Train a child in the way he should go,
and when he is old he will not turn from it.
Proverbs 22:6
I AM the Way and the Truth and the Life.
No one comes to the Father except through Me.
John 14:6
When I was a child, I talked like a child,
I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.
When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.
1 Corinthians 13:11
Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts,
since as members of one body
you were called to peace.
Colossians 3:15
These passages have great meaning for the Christian Church for they embody the charter for the Clergy—a manner of falsework, if you will, designed to support the main structure of the Church during its construction. Once that process is complete, having served its intended purpose, the Clergy will pass away.
This passage also has great meaning for the secular states of the world, for in it one finds God’s reasons for the institutions of government that they embody, however wrongly. When one is a child, s/he must be trained in the way s/he should go. That “way” is Christian discipleship. This training requires a measure of authority. Later, when the training is complete, the mature person can enjoy a measure of autonomy.
The process of turning a natural man into a Christian man is in some respects a bit like turning a mustang bronc into a saddle horse. First you have to catch him, then you have to break him, then you have to show him who’s boss. Once these things have been accomplished, training becomes relatively easy.
Again, the process of turning a natural man into a Christian man is in some respects a bit like turning a Porterhouse steak into a more muscular physique. First you have to grill it, then you have to eat it, then you have to digest it. Finally, its protein and its carbohydrates must be given places in the new muscle tissue that you are forming. Once in place, their training will begin and will culminate in the physique you desire.
By now, you must be either nodding your head in agreement or scratching it and muttering, “Huh?” If you’re a Christian and you’re being trained in The Way, you’ll know what I’m talking about. Otherwise, all this prattle must be completely baffling. Take heart: I shall explain all.
To begin with, God created humanity to be a tangible expression of Himself. As such, each individual person is like an individual cell of one vast Body. As in a human body, each cell is “displastic” (that is, “without form or function”) until it is “assigned” a place in the Body. Once its place has been assigned, its training begins: cells that will serve in the Nervous System become neurons; cells that will serve as transports become Blood Corpuscles, and so forth.
With the Fall of Man, a strange thing happened to the cells of God’s body: they began to acquire minds of their own. First the Body had a mind of its own—which was God’s intent—but then each cell of His Body began to think of itself as...well, a Self. Instead of being selfless elements of one unified whole, they began to seek their “own” interests rather than serve the common interests of the Body. You might say that God had cancer.
What to do? Usually, when someone develops a cancer, the physician either kills the rebellious cells with drugs or radiation, or s/he banishes them from the body via surgical removal. When the rebellion has metastasized throughout the body, it is deemed “inoperable” and hence “terminal”; the patient is given painkillers and is left to die.
“But God so loved the world” that He refused to allow His body to die, even though He could easily abandon it to its fate and create a new one in its place. Instead, He put His own Mind into a second Body—His Son—and sent it to retrain the rebellious cells (or whichever among them would allow themselves to be trained) to function as a Body instead of continuing to live (and die) as an entropy of mutually destructive selves. Then, instead of killing His cancerous Body and effecting a whole-body transplant of His essence into the Son, He amazed all creation by transferring the cancer from the disease-ridden Body to the Son and destroyed it by allowing the still-rebellious cells to murder Him by nailing Him to a cross!
But God still wasn’t finished. Next, He resurrected His Son and made Him the Head of His New Body. The remaining members of the New Body would regenerate from the cells that allowed themselves to be retrained. Into each of these, He put a measure of His own Spirit to act as a sort of “anti-autic” drug: whenever a cell began to behave as a Self, the Spirit would remind it that it was actually a member of something greater. By feeling the pain of separation, it would be motivated to return to the Body and to abandon its Self-ish ways.
As a final stroke of loving genius, God sent His Spirit into all of the World—the entropy of rebellion—and caused the penitent cells to call the still-rebellious ones to repentance! If they will turn, they will be saved and all will be as it was! Sadly, if they will not turn, they are already cut off and will eventually die. They are like the branches of a tree that has been pruned: cut off from the source of their life, they may continue to grow for a while; they may continue to put out buds and even appear to “fruit” for a while. Yet, like a branch that has been pruned from a tree, they are cut off from the source of nourishment that was once their head; though they give themselves to their young, their strength is not replenished and they die. If perchance they turn and are saved, though, they will live forever.
