A surprising morality play

It's a simple story. I'll bet you've heard it a dozen times. I know I have. Two guys are camping in the woods. They wake up in the middle of the night and realize a bear is outside their tent. One of them immediately begins to put on his running shoes.

"What are you doing?!" the second guy whispers in alarm. "You can't out run a bear!"

"I don't have to out run the bear," the first guy responds. "I just have to out run you."

I've grinned every time I've heard this story - repeated it to friends and family. It is funny.

Or, at least, it was funny until I told it to a morally precocious 12-year-old. His response, rather than laughter, was a question.

"But why didn't he stay around and help his friend? Maybe two of them could have scared the bear away."

Now, I'll leave the appraisal of the relative merits of such a strategy to my more wilderness savvy friends. I can't say I know much about bears. What struck me, though, was the moral dilemma that this youngster extracted from what I assumed was simply a funny story.

Actually, I have been doing some thinking lately about what it is that makes this story funny in the first place. Maybe part of it is that it contradicts the self-sacrifice, the "community mindedness, the commitment to others," that we like to think is part of our better nature. Our laughter, then, is tinged with irony. When push comes to shove, we can't always count on people, even our buddies, to stand by us.

Or perhaps this story is funny because we take some pleasure in the cleverness, the quick mindedness, even the ruthlessness, of the runner. It's the same part of us that sometimes cheers when the idealized, romanticized crooks get away with the loot.

Well, so much for my philosophy of humor. Whether it is funny or not, it does seem that this story is, in reality, also a morality play, as my young friend quickly pointed out. And it is a morality play raising a number of vexing questions.

For example, in times of crisis, do our morals dictate that we look to our own self interest, even if that means likely harm to those around us? Or do we consider the needs of others and sacrifice ourselves in the service of meeting those needs? Or is there some balance in between? Are we alone in this world, responsible ultimately only to ourselves, or do we live in a world of mutual commitments and responsibilities? Do we claim individualism or communitarianism as one of our ultimate values? Or, as my preteen friend put it, "Is it every man for himself, or is it all for one and one for all?"

These are awfully big questions for such a short tale. There seems to be a surprising number of lessons we can learn, and teach, from it. The two of us actually had quite a lengthy conversation doing just that, though I'm not clear who was doing the learning and who was doing the teaching. One thing I am now clear about, however, is that there is no such thing as a simple story.

Learning theorists suggest that much of human knowledge is passed down through such story telling. The events important to understanding our history; the values that under gird our lives; who we are as persons, as a society, even as a species - all these are passed from generation to generation primarily through the tales we choose to tell.

Children in particular learn from stories, especially the ones their parents, grandparents, teachers and other significant adults tell. Ultimately they will live out much of their lives according to the lessons hidden in these stories. And they will wind up teaching the generations that follow them by repeating many of these same stories, complete with their sometimes hidden lessons.

Our stories, it seems, have a great deal more power than we give them credit for. I guess it is up to us adults, then, to make sure we tell tales that teach children what we believe is important for them to understand and to live by. Even a funny story, even a joke, teaches something.

Do we take off running on our own, or do we stick by our buddy and do battle with the bear? There's a lesson there, or so I was taught by a child.

• Rev. Ken Potts is a pastoral counselor and marriage and family therapist with Samaritan Interfaith Counseling Centers, Naperville and Downers Grove. His book, "Take One A Day," can be ordered at local bookstores or online.