Saturday, June 21, 1997

If you look a little, spiritual content can be found on the comics page

By Tom Schaefer / Knight-Ridder Newspapers

Theology in a comic strip?

That's what I was looking for from readers, and a Wichita, Kan., reader offered a great example.

Before I get to him, let me back up a panel or two.

I was curious whether others could see spiritual content in their favorite comic strips. My light bulb (a little cartoon lingo) came on after I read a news story about Robert Short's speaking to a Virginia church on the religious content of "Calvin and Hobbes." Short became famous in the 1960s for his book "The Gospel According to Peanuts."

Short isn't alone in finding ways to serve religion with a smile. Cartoonist Johnny Hart often slips in no, make that hammers home a gospel message in his strip "B.C."

On the other end of the preaching-through-comics spectrum, Ernie Bushmiller's "Nancy," created in the 1930s, reflected a simpler time - and simpler values to her readers. "Nancy" also gave youngsters a fun way to learn to read.

Looking back at it, many would say that the comic strip is totally out of sync with today's sophisticated culture. Yet, for its time, "Nancy" was the "Everything I Ever Wanted to Know I Learned in Sunday School" source of homespun philosophy for kids, even slipping in an occasional religious bon mot.

One example: Nancy decides to pray for forgiveness after she gets in a fight with Irma. Unfortunately, she finds God's line is busy. "It's probably Irma on the line asking forgiveness, too," Nancy says.

The moral: Work out your problems with your friends, but don't forget to keep calling on the Man Upstairs.

There are similar messages to learn in other cartoons, if you but look. And I wanted to hear what readers could find. Joel McFadden, a "huge fan" of the still popular, though no longer published, "Calvin and Hobbes" comic strip, had the most creative approach.

McFadden, 40, who works in the claims department of an insurance company in Wichita, was able to use the message of the comic strip to present a stewardship lesson to his fellow members at St. Joseph's Catholic Church in Wichita.

Did he succeed? McFadden says the "ultimate compliment" came from an 11-year-old altar server who told him after the presentation that he "liked it when I talked because I explained things so well."

The real thanks, McFadden said, should go to the comic strip's creator, Bill Watterson and, of course, to Calvin and Hobbes. They enabled him to rethink some of his views on spiritual matters.

Here's how they helped him do it:

McFadden showed a strip about Calvin and his stuffed tiger Hobbes, who comes to life in Calvin's imagination. Calvin is digging in the ground for buried treasure when Hobbes asks what he's found.

"A few dirty rocks, a weird root and some disgusting grubs," Calvin replies. "On your first try?" Hobbes says excitedly. "There's treasure everywhere!" exclaims Calvin.

"The 'treasure' strip truly was the inspiration that led to my personal reflections on stewardship," McFadden wrote.

"Embedded in the humor of that little comic strip, there's a lesson for us to ponder," McFadden told the members. "There is treasure everywhere, if you have an eye for it. And those who have discovered treasure surely consider themselves greatly blessed."

Perception, he went on to say, is the key.

"How we look at things directly affects our motivation for doing anything, from brushing our teeth in the morning to how we perform at our work," he said. "Obligation or opportunity, drudgery or delight. It's all in the way we look at it."

And the beauty is, we can change our perception.

"Under the worst of circumstances, we can decide how we are going to view the world," he told the members. "But we have to be self-critical of our perceptions and our motivations, for we will surely live with the results good, bad or indifferent."

McFadden ended his remarks with another Calvin and Hobbes strip about the struggle to reconcile human behavior with eternal destiny. "If heaven is good," Calvin tells Hobbes, "and if I like to be bad, how am I supposed to be happy there?" McFadden said the strip led him to two provocative, theological questions: "Will there be slush balls and water balloons in heaven? Will we be able to throw them at each other?"

McFadden's conclusion: "Let's hope so!"

Indeed.

What a fun way to look at life temporal and eternal if only we have eyes to see beneath the lovable, and sometimes not so lovable, characters in the comic pages.

(Tom Schaefer writes about religion and ethics for the Wichita (Kan.) Eagle. Write to him at the Wichita Eagle, P.O. Box 820, Wichita, KS 67201.)

(c) 1997, The Wichita Eagle (Wichita, Kan.).

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