Today, Christmas Day, we celebrate the Birth of the Son of God. The World has no reason to celebrate this Birth; that would be like Robespierre and his Rebels celebrating the birth of the Dauphin—a rebirth of tyranny in the France that they had just liberated! Ridiculous! We who celebrate are not The World; we are The Church—penitent sinners called out of the World to be the regenerate Body of Christ. We do not celebrate Santa Claus bringing us a bunch of gift-wrapped crap with which to clutter our homes; we celebrate God’s sacrifice of His Only Son to redeem us to Himself as His glorified Body.
While the World celebrates Independence and Self, the Church celebrates Unity and Communion. While the World eagerly awaits a fat guy in a red suit who will bring them lots of “stuff” with which to masturbate, the Church commemorates the Gift of True Love and awaits the return of the Bridegroom to claim her as His Bride. While the World celebrates its orgy of self-indulgence, the Church celebrates the death of self and the resurrection of True Life, to the everlasting glory of God.
The World will read what I have written and will say, “Ridiculous is right! This guy is completely off the map! Even the Mormons sound sane, next to him!” Then they will ask, “If God wanted to reconnect with the World, why didn’t He just come and pour out His Spirit? Why all this business with a cross and a sacrificial lamb? Surely the Author of Life isn’t afraid of a little bit of terminal cancer!”
The Mormons indeed sound “sane” next to sound Christian doctrine when it is the World that is listening. That’s because their “Gospel”, if it can be called that, is really a rationalization of the very selfism that results from sin in the first place. The “angel”, Moroni, calls his followers to evolve into gods. What could be more selfist than that? God already acknowledges that a man who claims there is no God (god) is in essence a god unto himself. How better to complete such rebellion than to appeal to the vain glory of the selfists by offering to confer godhood on them? It is the very antithesis of Christianity, yet Mormons claim to be Christians in their own right!
The reason that God did not simply “pour out His Spirit” on the World is that sin cannot coexist with the perfection of God. In His Presence, rebellious cells would be instantly annihilated. It is not His purpose to destroy humanity; rather, He wishes to save it. Therefore, a sort of “go-between” that would insulate our sin from His scorching gaze was necessary. That go-between (or “middleman”) was Jesus Christ. Absolute God in His perfection and yet absolute Man in his humanity, Jesus was unique. Only by ignoring some aspect of His Nature can His uniqueness in the history of the World be questioned. Like an Adam-Who-Never-Fell, Jesus was as human as any of us yet He lived a sinless life of complete devotion to His Father...just as each of us should do.
The Lamb of God—or, more accurately, the Scapegoat of God—takes away the sins of the World by receiving the brunt of the World’s entropy and then dying. By dying, the Lamb kills its inherited sinful nature. By being raised from death, the Lamb—or, at this stage, the Lion—triumphs over death by claiming everlasting life. Put another way, the Lion of Judah triumphs over death by reconnecting with God, the Source of all Life. In the end, God again will be manifest in His Church: Body, Soul and Spirit.
Certainly, God is not afraid of a bit of terminal cancer. As He is Existence Itself, He cannot die. It is we who would die in His presence, not He who would die in ours. "For God so loved the World that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosoever believed in Him would not perish but have everlasting life."
In time, the cells of the Body will respond perfectly to the promptings of His Mind and Spirit. Then, each will exist as an autonomous unit, answerable directly to God Himself. For now, though, the Clergy exist to provide authority to the Church while it is being rebuilt in the image of Christ. Like an invisible chain of command, they serve the ones who are new to the Body with leadership until such time as they can walk in the newness of life without such guidance. At that point, they may become clergy themselves; more likely, they will be grafted into some other organ of the Body. After all, if all the Body were a brain, how would it move? How would it feed itself? Anyway, the Clergy are not the brain of the Church—they are its peripheral nervous system. Christ is the Head, and therefore the Brain, of the Church.
Friday, December 26, 2008
Sunday, December 21, 2008
My Yarmulke Yearning
The title of this pamphlet is what a Jewish friend of mine called this “thing” that I described to him:
I have a sort of...I don’t know...well, craving I guess...for all of the parts of my life to fit together into a unified, harmonious whole. I want the people, the events, the objects and the ideas to work together in a way that makes sense. This, he said, is why people invented religion.
