The Truth about Lemmings and Man

I want to talk about a "fascinating" subarctic creature known as a lemming.  Lemmings look like colorful, fat prairie dogs and live within the arctic circle (such as Norway) where food is not exactly at a premium.  There is a lot of controversy over lemmings due to a 1960's era documentary by Walt Disney Studios that staged a mass lemming suicide.  They did show an actual behavior, but staged it for the cameras and did not thoroughly explain it.  That staged documentary (which won an award by the way), has made many think that the mass lemming suicide is not real, but sadly it is.  They aren't actually trying to kill themselves however, but the result is the same.

Lemmings in fact are very good at two activities.  Eating and breeding lots and lots of more lemmings.  An average female can have between 9 to 11 offspring yearly.  On a good-weather year, they can literally breed all year round.  They usually have small migrations in search for food in most years, and they have a lot of natural predators that keep the populations down somewhat.   But their numbers still outgrow the level where there is sufficient food and resources.  And every four years or so, a very bizarre thing occurs that scientists still are at a loss to fully explain.

A small group of lemmings suddenly leaves the crowd and starts a migration... a mass migration!  The bulk (but not all or the species would die out) of the rest sees the leaders who "seem to know" where they are going and follows.  And follow they do, over land devouring plants and roots as they go.   When the group hits some barrier such as a stream or a log or some other roadblock, a mild panic-fear reaction sets in as they crowd gathers behind the leaders and they leap or swim through or over the obstacle.  Lemmings are actually very good swimmers.  This continues until they hit the end of the ice pack.  The leaders who have led the bulk of their kind up until now are put on the edge of a great precipice as the numbers of lemmings that have followed them gather and push at them slowly pushing them over the edge.  

The same mild panic-fear reaction that has served to get them through obstacles to get them this far kicks in again.  This time however, the leaders lead the others to an icy, watery death.  By the thousands, lemmings follow their leaders in jumping over the edge of the ice pack into the freezing waters below.  Being such good swimmers, they start swimming.  But there is no land to swim to.  The ice pack is far above them, and all that they can do is swim until hypothermia and exhaustion kills them one by one... and then hundred by hundred... and then thousand by thousand.  The lemmings commit mass suicide, though that was not their goal.  They thought that they were going where they could have more food to eat and make more baby lemmings.  They followed someone who acted like they knew the answer, but was just as clueless as the bulk of them... they just acted like they had some special knowledge of where to go and what to do.  Ignorance is not bliss, but instead usually leads to some disaster.  This is the truth behind the arctic lemmings.

People many times act like lemmings.  As a preacher of the gospel, I have pointed out in times past the foolishness of taking the advice from the world... who is heading in a direction of total destruction anyway.  How wise can they be?  I have pointed out scriptures that show us that we are to follow Christ an the Holy Spirit, and not the world.  In fact, we should not yoke ourselves our join our directions together with those who are of the darkness if we are truly of the light (2 Corinthians 6:14-17).


The news media machine has been used as a propaganda tool by some to make us think that some have the answers.  Some really interesting examples are Former Vice President Al Gore and his very imaginative film on Global Warming which uses a kind of science that I have never heard of before.  It sounds so very much like he knows what he is talking about that scientists have been caught jumping on board with him (their government grants probably had nothing to do with it, huh?  Right...) and has so misrepresented the data to the United Nations in such as way as they now call it Climategate (thank you President Nixon and Watergate for inspiring all the "...gates" that we have seen since your day).  The truth about climatic change is not nearly as many connected to the government have claimed, and the causes of changes certainly are not (the sun being the #1 factor which has been on the most part ignored in the debate).


Another flaming example that comes to mind was the way that the media portrayed our current President Obama as a super hero or savior of the world (serious Messiah Complex Issues), and it has become PAINFULLY clear that he is not the savior, or a messiah, or any kind of super hero.  He is a flawed human being, and not all-knowing.  He has an agenda (that was predictable if anyone had bothered to check up on his Socialist past and his voting record in politics) that has rubbed the majority of this country the wrong way.  The majority of this country has felt betrayed by much of its leadership as they totally ignored our will and pleas, and did what they wanted to do totally in opposition to the people's will.  We ignored the signs as a country, and elected them.  The media said that we needed them for a change, and the people swallowed it without considering just what kind of change was really coming.  People are more like lemmings than we like to admit.  I wonder how far ahead that final cliff is for the USA?


It seems that what you need is a time of stress for someone... anyone... to rise up and say I know the way to the promised land and the way where we can all prosper.  You see that in some Christian Television Evangelists who no longer preach the gospel of Jesus, but the gospel of Greed.  You are seeing that in politics.  And now, you are now seeing it within the scientific community who needs those grants to continue... and are willing to arrange the data in new and creative ways to get what someone who wants to mislead the public wants.

Lemmings and mankind have some very interesting points of kinship when you explore it.  The majority seems to be just running along after those who claim to be leading us to our salvation... but there is a precipice ahead.  Just how close are we to it?  We have a leadership that tells the world that you can attack us with WMD and we will not retaliate in like manner anymore... and trust to the terrorists' and the countries' (who despises us) good nature that they will not attack the United States.  Lemmings... the Lemming Leaders say that "we know the way!"  The way to what is the question!


I became a Christian because it made sense to believe... and there was a reality in God that was revealed to and in me.  Some people have a dead religion instead of a living Lord.  Some people's faith is blind, and they cannot answer why they believe what they do.  That is dangerous.  I believe what I do politically because it makes sense with the facts to believe it.  I don't because my mom and dad was affiliated with some party, or CNN and MSNBC tells me that some person or party has the answers.  If we are going to have some real answers, they won't come through any political party folks.  I don't want to be an unthinking lemming that just follows someone because they sound good or have good press.   The fall of nations historically have followed exactly that pattern.  


I am not a lemming.  I admit, I am a sheep.  Sheep are not overly intelligent, either.  But I know enough to listen to the Good Shepherd (read St. John 10), and follow His voice.  I have found that this works... men will lead you to ruin, God will lead you where you can rest, be healed, eat and drink and have goodness and mercy follow you.  I refuse to be a lemming and just follow the crowd until we all get pushed off of the cliff!  I am going in these troubled times, to follow my Good Shepherd.  Hey, he calls us by name and has already given His life for us in love.  That is the Good Shepherd.  Try following Him instead of some other lemming.  How close are you to the edge?  Who have you been following?  Do they really know what is best, or do they have a hidden agenda.  I don't like hidden agendas.  Or are they just talented at sounding like they know what they are doing?  Are you a sheep or a lemming?  Mankind will wind up acting like one or the other.


Jim Coldiron