The Defense

The porcupines all lived in the evergreen forest, contentedly munching away day after day at the bark of various trees. It was pleasant in the evergreen forest, and none of the porcupines had any complaints. They all went their own way filling their soft bellies with whatever they could find to gnaw on.                                                      
         
          Then one day they scented winter on the air. Gone were the musty smells of autumn. Instead, a sharp, barren wind began to rustle the needles of the trees. Temperatures dropped, snow began to fall, and the porcupines began to shiver. Instinctively they began to search for one another. Their beady eyes looked to and fro as they waddled around the forest floor. Their blunt noses sniffed the stinging air.
         
          Slowly they gathered to one another, desperate for warmth. They all located a long, low cave and began to crowd in. But even though they were together, they still felt the discomfort of the winter air. All a-quiver they snuggled closer to one another, craving the comfort that such intimate warmth would bring. But even as they moved toward each other they began to utter little porcupine cries of pain.
         
          Dismayed, they all retreated to the perimeter of the cave, unable to understand what had happened. But it was still cold in the cave and before long they were sidling warily back together again.
         
          No sooner had they gotten close enough to enjoy the warmth than they began to cry out in pain and retreat from one another again. Time after time they repeated this process tossed to and fro by the pain of being alone and cold as well as by the offensive quills that pricked and stabbed them when they got too close.
         
          After much experience they arrived at a solution. All of them decided to draw as near as they could under the circumstances and yet keep safe distance to avoid getting hurt.
         
          So it is with human society. Man comes together to  form a social order, seeking to escape the emptiness and the monotony that comes from completely self-centered existence. But before long, their repulsive qualities, faults, and  unbearable mistakes cause them to recoil from another. And so they develop manners and refinements and codes of conduct that keep them from getting too close, but allow them to experience a little comfort from one another’s presence.
         
          In our enlightened day, however, many have seen through the sterile, hypocritical customs of the former generation. Why be bound up and hung up? Why try to live by a bunch of out-dated values and customs? Why not love? Why not be warm and kind and really close?
         
          But it didn’t take long to find the answers. There was a reason that the generation before ours built so many walls around themselves-they didn’t have the power to really love. And what about our generation? We learned to “accept” everyone, to have “unity in diversity,” to be “open,” but to “keep our own space.” Isn’t that just an informal version of the customs of our parents?

And who’s the bigger hypocrite?
The one who
pretends to be normal,
or the one who pretends to
love?

(An adaptation of the article, “Porcupines” from A Twelve Tribes Free paper)