There are lots of religions in the world; most of them are what the Bible calls “pagan”. That is, people live in their little microworlds, for the most part blissfully unaware of anything that exists outside of them, and assign a mythology to all of the people, events, objects and ideas that enter them from without. The mythology consists of a history, a nature, an explanation and a prediction. The history tells the thing’s origin; the nature tells its properties; the explanation tells how and why it came to enter (their) particular microworld; the prediction tells how the thing’s being in that world will alter its functioning and destiny. In ages past, people called these “things” gods. Nowadays, they call them by various names: politicians, celebrities, the economy, global warming, illegal immigration, terrorism, the war on terrorism and so forth.
My Jewish friend calls this craving “a yarmulke yearning” because it is a longing for what he calls “shalom”. In order for shalom to exist, all the various elements (“things”) of one’s microworld must be “kosher”. The yarmulke, a closefitting, cloth cap worn by Jewish men—some for worship; others at all times—is an outward expression of “shalom” which means, among other things, “in right relationship”. A prayer associated with wearing the yarmulke goes something like this: “God above the yarmulke; me beneath it: each in his proper place.”
If we’re just trading words for words, the common English definition of “shalom” is “peace”. But it’s much more than that, really, and that “more” is deeply rooted in the Theocentric Jewish worldview. True peace, the Bible teaches, is the universally manifested, perfect will of God. It is not an absence of conflict; rather it is the presence of God in a situation and conformity of that situation to His Will. When one Jew greets another in Hebrew, “Shalom!”, s/he is in essence sharing with that other a prayer that his world will be “shalom”.
Similarly, whereas the common definition of “kosher” is “legal” or “suitable”, it’s real meaning is much more profound. In today’s society, it is commonplace to hear a family described as “dysfunctional”. When we are obese or flaccid, we are “out of shape” and may visit “fitness centers”. Some of the higher definitions of “kosher” might be “fit” or “functional”. But it is doubtless easiest to grasp what it means to be “kosher” within the greater context of being an element of “shalom”.
In Heaven, shalom reigns. Everyone and everything is kosher. When people are kosher, we say that they “have faith” (actually, in Hebrew, Greek, Italian, French and most other languages, “faith” is a verb, not a noun; people don’t “have faith”, rather they “faith”). So, another word for “kosher” might—in the case of people, anyway—be “faithful”.
When she was raising me, my mother had a saying: “A place for everything; everything in its place.” As a child, my thinking being limited to concrete operations, I thought only of the toys, clothes and books in my bedroom as having to be in their respective places. Now that I’m grown, I can see that my mother’s dictum applies equally to language, manners, attitude, prayer, and anything else that might happen or exist in one’s world. I am reminded of Paul’s statement in 1st Corinthians that “When I was a child, I thought and spoke as a child; when I matured, I put aside childish things.” Shalom being the condition of having “everything in its place”, kosher then is the condition of each thing being in its place.
Keeping a kosher kitchen, then, is much more than simply observing the dietary laws. It extends to eating breakfast food for breakfast and entrées for dinner, and to drinking alcohol with one’s meal only when one needs not drive home immediately afterward. While the Cross has freed Christians from observing the dietary laws, it has not freed us from the necessity of being kosher. Paul also wrote, in an earlier chapter of that letter, that “one who eats (the Eucharist) in an unworthy manner brings judgment upon himself” because he doesn’t discern the Body of Christ.
When I majored in Psychology, one thing I was taught is that children learn from social models “how things are supposed to be”. This is why people who are abused as children become abusers when they become adults. At least, that’s the theory. The Bible teaches something similar: In Proverbs 22:6 we read, “Train up a child in the way s/he should go and when s/he is old s/he will not depart from it.” (My “s/”s added because the verse applies equally to girls as to boys.) The point is that we are creatures of habit and early training is key.
One of my brothers, who is not a believer, expressed his opinion that “religion has no place in pedagogy”. So he instills his values and his methodology in his children...and so his religion!! What he really meant to say is “other people’s religion has no place in pedagogy”. That sentiment, I suppose, is one held almost universally by parents of nearly every stripe. That God expects His Creation to be orderly is axiomatic for His people. There would be no Sabbath, no Law and no Church were it not so. There would be no pattern to anything under the sun; all would be chaos and science would never have developed as no mind would have God’s character impressed on it and so seek order where only chaos could exist. Entropy, not Peace would be the homeostasis of the universe. Hence, if God expects order to reign among His people, it logically follows that He expects parents to impose that order on their children’s thinking when they are young so that “when [they are] old, [they] will not depart from it”.
