Calvary Episcopal Church
Memphis, Tennessee
THE CHRONICLE
September 8, 2002
Volume 47, No. 29

Human Behavior
In the mid-60's, University of Tennessee's president Andy Holt faced a familiar challenge on the Knoxville campus: How to entice the students to use the paved pathways rather than cutting across the grass in front of the new student center. The grass from summer was quickly criss-crossed with rutted shortcuts in early fall, which became muddy, then impassable in winter. With his usual whimsical insight into student motivation, Dr. Holt proposed a simple solution: create hillocks where the students chose to create shortcuts. He knew they'd prefer not to exert themselves by climbing over small mounds, plus it would be an attractive landscape feature, breaking up the wide grassy lawn. Problem solved. The students followed a prediction from the second law of thermodynamics: everything in the universe tends to entropy, a flat state.

Patterns of behavior, human habits, exhibit deep-set tendencies in the soul. Over time, we fall into predictable patterns that, in effect, transcribe diagrams from our souls onto the world's scene. Like immense symbols seen from high above, our behavior paths trace our yearnings, fears and beliefs, faults and foibles. One's checkbook (or electronic debit transaction register) can be viewed as a map showing where one has been and what one values most.

Most human behaviors erode, unless they gratify us, or unless their motivations are strong, or unless they're repeated frequently. What makes humans strive uphill, what makes them choose harder courses over easier ones? Why do we sometimes choose the paths of greater resistance, or roads less traveled?

I think it's because something quirky, some God-spark of defiance against the fates, is implanted in our nature, but ignited only when we're threatened or strongly motivated. In community, one person's passion can turn on the switch for whole groups. Sometimes the greatest catastrophes end up birthing the most durable, healthy new patterns of human interactions.

This symbol + , scandalized whole provinces of the Roman Empire. To be crucified on a cross was horrific agony; it was absolute ignominy which stained the crucified's family for generations. For us, the death and resurrection of Jesus absolutely defies the predictability of the laws of the cosmos. The action of God in resurrecting Jesus follows what C. S. Lewis calls "the deeper magic from before the dawn of time," scrutable only to God.

As we approach the anniversary of 9/11 we join in ritual, affirming resurrection as our deepest belief, and the norm for our patterns of living in community. This symbol + upends physics and history, and etches new promise in our souls. Our resurrection walk carries over the hummocks, tracing grace indelibly into human souls, making unexpected new life the norm. This is our gift to the world: Hope springs eternal, as the result of the resurrection pattern etched into our souls at Easter.
~George Yandell