Caricatures

There is a caricature artist that comes up every year to our Strength for the Journey retreat (for persons living with HIV/AIDS), who donates her time to sit and do caricatures of campers. She talks with them, laughs, and draws their picture. It is always fun to see what Claudia comes up with-- it is a close rendering of the person, but not exactly them-- somethings are exaggerated, other things understated...somethings are omitted. It's her perception and how she feels called to create the image. Each one she does is a gift to the person receiving it.
Caricatures in the Church, on the other hand, are not really a gift. They are in fact, a misrepresentation of the person or group they represent. This is how I perceive them working: people don't have the time to sit and listen, to learn about the people or the groups and so, based on quick bits and pieces of information they might have, or have heard second or third hand, an imaginary picture is created. So-and-so did a youth event once-- and so they are from then on "drawn" as a youth person. One group decided to do a longer term mission project dealing with homelessness, so now they are "drawn" as the group concerned about homelessness. Now you might not think this is a bad thing, and sometimes it is not. But my experience has shown that what this does is allow pictures of people and groups to solidify and become gospel truth. This does not allow room for growth, for changing course, for changing completely. As the Church works at revitalization and re-formation, we might want to consider putting down our pencils and erasers and make time to create a more realistic picture.