Today I was attempting to impress on my son the need to be purposefully occupied during one’s life. He readily accepted my position that watching TV and playing video games are a waste of time. Then he turned—almost immediately!!—back to his online gaming. A typical life consists of about eighty years. A typical year consists of about 8,800 hours. An hour consists of 3,600 seconds. So, barring any violent accidents, a typical person can expect to live for about two and a half billion seconds. Some will live for only two billion seconds; others will live for three billion. Still others will die long before their time due to risky behaviors or to circumstances and/or events far beyond their capacity to control. But my point is this: life is precious. Time wasted cannot be redeemed, no matter how much we want to or how hard we try to do so. Hence, we owe it to ourselves—and to our Creator—to make the most of the relatively few precious moments of life He has allotted to each of us.
Randy Stonehill recorded a song some years ago titled, I’m Gonna Celebrate This Heartbeat. With it, he reminded his audience that “Ev’ry day is a gift...and they all go by so fast.” Not only do they “go by”; they’re consumed. Whether for good of for ill, we use the time we are given to accomplish whatever works we will. If we spend a moment cursing someone, we cannot use that same moment blessing him or her. If we spend an hour hating and berating a particular politician for being a worthless servant, we cannot spend that same hour praying for him or her. If we spend a morning idling in bed in front of the boob tube, we cannot redeem it and also invest it in the Kingdom. We are each accorded a certain modicum of time and talent and no more. However we choose to spend—or waste—that time and those talents will decide the final products of our lives.
We all know people who have accomplished more with their lives than we have. Whether we have invested ourselves with great industry in improving the lives of the others around us, built commercial empires, raised crops of successful new people or sat around wishing we had, or lazily whiled away our time and never given it a second thought, we all know such people. Of course, much of what comprises our “lives” is thrust upon us; we have no say as to where, when or to whom we are born. Our families’ circumstances, so some degree, dictate what our options will be in life. However, to a surprising extent we are the architects of our own existence. History is rife with examples of so-called “self-made” people of every walk of life.
The Bible tells us that God provides us with a setting and a character but leaves the details of the drama to us. The choices we make determine how our lives turn out, more than does any other influence. The late John Hartford penned a famous song—well, famous to those of us who dig his songs, leastways—called “I Would Not Be Here” that speaks more to the interconnectedness of life than it does to the choices we make in life...so disregard this little bit. Anyhoo...if, on a particular morning, I could choose—or not—to ask out a particular girl, and if she were to accept, then the outcome of that date might influence my eventual choice of a mate. That opportunity would not avail itself were I to chicken out and not ask her out. Similarly, if I choose to seek a particular position with a particular company, and if it turns out well, I might have certain options later in life that I would not have had had I decided—for whatever reason—to pursue another position with another company, or to not pursue any position at all. Thus, while it is certainly attractive to be able to blame the details of our lives on others, in most cases it simply won’t wash: we are the chief architects of our own lives, for better or for worse.
Akin to the “grass is greener” mentality that sees the other fellow’s lot as preferable to one’s own—and that seeks to blame that other fellow for one’s own present circumstances—is the rationalizing mentality. This one may not actually be content with his own lot in life but will do his utmost to persuade himself that he is. Ever eager to see the sunny side of any situation, he will figuratively “bend over backwards” to convince himself that the way “things turned out” is actually best because...and then he will invent any number of ridiculous “reasons”. While it may at first appear favorable to “make lemonade when life gives you lemons”, upon closer examination it becomes clear that the rationalizer is simply trading one lie in for another. He trades the lie that his neighbor is responsible for his misery for the lie that he is responsible for his own success. In fact, he is responsible for his own misery that he insists upon trying to view as success. Neither will do, of course, as God’s will for anyone’s life is to find that life for which s/he is fit and then to live it.
