deception

Story: Truth and the ‘Akiapola’au

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 3 Comments

June 15, 2025

Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31
John 16:12-15

Birds are pretty honest creatures. They sing when they’re happy, and they screech when they’re mad. They give alarm calls when they’re scared, and they make hungry noises when they’re hungry.

An ‘akiapola’au  used to follow ‘elepaio through the forest to find food. The funny thing is that ‘elepaio and ‘akiapola’au don’t eat the same things. ‘Elepaio like bugs and spiders, which I don’t, to be honest. ‘Akiapola’au will eat those, it’s true, but they prefer the worms, caterpillars, and bugs that burrow into the wood of koa trees. It’s been noticed that a tree full of bugs and spiders is probably also one that’s full of burrowing insects, too. The Hawaiian canoe makers knew that, and the ‘akiapola’au knows it, too.

The ’elepaio could be trusted to tell the truth.

This one ‘akiapola’au, however, came up with a new idea one day. You see, while he was following the ‘elepaio, other birds were following him. He worried that they’d eat all the food before he did. The fact that none of them ever left the trees hungry didn’t seem to make a difference. He had to protect his food.

He thought.

Not that it was his food before he ate it, but anyway.

So he developed the habit of tapping at tree branches that didn’t have bugs in them. ‘Akiapola’au do that to find where things have burrowed into a tree, but he started doing it, and then digging where he hadn’t found any. It attracted other birds. They’d come in to see.

And he’d fly off to some other tree where he’d try to find something he could actually eat.

The result was a fair number of frustrated birds, who’d look around where he’d been tapping and find fewer spiders and insects than they expected. They went to bed somewhat hungry.

He was pretty satisfied with his trick when his auntie turned up after a day of tapping on insect-free trees. “Nephew, why are you spending so much time hunting in trees without food?” she asked.

“Don’t tell anyone, but I’m drawing the other birds away from the good trees,” he said. “I don’t want to run out of food and be hungry.”

“So you’re lying to them?” she asked. “And before you say, ‘No,’ don’t think about lying to me.”

“I don’t think I’m lying to them,” he said.

“You’re acting as if there’s food where there isn’t. You don’t have to say a word. It’s still a lie. It’s a lie that’s bringing hunger to our forest when it isn’t necessary. There’s plenty to eat. Isn’t there?”

“I guess so,” he said.

“As for you, you’re spending so much time in trees without food: how hungry are you when you go to sleep?” she asked.

He realized that, in fact, he spent so much time in trees without caterpillars that he was hungry at the end of most days. His lie meant that he wasn’t eating enough.

“No lying, nephew,” said auntie. “It’s not worth it and it never was. Go find the trees with food in them, and share the word with the other birds around us. We’ll all be better for the truth.”

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories in advance, but I tell them from memory and inspiration. On this particular day, I’d happened to speak to one of the young people the night before on a video call, where I told him that I’d be telling him a story the next day.

Photo of an ‘akiapola’au (adult male) by Eric Anderson.

Story: Attempt to Deceive

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / 5 Comments

May 12, 2024

Acts 1:15-17, 21-26
John 17:6-19

As I’ve said before, the ‘amakihi likes to eat lots of different things. I think it’s fair to say that the ‘amakihi likes to eat, and fortunately for the ‘amakihi, it has a wide range to its taste. Nectar is always good, and so are bugs and spiders, caterpillars, tree sap, fruits and berries. It will even eat pollen sometimes, which people with pollen allergies will find truly mysterious and a little uncomfortable.

But there was one ‘amakihi who didn’t eat nectar from ohi’a trees.

If that seems weird to you, it seems weird to me, too. There are a lot of ohi’a trees on the mountain slopes, and they have a lot of flowers. It’s a great food source for ‘amakihi and ‘apapane and ‘akepa and lots of birds up there. They’d happily perch near those flower clusters and merrily feed on the nectar while this one ‘amakihi watched.

He watched, and he felt sorry for them.

“Poor birds,” he told himself, “to be so desperately hungry that they’ll feed on ohi’a. I feel really sorry for them.”

Why, you ask, did he feel sorry for them, eating ohi’a nectar? Well, I’m afraid it’s because one day when he was young, and before he’d actually sampled any ohi’a nectar, he perched near an i’iwi. I’iwi can be kind of mean sometimes, and they will chase ‘amakihi away from a tree they want to feed at. This i’iwi, however, was feeling rather full and didn’t want to get up off his perch and chase this young ‘amakihi away. He decided to try words instead.

“Planning to feed at this tree?” he asked the young ‘amakihi.

“Oh, yes, uncle,” said the ‘amakihi. I’m afraid the i’iwi wasn’t happy to be called “uncle” by an ‘amakihi.

“You should search somewhere else if you want something good,” said the i’iwi. “This is a bad tree.”

“Ohi’a is bad?” said the young ‘amakihi.

“I’m afraid so,” said the i’iwi. “The nectar is sour, except when it’s bitter. When it gets old, it’s really bad. It will keep a bird going, of course, but nobody eats ohi’a nectar until they’re desperate.”

“Really?” said the ‘amakihi.

“Really,” said the i’iwi. “You can trust me. Go find something else you’ll like better. I’m sure it will be better for you, too.”

Misled by the i’iwi, the ‘amakihi avoided ohi’a from that day on. Eventually his mother noticed, and he told her the story.

