Costly Popularity

In grade six a new girl arrived at school who was to be, remarkably, less popular than me. The hierarchies of popularity were, and still are, a mystery to me, which is probably why I never succeeded in climbing them much further than perhaps the third rung from the bottom. Evelyn, on the other hand, was hovering just above the ground. The question, of course, was whether to befriend her. Should I avoid any association with the new girl, thereby avoiding being dragged even lower than my already-lowly status? Or was it better to forget about the whole game, which I never had a hope of winning anyway, and declare solidarity with fellow bottom-feeders?

What I did, in the end, was navigate an uninspiring course between the two extremes. We became friends, sort of, spending lunch times in the science room tending to our new pets who were the product of the Grade 6 Mice Breeding Program, and sitting on the lawn making daisy chains and flicking rolled up bits of Gladwrap from our sandwiches back and forth. We weren’t exactly bosom buddies, but we kept each other company.

This did not stop us, however, from occasionally throwing each other under the bus. I like to think she did it first. We were sitting around outside the gym with a group of other Grade 6 girls, also our sort-of friends, and also relatively lowly in the social stakes. It had somehow got out that Evelyn’s mum shopped at the Not Quite Right shop. I never saw this as a source of any particular shame, since my mum shopped there too, and I took some joy in sampling the strange and sometimes-delicious range of discontinued lines, like dehydrated cinnamon apple chips, or tubs of overly sweet yoghurt only a little bit past their best-before date. As the girls mocked Evelyn for frequenting the discount grocery store, I said very little, nibbling the suspiciously odd raspberry-flavoured Kit Kat my mum had slipped into my lunchbox. But then Evelyn spoke up: “I saw Andreana at the Not Quite Right shop the other day.” I couldn’t deny it. It was true. I took my share of the social shame.

I did it to her too. I would follow along with other girls who decided to run away from Evelyn at lunchtime, innocently claiming that we hadn’t meant to disappear like that. I would join others in mocking her secretly in the bathrooms about her propensity to get blood noses. I would use Evelyn to elevate myself in the social ranks, as ineffective as it ultimately proved to be.

I tell this story because in church this week we’re going to be reading the story of King Herod who orders the beheading of John the Baptist. King Herod liked John – he enjoyed listening to him and his perplexing teachings; he was drawn to John like one is drawn to the aroma of cooking crepes in a busy winter street. There were many distractions, many responsibilities, but King Herod always found himself back there, listening to John the Baptist. But then one day, on his birthday, Herod makes a pronouncement to all the politicians and socialites that were his so-called friends; a pronouncement designed to impress – and that is that his wife’s daughter, who has just danced for his guests, can have anything she wants. Even up to half his kingdom. And she asks for John the Baptist’s head on a platter. And because King Herod will do anything he can to maintain his rung on the popularity ladder, he agrees. He is grieved, but he agrees.

Grade 6 me can relate. Like King Herod, she is willing to throw a friend under the bus to keep herself afloat in the popularity game. Like King Herod, she forgoes what is true and good and loving in order to gain an inch of approval from a few other people. Like King Herod, she finds the ideals of love and friendship slipping from her fingers, and before she knows it she has become an agent of hatred, not love.

But here is the Good News, both for King Herod and for Grade 6 Me:

Love is always there with its outstretched arms.

And here is Truth, held out, asking to be held and tasted.

And wisdom stands there, beckoning, waiting for you to walk into her embrace.

There is always hope, ALWAYS hope, that King Herod and me and you will find our way.

Words by Rev Andreana

Image under Creative Commons licence