Some years ago, I purchased a ‘Career Kit’ from the Christian job service, InterCristo. It consists of a number of pamphlets and cassette tapes. (I think it would be great if they’d come out with an updated version with DVDs and virtual workbooks that you can complete electronically, even getting help from an online site.) The premise of the Kit is that, by studying your traits and your talents, you can discover the sort of work that God created you to do. I only wish that it was that simple! What living at once in the Great Laboratory of Life and in the Manifest Kingdom of God has taught me is that nothing is as it appears. I believed that I wanted to be married because the superficial aspects of marriage were attractive: opportunities for physical and spiritual intimacy, the possibility of raising children, and companionship as I age. It was not until I was married that I discovered the many hidden aspects of marriage. So it has been with every career I have undertaken as well: the superficial aspects of building, teaching, business, entertaining, writing, etc. are so vastly different from the day-to-day realities of serving in each of these professions. Not only are the jobs different than they at first appear; I am just as different. Just because I sense a naïve interest in, say, medicine doesn’t mean that I will make a good doctor. The real world of medical practice and my true character may be a poor match even though the idea of healing the sick is appealing to my perceived self. Similarly, just because I am good at pitching baseball in high school or college does not mean that I am Major League material. Still, as a starting point for that journey of self discovery that is living, the Career Kit has value.
My advice to anyone wanting to learn the truth about any aspect of life is to pursue life with a passion; dive headfirst into every aspect of life that presents itself to you. Similarly, my advice to anyone contemplating marriage is to get to know a whole throng of potential mates and spend time with them, both individually and as a group. That way, you’ll come to appreciate the qualities typical of men as a group versus those typical of women as a group, as well as each individual man’s qualities versus those of men-as-a-group, and each individual woman’s qualities versus those of women-as-a-group. Only when you can distinguish between “masculine” traits and the traits of an individual man, or between “feminine” traits and those of a particular woman, can you truthfully claim to “know” anyone. And, if you don’t actually know any people—even yourself—how can you truthfully claim to know God? And, if you don’t know God, how can you faithfully discern His will for your life? The obvious answer is that you can’t; hence, satisfying your Yarmulke Yearning must begin with familiarizing yourself with God’s Word, on the one hand, and with getting to know yourself and your world, on the other.
I have a sort of...I don’t know...well, craving I guess...for all of the parts of my life to fit together into a unified, harmonious whole. I want the people, the events, the objects and the ideas to work together in a way that makes sense. This, he said, is why people invented religion.
There are lots of religions in the world; most of them are what the Bible calls “pagan”. That is, people live in their little microworlds, for the most part blissfully unaware of anything that exists outside of them, and assign a mythology to all of the people, events, objects and ideas that enter them from without. The mythology consists of a history, a nature, an explanation and a prediction. The history tells the thing’s origin; the nature tells its properties; the explanation tells how and why it came to enter (their) particular microworld; the prediction tells how the thing’s being in that world will alter its functioning and destiny. In ages past, people called these “things” gods. Nowadays, they call them by various names: politicians, celebrities, the economy, global warming, illegal immigration, terrorism, the war on terrorism and so forth.
My Jewish friend calls this craving “a yarmulke yearning” because it is a longing for what he calls “shalom”. In order for shalom to exist, all the various elements (“things”) of one’s microworld must be “kosher”. The yarmulke, a closefitting, cloth cap worn by Jewish men—some for worship; others at all times—is an outward expression of “shalom” which means, among other things, “in right relationship”. A prayer associated with wearing the yarmulke goes something like this: “God above the yarmulke; me beneath it: each in his proper place.”
If we’re just trading words for words, the common English definition of “shalom” is “peace”. But it’s much more than that, really, and that “more” is deeply rooted in the Theocentric Jewish worldview. True peace, the Bible teaches, is the universally manifested, perfect will of God. It is not an absence of conflict; rather it is the presence of God in a situation and conformity of that situation to His Will. When one Jew greets another in Hebrew, “Shalom!”, s/he is in essence sharing with that other a prayer that his world will be “shalom”.
Similarly, whereas the common definition of “kosher” is “legal” or “suitable”, it’s real meaning is much more profound. In today’s society, it is commonplace to hear a family described as “dysfunctional”. When we are obese or flaccid, we are “out of shape” and may visit “fitness centers”. Some of the higher definitions of “kosher” might be “fit” or “functional”. But it is doubtless easiest to grasp what it means to be “kosher” within the greater context of being an element of “shalom”.
In Heaven, shalom reigns. Everyone and everything is kosher. When people are kosher, we say that they “have faith” (actually, in Hebrew, Greek, Italian, French and most other languages, “faith” is a verb, not a noun; people don’t “have faith”, rather they “faith”). So, another word for “kosher” might—in the case of people, anyway—be “faithful”.
