Andy Griffith Isn’t Helping

Across the canon of Andy Griffith, there’s a type of episode that pops up again and again. 

“The Bed Jacket” is an example that illustrates the type. It’s Aunt Bee’s birthday, and she insists that she doesn’t want any frivolous gifts. She’s a Very Sensible Person, after all. Then she sees something frilly that she really wants, and she’s in a bind—she can’t tell Andy and Opie, because that would mean she’s actually not a Very Sensible Person. The usual hijinks ensue, and Andy finally discovers what Bee really wants through one of her friends. He gets her the gift in such a way as not to reveal that he knew she wanted it. She’s happy, and he’s The Good Guy that we all knew he was. 

That’s the type of episode I’m thinking of: Andy becomes aware that another person’s self-perception is just plain wrong, and then he bends over backwards to keep them from being confronted with that reality, and therefore he is The Good Guy.

The problem-person is usually Barney (e.g., “Andy Saves Barney’s Morale,” “Barney and the Choir,” “Lawman Barney,” “Andy the Matchmaker,” and many more). Time after time, situations reveal things that Barney needs to work on, and then Andy intervenes. 

For example, in “Andy Saves Barney’s Morale,” Andy appoints Barney as temporary sheriff while he’s away for a day. Barney spends the day locking up most of Mayberry’s citizens. He feels even the most minor infractions (a raised voice over an outdoor checker game is “disturbing the peace”) as assaults on his identity as an officer of the law. Barney is so insecure that he uses the law as a weapon against the people he’s charged to protect—the shepherd is eating the sheep.

Andy gets back. When he hears how frivolous all the cases are, he dismisses them. Barney mopes around for a few days, then decides to resign. He never considers the possibility that he could learn from the experience—and Andy doesn’t attempt to help Barney process the experience, either. 

Instead, Andy works his patented reverse-psychology on the townspeople, and they all barge into the courthouse and lock themselves in jail just in time to convince Barney that he’s not such a bad cop after all. Barney’s initially humbled—no, not humbled; mildly confused—at their display of affection. Then he shifts straight back into using the uniform as an excuse to verbally abuse his neighbors and friends. And again, Andy is The Good Guy—he kept Barney from quitting.

But Barney was a bad policeman. And he continues to be a bad policeman. And he doesn’t realize it—Andy has successfully Arranged Circumstances that allow Barney to believe that he was a good policeman the whole time. 

Because of Andy’s intervention, Barney’s insecurity continues to harm the people he’s supposed to protect.

Is Andy The Good Guy?

From the tone of these episodes, it seems like the Andy Griffith Show thinks that yes, Andy is The Good Guy. 

The show believes that the best thing you can do for someone you love is protect them from the truth. 

• Aunt Bee believes she’s a Very Sensible Person, but she is not actually a Very Sensible Person, if what it means to be a Very Sensible Person is never to want anything fancy. 
• Barney believes he is a seasoned, dependable policeman, hard but fair. None of those adjectives are true about Barney—this is demonstrated every single day of his life.

Because he cares deeply about both of them, Andy spends most of his energy helping them not to encounter any information about themselves that would contradict their beliefs about themselves. 

What would happen if they did? 

The show thinks it knows: Barney and Bee couldn’t handle the truth, not even an ounce of it. They would lose the will to live if even a particle of their self-perception were shown to be false.

But that’s not the only possibility, is it? 

It’s possible that Barney could learn to see the ways his insecurity influences his policing. It’s possible that, with help from his friends and neighbors, he could learn to endure the waves of insecurity without hiding behind abusive language. It’s possible that he could learn to take responsibility for his behavior. 

Maybe he could take a break from active duty until he had made some progress on those fronts. Or maybe, if he decided that was too much work, he could at least resign—even if he isn’t willing to improve, at least he wouldn’t have to endanger others.

All of those good possibilities rest on a crucial assumption: it’s okay for people to feel bad.

It’s okay for people to feel bad

It’s not fashionable to believe that. It makes most of us really uncomfortable to be around someone if you can tell they’re not doing okay.

And why shouldn’t that make us uncomfortable? 

After all, advertisements tell us that people who have health problems should just take medicine—then they’ll be happy and normal (and in most ads, their kids and grandkids will want to spend time with them)! 

