Finding allegory in Inky's great escape

There are some amazing stories of pets finding their way home after long absences.  But, an octopus?

Octopi are intelligent, curious creatures. They are so intelligent that aquarium keepers use an enrichment manual to help ward off boredom for octopi in captivity. Aquarium octopi have toys like Mr. Potato Head and Lego, and some can solve puzzles that have a series of locks and keys.

A couple of years ago, an octopus named Inky got himself caught up in a crayfish pot and was in bad shape when a New Zealand aquarium received him. But, despite the aquarium’s tender care and advanced education program, it seems Inky had no intention of staying forever. 

Whether Inky was more inquisitive and restless than other octopi, he was wily enough to escape. I can imagine him plotting his jailbreak like the fish in Finding Nemo, the tale of a clown fish that gets captured, put in a tank, and makes it back to the ocean to be reunited with his father.

Inky’s opportunity for escape came one night a couple of months ago when someone failed to secure his tank properly.  Under cover of darkness, he made his slippery exit from the tank, crept across the floor and squeezed his supple rugby sized body into a 6” floor drain. Good thing the drain led to the ocean.

We can explain Inky’s daring and successful escape using scientific knowledge and common sense.  A number of factors coalesced in his favour. An unsecured tank, no keepers in sight, a wet floor, a drain leading to the ocean, an intelligent, curious creature whose body is perfect for Houdini maneuvers converged in a perfect storm. But I prefer to think of Inky’s escape in terms of mystery.

Seeing Inky's escape as allegory

For Inky, the ocean was home. It was where he belonged. While the aquarium restored him to health, provided for his physical needs in a safe environment, and stimulated his brain, Inky was restless.  His tank mimicked the ocean, but was not the ocean. Ultimately, enrichment activities with intriguing toys were a poor substitute for life on the reef; he was itching to leave the ivory tower of the aquarium and try out his new skills in the real world.  Perhaps something of a metaphysical nature, something that eludes our understanding, fuelled Inky’s desire to escape. Perhaps Inky had an intuition of divinity and his place in creation that compelled him to make a break for the ocean.

So while media reports of Inky’s escape focused on the intelligence of octopi, I saw allegory in the story about Inky.  Inky’s restlessness points to the restlessness of the human spirit of which we are often oblivious.   Like Inky, we are not satisfied with the place we inhabit. While crayfish pots draw us in and capture us, they cannot hold us for long.  Nor can the finest tanks and toys stave off our dissatisfaction.  They are merely distractions from our spiritual longing. 

So, as we attempt to transcend our traps and tanks, we spread our tentacles in search of drains that may lead nowhere. We wind up following the wrong gods home.

Stillness

Finding rest in stillness

Play

I chuckled as I ran by the local elementary school on a hot sunny day in late June. I don’t typically laugh when I’m running; I’m usually too busy gasping for air to even think about laughing. But this particular day, my heart laughed as I jogged by. 

It was sports day. Various stations were set up in readiness for the day’s events. The stations looked fun and I felt a childlike desire for play.

A few years ago, educators in the United Kingdom undertook an experiential study on play. A number of concerns prompted the study: high stress levels and depression in young children, poor academic performance, poor behavior, and inadequate social skills.

The educators made some remarkable discoveries when they equipped the playground with simple, everyday objects suitable for imaginative play. Student creativity increased. Playground fights decreased. Academic performance improved. Self-esteem rose; students took more risks academically and socially. Children were happier and less stressed when they had time for unstructured play.

That morning as I ran, I considered that as adults we either do not play enough, or our play fails to provide any measurable benefits. 

There are obvious reasons why adults ignore the importance of play. Family commitments, work, chores, and deadlines take priority over recreational activities. The expectations we impose on our self, or those that others impose on us, dominate our time.

When we do engage in leisure activities, we may not feel rested or refreshed. That round of golf was frustrating, the motor on the boat malfunctioned, or the kids were fighting. Despite all the money and time we spend on recreation, we often remain dissatisfied. 

Something, it seems, is lacking in our attitude towards leisure.

Sabbatical living

We can liken leisure to the biblical concept of the Sabbath. The Biblical explanation for the Sabbath goes back to the creation myth of Genesis. God created the earth in six days, and rested on the seventh. If rest was good for God, it was also good for people.

Initially, the Sabbath was a day of rest for everyone, including beasts of burden. Over time, a concept of sabbatical living evolved. The concept encompassed rest and relaxation, celebration with others, and sharing in God’s divine life. Periods of worship gave the individual and the community opportunities to pause, reflect, and connect with God. Attitudes of joy and thankfulness permeate sabbatical living.