When she was raising me, my mother had a saying: “A place for everything; everything in its place.” As a child, my thinking being limited to concrete operations, I thought only of the toys, clothes and books in my bedroom as having to be in their respective places. Now that I’m grown, I can see that my mother’s dictum applies equally to language, manners, attitude, prayer, and anything else that might happen or exist in one’s world. I am reminded of Paul’s statement in 1st Corinthians that “When I was a child, I thought and spoke as a child; when I matured, I put aside childish things.” Shalom being the condition of having “everything in its place”, kosher then is the condition of each thing being in its place.
Keeping a kosher kitchen, then, is much more than simply observing the dietary laws. It extends to eating breakfast food for breakfast and entrées for dinner, and to drinking alcohol with one’s meal only when one needs not drive home immediately afterward. While the Cross has freed Christians from observing the dietary laws, it has not freed us from the necessity of being kosher. Paul also wrote, in an earlier chapter of that letter, that “one who eats (the Eucharist) in an unworthy manner brings judgment upon himself” because he doesn’t discern the Body of Christ.
When I majored in Psychology, one thing I was taught is that children learn from social models “how things are supposed to be”. This is why people who are abused as children become abusers when they become adults. At least, that’s the theory. The Bible teaches something similar: In Proverbs 22:6 we read, “Train up a child in the way s/he should go and when s/he is old s/he will not depart from it.” (My “s/”s added because the verse applies equally to girls as to boys.) The point is that we are creatures of habit and early training is key.
One of my brothers, who is not a believer, expressed his opinion that “religion has no place in pedagogy”. So he instills his values and his methodology in his children...and so his religion!! What he really meant to say is “other people’s religion has no place in pedagogy”. That sentiment, I suppose, is one held almost universally by parents of nearly every stripe. That God expects His Creation to be orderly is axiomatic for His people. There would be no Sabbath, no Law and no Church were it not so. There would be no pattern to anything under the sun; all would be chaos and science would never have developed as no mind would have God’s character impressed on it and so seek order where only chaos could exist. Entropy, not Peace would be the homeostasis of the universe. Hence, if God expects order to reign among His people, it logically follows that He expects parents to impose that order on their children’s thinking when they are young so that “when [they are] old, [they] will not depart from it”.
Today I was attempting to impress on my son the need to be purposefully occupied during one’s life. He readily accepted my position that watching TV and playing video games are a waste of time. Then he turned—almost immediately!!—back to his online gaming. A typical life consists of about eighty years. A typical year consists of about 8,800 hours. An hour consists of 3,600 seconds. So, barring any violent accidents, a typical person can expect to live for about two and a half billion seconds. Some will live for only two billion seconds; others will live for three billion. Still others will die long before their time due to risky behaviors or to circumstances and/or events far beyond their capacity to control. But my point is this: life is precious. Time wasted cannot be redeemed, no matter how much we want to or how hard we try to do so. Hence, we owe it to ourselves—and to our Creator—to make the most of the relatively few precious moments of life He has allotted to each of us.
Randy Stonehill recorded a song some years ago titled, I’m Gonna Celebrate This Heartbeat. With it, he reminded his audience that “Ev’ry day is a gift...and they all go by so fast.” Not only do they “go by”; they’re consumed. Whether for good of for ill, we use the time we are given to accomplish whatever works we will. If we spend a moment cursing someone, we cannot use that same moment blessing him or her. If we spend an hour hating and berating a particular politician for being a worthless servant, we cannot spend that same hour praying for him or her. If we spend a morning idling in bed in front of the boob tube, we cannot redeem it and also invest it in the Kingdom. We are each accorded a certain modicum of time and talent and no more. However we choose to spend—or waste—that time and those talents will decide the final products of our lives.
We all know people who have accomplished more with their lives than we have. Whether we have invested ourselves with great industry in improving the lives of the others around us, built commercial empires, raised crops of successful new people or sat around wishing we had, or lazily whiled away our time and never given it a second thought, we all know such people. Of course, much of what comprises our “lives” is thrust upon us; we have no say as to where, when or to whom we are born. Our families’ circumstances, so some degree, dictate what our options will be in life. However, to a surprising extent we are the architects of our own existence. History is rife with examples of so-called “self-made” people of every walk of life.
