scratchy Bedfellows

Charles Dudley Warner’s famous quote, “Politics makes strange bedfellows” is as relevant today as it was when he wrote it in his 1871 essay collection entitled, “My Summer in a Garden.” In that work, Mr. Warner used the way his raspberry bushes had crept into his strawberry beds as a veiled comparison to a national political situation unfolding at the time.

Charles had likely borrowed the strange bedfellows phrase from a line in the The Tempest, by William Shakespeare: “Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.” It is spoken by the shipwrecked Trinculo who is forced to shelter with a monster during a deadly storm.

As Trinculo creeps under the monster’s cloak, he says, “I will here shroud till the dregs of the storm be past.” His fear of the storm suddenly became greater than his fear of the monster itself.

Shakespeare explored the many facets of fear throughout his plays. Through his colorful characters, he showed how human fear reactions can run the gamut from necessary and helpful to irrational and more dangerous than the source of the fear itself.

Humans haven't changed much since Shakespeare's time. Even though the settings in which our emotions play out are drastically different from his day, we are all still just as vulnerable, complex and reactive as people were in the early 1600's.

I know I certainly am.

Tragically so, at times.

*****

Few things are worse than being jolted awake at dawn by something terrifying.

That happened to me once, and the incident triggered a current of electrifying, PTSD-like fright most familiar to those whose panic reflexes have been highly sensitized by watching too many horror movies as a child.

On that particular dawn, the shock happened when something in my bed jabbed my side as I rolled over. Startled from a deep sleep, my eyes flew open and I found myself staring straight into a pair of leering, sinister googly eyes only a few inches from my face.

Chucky??

It was a nightmare, it had to be. I processed that thought in the quantum speed of a panicking brain. It’s weird how many thoughts can fly through a person’s consciousness in a fraction of a second and still be understood. No one could ever talk that fast, yet we humans have the ability to think at the speed of light and still understand our thoughts.

My understanding at that moment reminded me that Chucky, the demon-possessed doll from the awful movie series, must have been resurrected from a dark corner of my brain and pulled into my dreams by the previous night’s sugar overload.

Yes, that’s it.

A terrifying nightmare upon awakening was God’s punishment for my double sin of gluttony and deception the night before. For eating a ridiculous amount of jelly beans after I put the kids to bed—something I didn’t allow them to have and thus had to hide in my special illicit treat hidey-hole.

I closed my eyes and started praying a silent sin confession to God. I asked Him to remove the evil Chucky stare from my mind. I said I would rid my house of all my hidden hypocrisy candy. I prayed that He would give me a renewed craving for fresh vegetables…ouch.

Wait, what’s that?

Another jab in my side. My eyes flew open again to the very real stare of the evil eyes. They were close enough to my face for my severely nearsighted eyes to focus on. I gasped and instantly felt some scratchy hair brush against my face. This was no dream.

An animal?!

In my BED? We didn’t own any pets back then.

Who let this in?

I started kicking and flailing in a bid to disentangle my arms from the sheets and punch the creature away from me.

Plunged into fight-or-flight mode, I lost all reason. My heart rate went into overdrive as racing thoughts of teeth and claws and bites and rabies and ticks hijacked my higher logic.

This animal was not harmless. The jab in my torso had to be a clawed paw...or something.

Blinding, abject fear triggered an adrenaline rush not unlike the type that propels one to lift a Volkswagen Beetle off of a trapped victim. I wrenched my arm from the sheets, threw back the covers in a mighty heave and leapt backwards onto the floor.

Hands shaky, I fished around for my glasses on the nightstand as the blurriness of the figure in my bed didn’t move. It giggled instead.

“Hee, hee.”

I put my glasses on and saw my two-year-old daughter sitting on the other side of the bed with her blankie and her dolly in her hand. The hairy animal head was a ragged old stuffed Cookie Monster and the foot that jabbed me was a shape sorter toy filled with My Little Ponies.

*****

It was clear I had grossly overreacted. I shouldn’t have jumped to such a wild conclusion, but the terror that hijacked the higher logic part of my brain instantly yanked me out of the context of the moment. And the resulting misconception was furthered by my physical blindness.

Of course, a person with even halfway decent eyesight would have known immediately that it was a friendly cookie monster sharing their pillow, not a dangerous animal. That morning was one of many throughout my entire life that has highlighted how truly nearsighted I am without my super high-powered contacts or bulky backup glasses.

Putting on my glasses and surveying the scene through corrective lenses immediately revealed the truth in front of me and chased away the monster in my imagination. It reminded me that, if uncorrected, my own nearsightedness poses the greatest threat to my physical safety more than any other perceived danger in my immediate vicinity.

In my defense, I must mention that my daughter’s habit of sleeping with toys and puzzles instead of stuffed animals or dolls was a strange one. As I surveyed the scene in my bed that morning, I couldn’t help but think how out of place the toys were. They never looked out of place on the floor or on a table, or even on top of the covers on a child’s bed. But under the covers, the place designated for cushiness and rest, the plastic, sharp-cornered toys were clearly troublesome.

Strange bedfellows, indeed.

*****

So, again, this memory prompts the firing of questions in my mind:

Are we seeking shelter from the secularization of America by using secular tactics?

Is it possible that, as conservatives, our growing fear of being ruled by a "leftist" or "socialist" party can hijack our higher, spiritual reasoning?

Have some well-meaning Christians allowed the thorny vines of divisive political promotions to creep into their churches--the places designed for spiritual restoration and healing conviction?

And, shouldn't these sanctuaries instead stay dedicated to the renewal and strengthening of our hearts and minds so that we can influence our communities with the uniting gospel of Jesus instead of the polarizing gospel of electioneering?

As the Apostle Paul reminded Titus:

"Our people must learn to do good by meeting the urgent needs of others; then they will not be unproductive." (Titus 3:14 NLT)

What needs are more urgent among those who gather together to worship?

Is it our need to be instructed in who and what to vote for...

...or our need to be filled with the light of Christ--the illumination that automatically enables us to make sound decisions for ourselves, our families and our communities?

May we never lose sight of God's true purpose in bringing His followers together under the sheltering wing of His universal church.

I believe there is a place for the tools of politics, but not in our sanctuaries.