Edgar Allen Poe is well known for his macabre writing. His view of the world was uniquely dark, which has, in part, made him and his work fascinating to many over the one hundred seventy years since his death. Some have speculated about Poe’s mental health, with most concluding that at the very least he suffered from depression and addiction. He was known from a young age to be quite serious and was skilled at identifying glasses as half empty. His own mental state and insecurities show up in his art again and again. One of his short stories came to mind this week, pulled from some deep recess of my childhood. The Sphinx. Not one of his more well-known pieces, The Sphinx was published in Arthur’s Ladies Magazine in 1846, although the story is set in 1832. As I rediscovered the short story, I realized it was written for a time like this.
The Sphinx is a story written about a man who is trying to escape the real-life Cholera pandemic that came in waves over a decade in the 1820’s and 1830’s. The first wave began in southeast Asia, before it eventually swept the globe, killing hundreds of thousands. It arrived in New York in 1832, causing great alarm to those who lived there. People were on edge, to be sure, and the threat of cholera in a city even sent people fleeing to the countryside, at least those who were able to flee. The main character in The Sphinx flees New York City to stay with a relative on the banks of the Hudson.
The pandemic is all the man can think about; every day they receive news from the City, often with the revelation that another acquaintance has died. The man is gloomy and given to reading books about omens and signs that even worse things were to come. In fact, one day, while reading a book by the window, ruminating on the death and shadow of the city, he gazes upon the hillsides beyond the river and sees a monster of incredible size. Larger than any ship, the creature is hairy, winged, and menacing. The man worries that he is crazy, and faints in fear.
Eventually, he recounts what he saw to his relative, while they are seated in the very room, near the very same window. Shortly after describing the monster, and unsure if his relative believed him or thought him crazy, the creature returned on the horizon. Overcome with fear, the man hides his face in his hands, and when he finally looks up again, the monster is gone, although the relative is quite calm. In fact, the relative explains to the man what it is he has actually seen. He prefaces his explanation by insisting that, “the principle source of error in human investigations lay in the liability of the understanding to under-rate or over-value the importance of an object, through mere misadmeasurement of its propinquity.” He points out that what the man has described, found in a description on one of the books on the shelf, is the Sphinx moth, which is moving up and down on a spider’s silk on the window itself. The moth appeared huge in the larger view of the window because of a trick in the man’s eye! Not a monster at all, as it turns out.
Poe’s story may highlight a truth that psychology later identified because he had lived it himself; the reality that depression, negativity, fear, and anxiety can feed themselves. The man was so scared of the pandemic he was primed for omens – signs that things were going to get even worse, and so they did, at least in his mind. Psychologists have already warned us about the effects of “doom scrolling” during this pandemic, a reference to the ability to get lost in news sources and social media, reading one unnerving story after another about the pandemic and/or other bad news. They warn us that it’s bad for our mental and emotional health. Indeed, there seems to be a mantra that has developed this year, asking what 2020 will throw at us next. So many unpleasant things have happened, so the thinking goes, there must be more shoes waiting to drop.
The problem with that cloud of negativity is that it will make more negativity rain down on us. We are primed to see the worst omens in other things that transpire in our world. And here is where the speed and breadth of our media, social and traditional, is not helpful. We live in a world that is covered in cameras. All kinds of crazy things have happened throughout history, but never have there been so many lenses and microphones to record them. A wild or crazy event can go viral within hours. News stories can flood social media, and likewise, social media trends will make the evening news. Because we seem to live in a post-fact society, we can spend hours upon hours speculating and opining about the news du jour, whether we do it accurately or not.
The danger in all of this is very real, and it goes beyond our personal health. This new reality that can zoom in on a drop in the ocean and then magnify it for the whole world to see can be and is used as a weapon. We see a moth on the window and determine it’s a 100-ft long monster. Just like when I was in science class as a kid and looked at some creepy things under a microscope – my brain was grossed out or even a little scared by what was filling my vision, even though it was just a miniscule little bit of biology on a slide.
Don’t get me wrong; these lenses and microphones come in handy. Locally, the shooting death of Amhaud Arbery became a much different case when video became public. Indeed, cell phone and/or body cam videos have alternatively helped both police and victims in similar shootings. They aren’t always conclusive, but often enough they help us see what transpired so that we can address it. The Sphinx effect, however, is that we can mistakenly amplify the microscopic view from a single incident and splash it on the distant landscape. That causes some to call all police officers violent or all offenders thugs. Neither is fair, and yet that’s the place it takes us.
Similarly, we look at the protests and looters and how they are covered and realize that we can fall prey to the Sphinx effect again. We will try to demonize an entire movement or an entire voter base because of some small, specific events. We won’t show the full scope of a problem because it doesn’t make for good headlines and internet memes; it doesn’t fire up our base. So instead we point to looters and paint an entire protest movement as a threat to our survival. Or we look at an incident of an outrageous display from a political supporter and try to dismiss all those who vote similarly.
Perhaps we’re primed to see the gloom and doom on the horizon because we’re already mentally, emotionally, and spiritually tired from this pandemic. We can’t escape it, things aren’t back to normal, and people are still dying. So many challenging things are happening, there’s more bad stuff on the horizon, right? Not necessarily. We don’t have to help fuel a self-fulfilling prophecy or inadvertently bring our skewed omens to reality. But we might. If we lose track of our microscopic near-sighted experiences and only see the projection in the distance, a logical deduction given our current mindset, we could behave in ways that will be very damaging for the long haul. We don’t have to let this happen, though.
We are people of hope, after all. We’ve been called to see the world through God’s eyes, and to remember that all things are working to fulfillment of God’s purposes. That doesn’t preclude bad things from happening, but it can help keep us from falling victim to the “mere misadmeasurement of [today’s event’s] propinquity.” We must step back from the windows and screens through which we view the world and see all of God’s creation. We will still identify movements and horizons and themes, but they may not seem so dire when viewed with the appropriate perspective.
Yes, there is a problem with how the justice system works for minority individuals. No, that doesn’t mean all police are racist offenders. Yes, there are extremists on both ends of our political spectrum who are essentially opposing sides of the domestic terrorism coin. No, that doesn’t mean an entire party’s agenda intends to or is going to kill our democracy. We need to snap out of our doom-scrolling, gloom-ridden fog and let the light of Christ’s love warm our hearts and chase away the gloom and doom of these days. Only then will we really and truly see how we fit into the equation, how our actions, our words, our votes, and our voices can best be used to build God’s kingdom. God’s kingdom is not one based on fear, but on freedom from fear. The tools for interpreting today’s visions are indeed found in a certain book we all know well, and that is where we might want to spend our time reading instead of watching cable news or reading opinion blogs.
Poe doesn’t describe what happens to his main character after his relative explains the truth of the situation. The story simply ends. Is he relieved? Is he angry? Is he so far gone he won’t believe the truth? We don’t know. Perhaps the state of our own psyche will dictate our hunch about what came next. Either way, our story isn’t finished yet either, and neither is God’s.
Tom+
You can read the Sphinx here: http://xroads.virginia.edu/~Hyper/POE/sphinx1.html
O God, you made us in your own image and redeemed us through Jesus your Son: Look with compassion on the whole human family; take away the arrogance and hatred which infect our hearts; break down the walls that separate us; unite us in bonds of love; and work through our struggle and confusion to accomplish your purposes on earth; that, in your good time, all nations and races may serve you in harmony around your heavenly throne; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.