The Bible tells us that God provides us with a setting and a character but leaves the details of the drama to us. The choices we make determine how our lives turn out, more than does any other influence. The late John Hartford penned a famous song—well, famous to those of us who dig his songs, leastways—called “I Would Not Be Here” that speaks more to the interconnectedness of life than it does to the choices we make in life...so disregard this little bit. Anyhoo...if, on a particular morning, I could choose—or not—to ask out a particular girl, and if she were to accept, then the outcome of that date might influence my eventual choice of a mate. That opportunity would not avail itself were I to chicken out and not ask her out. Similarly, if I choose to seek a particular position with a particular company, and if it turns out well, I might have certain options later in life that I would not have had had I decided—for whatever reason—to pursue another position with another company, or to not pursue any position at all. Thus, while it is certainly attractive to be able to blame the details of our lives on others, in most cases it simply won’t wash: we are the chief architects of our own lives, for better or for worse.
Akin to the “grass is greener” mentality that sees the other fellow’s lot as preferable to one’s own—and that seeks to blame that other fellow for one’s own present circumstances—is the rationalizing mentality. This one may not actually be content with his own lot in life but will do his utmost to persuade himself that he is. Ever eager to see the sunny side of any situation, he will figuratively “bend over backwards” to convince himself that the way “things turned out” is actually best because...and then he will invent any number of ridiculous “reasons”. While it may at first appear favorable to “make lemonade when life gives you lemons”, upon closer examination it becomes clear that the rationalizer is simply trading one lie in for another. He trades the lie that his neighbor is responsible for his misery for the lie that he is responsible for his own success. In fact, he is responsible for his own misery that he insists upon trying to view as success. Neither will do, of course, as God’s will for anyone’s life is to find that life for which s/he is fit and then to live it.
Some years ago, I purchased a ‘Career Kit’ from the Christian job service, InterCristo. It consists of a number of pamphlets and cassette tapes. (I think it would be great if they’d come out with an updated version with DVDs and virtual workbooks that you can complete electronically, even getting help from an online site.) The premise of the Kit is that, by studying your traits and your talents, you can discover the sort of work that God created you to do. I only wish that it was that simple! What living at once in the Great Laboratory of Life and in the Manifest Kingdom of God has taught me is that nothing is as it appears. I believed that I wanted to be married because the superficial aspects of marriage were attractive: opportunities for physical and spiritual intimacy, the possibility of raising children, and companionship as I age. It was not until I was married that I discovered the many hidden aspects of marriage. So it has been with every career I have undertaken as well: the superficial aspects of building, teaching, business, entertaining, writing, etc. are so vastly different from the day-to-day realities of serving in each of these professions. Not only are the jobs different than they at first appear; I am just as different. Just because I sense a naïve interest in, say, medicine doesn’t mean that I will make a good doctor. The real world of medical practice and my true character may be a poor match even though the idea of healing the sick is appealing to my perceived self. Similarly, just because I am good at pitching baseball in high school or college does not mean that I am Major League material. Still, as a starting point for that journey of self discovery that is living, the Career Kit has value.
My advice to anyone wanting to learn the truth about any aspect of life is to pursue life with a passion; dive headfirst into every aspect of life that presents itself to you. Similarly, my advice to anyone contemplating marriage is to get to know a whole throng of potential mates and spend time with them, both individually and as a group. That way, you’ll come to appreciate the qualities typical of men as a group versus those typical of women as a group, as well as each individual man’s qualities versus those of men-as-a-group, and each individual woman’s qualities versus those of women-as-a-group. Only when you can distinguish between “masculine” traits and the traits of an individual man, or between “feminine” traits and those of a particular woman, can you truthfully claim to “know” anyone. And, if you don’t actually know any people—even yourself—how can you truthfully claim to know God? And, if you don’t know God, how can you faithfully discern His will for your life? The obvious answer is that you can’t; hence, satisfying your Yarmulke Yearning must begin with familiarizing yourself with God’s Word, on the one hand, and with getting to know yourself and your world, on the other.
Thursday, December 11, 2008
GRACE AND THE SINGLE MEMBER
Jesus’ teachings about the Holy Spirit are among the most beautiful as well as the most revealing and the most hope-inspiring in the Bible. He told his followers that he had to return to the Father so that the Spirit could come. It is better this way, he taught, because—whereas he (Jesus) could be in one place at a time, ministering to all who came to him—the Spirit can be everywhere, ministering to all whom he fills, at once...forever.
