JOY ALONG THE WAY: HIDDEN AGENDAS

We hear a lot about hidden agendas these days. Maybe we are searching more diligently for them in these cynical times. The term is a euphemism for "What is in it for him or her?" "What's behind all this?" Or, more coarsely, "What's he got up his sleeve?" This, of course, alluding to cheating gamblers.

One wonders at what stage in life this oblique plan of action to accomplish something is adopted. Is there a gene lurking somewhere in the double helix that programs the brain, at a certain stage, to reason that the best way to accomplish something that may meet with resistance from others is to approach a goal from an indirect or evasive angle, neither parallel nor perpendicular?

Is there a course being taught somewhere on methods to camouflage the action you are taking toward an ultimate goal in case there may be fierce enemies ready to pounce before you have points one and two completed?

Recently I heard of a recommended action to be taken called "How to Hide Your Christianity." It was on TV. I was lazily dusting the arms of a chair and practically fell into it in amazement. A mental kaleidoscopic mural of the old Christian martyrs passed before my eyes --Ignatius, Justin, Boniface, Becket, Hus, Tyndale on down through the ages. What if they had hidden their Christianity along with Peter and Paul?

Hide your Christianit~y! Are we back in the catacombs of Rome? So many scriptures came to mind regarding the admonition that if you are a Christian, acknowledge it. "My tongue shall speak of thy word," "Make known his deeds among the people," "His praise shall be continually in my mouth," etc. etc.

Thoughts of C.S. Lewis' Screwtape and Wormwood came to my mind as the TV droned on. Those devious characters had a classical hidden agenda to un-Christian Christians. It would take a long time for an ordinary citizen to find out what was "up their sleeves."

Back to "How to Hid Your Christianity." It seems that in this instance, it had to do with Christians taking this odd line of action in order to get on school boards where they would be empowered to eliminate reading material that is being promoted by the counterculture, such as "Heather Has Two Mommies." These countercultureites cavalierly attach the word, zealots, to all Christians and raise quite a ruckus about the advisability of electing these "zealots" to any board that has some authority. Hence, say the so-called "Zealots maybe it is wise to hide your Christianity to achieve your goal. What a sad hidden agenda. Yet, I think of the early Christian admonition to be as "wary as serpents and harmless as doves."

Such things bother me a lot so to clear my mind and get back on track, at least with one foot. I do my usual thing -- go outside to contemplate the living things in my back yard that seem to have no hidden agendas and to clear another three feet of my flower border.

My ears are tickled with the sound of the birds, and on one particular day came the call of a quail down in the meadow along the creek. So early, I thought. Maybe it is a mockingbird doing his quail calls. It was enough to set my mind thinking about quails.

Many times I've seen a mother quail fluttering around in the meadow with a "broken wing" when the mower was approaching. We came to know that No. 1 on her agenda was to draw attention to herself so as to, perhaps, have the mower miss her nest of young ones. Was this a type of hidden agenda, or are the genes of oblique courses and mother instincts so close together on the DNA spiral they blend?

Race, sex and creed. It's hard to hide the first two. But creed? Do you have to hide it to live it?

REJOICE!

~Jean Bell Mosley is an author and longtime columnist for the Southeast Missourian.