Ishmael: An Adventure of the Mind and Spirit
by Daniel Quinn
(Bantam/Turner,1992)

"Teacher Seeks Pupil. Must have an earnest desire to save the world. Apply in person."

The teacher is a sentient gorilla who communicates telepathically. The pupil is a jaded idealist. Their disciple/teacher relationship is the parable we are enjoined to experience. Ishmael, the gorilla, challenges his pupil to reexamine his assumptions about the meaning of human existence as they study "captivity."

In Ishmael, our current paradigm of "civilization" is told as story. Ishmael then offers an alternate story, "a new paradigm of human history." The facts are the same, but the perspective changes. The two stories are contrasted in terms of their usefulness as guides for living.

Ishmael provides a laboratory for understanding paradigms and systems thinking. Ishmael invites us to take a systems view of ourselves. Delusions of grandeur and illusions of control are shattered as the bigger picture comes into focus. We are shown how changing one part of a system can destroy it.

"The system is designed for the results it is getting" takes on sinister implications when we realize that living out of our current paradigm will inevitably lead to destruction.

Ultimately, the message of the book is that we are in God's world -- given special responsibility as stewards of God's creation. If Ishmael is right, and man's place is "to be first without being last," we have new choices to make in all our relationships. Can we stand aside, and truly let God be God? Are we capable of the radical trust Jesus calls us to? Can we shift our paradigm and see with new eyes that we were created for special responsibility, not special privilege, in the community of life?

(originally posted June 18, 1999)

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