“So one i’iwi told you this story, and you never checked it with anyone else, or tried ohi’a yourself?” she asked him in surprise, “even when so many other birds eat its nectar every day without signs of complaint?” Put that way, it did sound a little odd.

“Come along, son,” said Mother firmly. “You need to try what you’ve been avoiding, and see what you think yourself.”

Of course he found it delicious, which was a good thing to learn. But he also learned that some birds, and some people out there, will lie to you when it serves them, and sometimes you need to test their stories with the ones who love you and with your own experience, to learn the truth.

by Eric Anderson

Watch the Recorded Story

I write these stories ahead of time, then tell them from memory – well, lack of memory plus improvisation. The video does not match the text you’ve just read.

Photo of an ‘amakihi in the midst of ohi’a blossoms by Eric Anderson.

Memories of an Ethical Missionary

/ Rev. Eric Anderson / Leave a comment

I originally wrote this reflection in April 2011, shortly after I’d shared my most successful April Fool’s Day gag ever: a claim to have been summoned as an “ethical missionary” at a major American corporation. I’ve slightly changed the essay to reflect the fact that since then, I’ve moved from my work with the Connecticut Conference UCC to Church of the Holy Cross UCC in Hilo, Hawai’i. I’ve also inserted a video of the song I wrote about the event, performed in April 2012.

Bear with me a moment, for I must begin this blog post with an apology.

To my friends on Facebook: I sincerely apologize for distressing you with my April Fool’s Day prank last week. I’d never actually intended it to deceive, only to amuse: but it was harder than I thought to create a gag that was both plausible and transparently impossible. Or in other words, I failed to create a fiction that was stranger than truth, and so I deceived, and so I distressed. I’m very sorry.

So what did I do?

I posted a note that I’d be moving to a new job — I hasten once more to say this is NOT TRUE — as the UCC’s first “Ethical Missionary” to a major American corporation. The note included more spurious details, many intended to reveal the joke for what it was, but that’s the summary. A number of my friends responded, and a startling (to me) number took it seriously. I learned a great deal.

I learned again that I have wonderful friends. I’d posited a move across the country, and without exception people expressed two heart-warming things: that they were very happy for my exciting new challenge, and very sad that I’d be so far away. Holding that sense of joy for another with that feeling of loss is, I think, a very deep mark of friendship.

And let us not ignore as well the fact that (so far) all have forgiven me for deceiving them!

I learned again that reality is much stranger than the human imagination — or at least my human imagination. I honestly believed I’d weighted the note with too many impossibilities to be credible. I hadn’t. Let’s face it, on a planet in which both the duck-billed platypus and the giraffe exist, I hadn’t much chance of doing so.

More striking, however, than these two reminders was the revelation of a sudden hunger. My friends sincerely wanted to believe in an ethical missionary, and in a major corporation willing to accept such a person. A friend who is ordained in another denomination praised the forward thinking of the UCC. Another called it “the coolest job EVER.”

It makes me think: maybe it’s a crazy idea, but maybe it’s not such a bad idea.

An ethical missionary to a big corporation faces an enormous challenge, because corporations already have an ethical code which has the advantage of being both clear and compelling. It’s about “the bottom line.”

The bottom line refers to the last line of a particular financial report in a corporation, the line which describes the return to shareholders, the company’s owners. The company’s managers, who may not be among the owners, see it as their duty to keep that number healthy (growing, increasing, certainly above zero). There are plenty of other ethical touchstones as well, about transparency and such, but many of those function to serve the primary goal of returning value to the stockholders.

Jesus, of course, told a story about precisely this situation. We call it the ‘parable of the talents:’ a master going on a journey assigns three servants to steward portions of his fortune while he is away. The two who successfully increase his wealth receive commendation; the one who fails (though without suffering loss) receives condemnation. Ethical managers of a corporation emulate those two faithful stewards.

I think, however, that that model is no longer sufficient (and possibly never was). The group of shareholders, however large, is not an adequate community to consider in making ethical choices. The owners’ interest is served by keeping finances transparent within the management team, but they are also served by making them opaque to customers, employees, and the general public. We have laws to prevent fraud in those interactions, but the laws that exist actively conflict with the primary ethic which guides business decisions day-to-day.

The great theologian and ethicist Reinhold Niebuhr noted this problem nearly eighty years ago in Moral Man, Immoral Society. His brother H. Richard Niebuhr considered the problem of inadequate circles of concern in The Responsible Self, published posthumously in 1962. People in groups act strongly in their own interest; they fail over and over to consider their impact on those around them: the customer, the neighbor, the public.

The financial crisis that erupted in 2008 illustrates this truth over and over and over again. It rose from a game of “pass-the-risk,” one marked by layer after layer of deception, justified by the interests of the shareholders (and not unmarked by the interests of the managers, too). As one might notice from the lack of public prosecutions, it seems to have been legal.

But ethical? Is it ethical to place the global economic system at risk in order to bring maximum return to your shareholders?

I will not, anytime soon, become an ethical missionary to the world of corporate America (or corporate multi-national). If such a job exists, I haven’t heard about it, and though I’ve shifted my ministry from the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ to Church of the Holy Cross UCC in Hilo, Hawai’i, I’m fully committed to ministry in the church setting. It’s a crazy idea.

It wasn’t such a bad idea, though, was it?