Facebook mommy groups tell us that people whose kids aren’t sleeping should just try a new method of sleep training—or no, not sleep training! Just gentle parenting without confrontation—or no, with gentle but clear reasoning and consequences! Or classical music, or a new mattress for your crib—or no, co-sleeping with mom and dad! Only a heartless monster would fail to embrace all of these mutually exclusive methods, because only a heartless monster would have something in their life that’s just not okay and that they aren’t sure how to fix.

And of course, only a demon-possessed extremist would fail to donate their life savings to one of two apocalyptically-necessary candidates who would fix everything wrong with the government.

It’s not okay to be broken

On all these fronts, we are surrounded by this message: It is not okay for you to be broken, and you can (and must!) fix what’s wrong with you. 

Gin up the willpower, learn the hacks, buy the right clothes, get to the gym, write the morning pages, read a physical book before bed. Have they run a full blood panel? You should try day trading. It might be the heavenly cycles—what’s your star sign? Dave Ramsey’s got a great book on this. Have you seen a neurologist? Maybe there’s some unconfessed sin in your life.

It’s an endless dance of Arranging Circumstances, designed to let us (and the people around us) pretend that we don’t have any real problems, certainly nothing out of our control, probably nothing that will take long to fix, and of course nothing that will require us to endure pain without a defined end date.

Because if we did have real problems, that would be awkward. We would need to learn to grieve without giving up—that’s an excruciating stretch in a hot, dry land. 

And the people around us would see us grieving. That would make them uncomfortable, because it would remind them that there’s stuff humans just can’t fix. It takes a lot of courage to just be with someone who’s not okay. It’s far easier to collapse into either Arranging Circumstances or despair—“Why don’t you just curse God and die?”

What does God think of people who aren’t okay?

Sometimes it seems like American culture (all those ads and Facebook groups and politicians) tricks Christians—sorry, I actually mean they trick me!—into acting like functional atheists. 

All those ads and politicians and parenting experts are allergic to human limitations. They have no framework for coping with situations that can’t be fixed by a hack or a drug or an election, so it is necessary to pretend that all situations can be fixed by hacks and drugs and elections.

But that’s not true. I know it’s not. I’ve experienced it. 

This year has taught me to my bones that the only outcome doctors can guarantee is death. Everything else has a partial success rate at best.

That’s really bleak.

An entire society’s framework of motivation (you need to do this because it works!) is based on a falsehood. When it comes right down to it, we actually don’t have the technology to fix brokenness.

There must be something more than technology that we can set our hope on in a hot, dry land.

And there is. 

Paul pleaded with God three times to remove the thorn from his flesh, and God didn’t do it (2 Cor. 12:7-9). Paul described the thorn as a messenger of Satan, but God didn’t think it was necessary to remove the thorn.

It doesn’t bug God for us not to be okay. His purposes (and our good!) can proceed just fine in the presence of problems that aren’t fixed yet. His grace is enough even in our weakness. 

By default, I want to hear those words as, “My grace is sufficient to overcome your weakness.” But that’s not what it says.

I’m still embedded in this society that’s allergic to weakness.

And let’s be fair—it is usually appropriate for us to seek not to be in pain, to fix what can be fixed. I’m not arguing for masochism. But I think I’m beginning to learn that when fixes don’t work, when pain can’t be escaped—

it’s not the end of the world. 

God’s grace is enough for the weight of the thorn. 

His power shows through in ways it wouldn’t otherwise.

In fact, the power that flows when God’s holy ones are crushed follows the pattern of God’s Anointed One, Jesus. 

We didn’t know what love was ’til He came

And He gave love a face and He gave love a name

And He gave love away like the sky gives the rain and sun

We were looking for heroes—He came looking for the lost

We were searching for glory and He showed us a cross

Now we know what love is ’cause He loves us all the way to kingdom come.

Rich Mullins, “All the Way to Kingdom Come”

To go through this hot, dry land with our eyes open to the reality of it,

to be stretched over the span between Circumstance Arranging and despair 

but to refuse to collapse into either one, 

is to be stretched into an imitation of the crucified Anointed One.

He has paved this path before us, and it doesn’t stop at the cross.