The concept of sabbatical living reaches its fullness in the example and teaching of Jesus. When the Pharisees accused Jesus of breaking Sabbath laws, Jesus replied, “The Sabbath was made for humankind” (Mark 2.27). Work and rest both have a purpose and fulfill a need in human life.

The Gospels record instances of Jesus working hard, going off for a meal and a glass of wine with his buddies, and withdrawing to a remote place to pray. Jesus balanced work, recreation, and leisure as a spiritual discipline. As a spiritual discipline, leisure was a form of personal re-creation that energized Jesus to return to his ministry with vigor and passion.

Leisure nourishes spirituality

Leisure can be for us a practice that nourishes spirituality, but it demands a shift in our attitude towards time. In a culture that often judges a person’s worth by the activity of their smart phone, leisure teaches that constant availability and activity is detrimental. In a society that makes a competition of busyness, leisure says to slow down.

In today’s social environment, we may feel compelled to buy into the busyness, even with our leisure time. Our vacations sometimes become such a swirl of activity that we return   home needing a rest.

Leisure encourages us to seek rest for our souls, to listen to the sounds outside of our self, and to see the world beyond our self.

Leisure asks that we stop running so that we might breath in deeply of the stillness that makes us receptive to God. In stillness, we encounter the presence of God in our self, in others, in our activities, and in the world around us. In stillness, we temporarily transcend our concerns. We re-emerge with new vision and energy.

If we approached leisure as a spiritual discipline that nourished stillness, I suspect that we would experience benefits similar to those that the children in the study experienced from play. If we could learn to rest our weary self in God, we would become more creative, productive, self-possessed, selfless, joyful and holy.

Finding home

A resurrection story:
His name was Guerino and he was a man returned from the land of the dead.

My father, George Merlo, in the fields,
circa 1946

My father was about 16 years old when Guerino returned. He recalls the day clearly. They were working in the fields when they heard the news.

“E vero?” (“Is it true?”) “Sei sicuro”? (“Are you sure?”) Everyone was asking. No one could believe it.

“Si! Si!”

“Non sbagli?” (“You’re joking?”)

“No, no. E vero.”

And then, the church bells pealed joyfully. It was indeed true! Like a man resurrected, Guerino was back alive!

Within 30 minutes, the entire village of about 2000 had gathered in the yard to verify this unexpected miracle, this modern day resurrection from the dead.

It was 1948, five years since the Russians had captured Guerino and imprisoned him in a Siberian gulag. Of the 54,400 Italians imprisoned there, only 10,085 survived.

Guerino had managed to escape. For three years, he walked through the countryside of Russia and Soviet occupied Eastern Europe towards his home in Italy. He was the only one from his village to return.

Guerino’s story is a resurrection story. It is the experience of moving from death to new life. The story testifies to the power of human love, experienced as home. Home was imprinted on Guerino and felt deep within his heart.

Separated from home, from love and compassion, Guerino resided with suffering and deprivation. To escape was dangerous, but to remain was deadly.

Journeying towards home, Guerino may have become lost. The human longing for affection may have tempted him to linger indefinitely where he encountered kindness. Always, the memory of home made him restless and urged him onwards.

The spiritual journey:

Guerino’s journey has parallels with the spiritual journey. Home is the divine imprint on the soul, drawing us towards God.

We lose our way on the journey. We try to escape our current situation, relentlessly pursuing pleasure, fame and fortune. But once attained, these fail to satisfy our deepest longings.

We want to linger indefinitely in our comfort zones, but something propels us forward. We look for ways to transform our present realities.

For Guerino, a new phase of his journey began the moment he arrived home. Returned from the dead, Guerino had to learn to live. He had to integrate the past with his resurrected life.

Cover from The Confessions,
translated by Maria Boulding, OSB.

The spiritual journey teaches us how to live. It integrates the limitations of human existence with the limitlessness of divine love. The spiritual impetus that kindles restlessness urges us towards resurrection, the experience of new life.

Saint Augustine, who wrote one of the greatest accounts of a spiritual journey in the Christian tradition, describes restlessness in The Confessions. Speaking to God, he writes, “You stir us so that praising you may bring us joy, because you have made us and drawn us to yourself, and our heart is unquiet until it rests in you.” 

The heart that finds God finds new life; it has overcome separation and found home.

Note: Quotation from The Confessions, 1.1, translated by Maria Boulding, OSB, New City Press, 1997. I heartily recommend this translation.