Indeed, he is with me. When I get out of his way—and mine—and I pray, it is he who answers me. When I quiet my mind and listen, it is his quiet voice that I hear. There is emotion in his voice but no disquiet. Sometimes there is urgency or reproach but he doesn’t shout. When I am walking in obedience, feeling full of the confidence that only he can give, I am pulsating with the life that flows through me—as my blood does during physical exertion. When my own will swells my head and my chest, however, his flow is decreased as I increase.
The picture that comes to my mind as I describe what it is to quench the Holy Spirit with a resurgence of my own will is one of atherosclerosis. A blood vessel, one moment bulging with its load of corpuscles, begins to slim. As its sides cease their bulging and it regains its previous slender appearance, its color grows less ruddy and its curves less pronounced. In time, it is narrow, colorless and rigid.
Cutting the vessel at some point along its length and viewing it in section will reveal what is going on. Deposits of plaque, clots and lipoprotein have accumulated on its inner walls. The once-translucent vessel walls are now opaque; its precious cargo of life-giving blood no longer shines its ruddy blush through them. The once elastic vessel fabric, stiffened by the crud caked on its inner surface, no longer bulges and pulsates with the passage of blood along its length. Its interior volume diminished by the growth of the plaque, it now delivers a mere fraction of its former shipment.
This is what happens when the Spirit, who always fills my mind and heart with his wisdom and joy, is joined by my will. My will is fallen and broken; the love that the Spirit brings to my relationships becomes tainted with my own selfishness. To the extent that I am thinking my own thoughts, experiencing my own feelings, speaking my own words and working my own deeds, the wisdom he reveals and the love and joy he expresses become diminished.
My desire to amputate my past and crucify my will, so that only the Spirit remains to animate my physical body, is what this ‘blog is all about. I want to decrease that he may increase. Yet, it seems, I never seem to go away completely. In fact, I seem to come back stronger each time I seem to have finally left the scene! Were it not for the fact that even my holy brother, Paul the Apostle, has written that he struggled with this very obstacle to faith, I should have long ago thrown up my hands in frustration, declaring, “I’m just not good enough to be a Christian!” In fact, I’m not good enough. However, God takes my “not enough” and transforms it into his “enough” simply by adding a single ingredient.
Grace is that ingredient. Even though my selfishness keeps my flow of truth down to a trickle, preventing its flooding the world, that trickle still gets through. Even though my self-doubt keeps my prayers to a minimum, hardly battling without ceasing, they are still heard and honored. Even though my fear of failure prevents God’s works from flowing through me, I still manage to do some good. That’s because God augments whatever I manage to produce with whatever is needed to make it “enough”. His adding that “whatever is needed” is called Grace.
The key to maintaining the flow of grace through my life is Faith. I think it unfortunate that this word—which is not a verb in English—has been largely replaced by the word “believe” in English Bibles. I think this because, in English, the word “believe” conveys the meaning of something done with the mind. Faith, on the other hand, refers to something done with the totality of one’s being. I suppose that, for the intents and purposes of Christianity, Faith could be defined as “trying with all of your substance to move God’s love into the world”. Obviously, if someone as holy as Saint Paul couldn’t defeat his will entirely, there is some likelihood that I will never succeed in giving the whole of my being over to God’s service either. In fact, there is considerable likelihood. So what am I to do?
Fortunately, all I need do is everything I can. Whatever I prove unable to do, God is faithful to do for me. If my potential capacity is eighteen units of truth per day, and I only manage to deliver eight, God will make up the remaining ten units—and never chastise me for having fallen short on my quota. That’s because he knows that focusing my attention on what I failed to accomplish will give me a mindset of failure. On the other hand, he also knows that focusing my attention on what I managed to accomplish will give me a mindset of success. So, my success will grow; my failure will eventually shrink to zero.
Knowing that God will not chastise me for failing to succeed completely helps to keep my mind focused on pleasing him. If he, being righteous, does not chastise me, shall I pretend to be even more righteous than he is by chastising myself? May it never be! It is time for me to stop beating myself up merely for being human! As virtuous as they may sometimes seem, other Christians are no holier than am I. The truth is that I already have the victory; the lie is that I will remain unworthy of being his disciple until I am completely crucified and he has arisen in my place. The truth is that God’s grace is sufficient for me; power matures in weakness.
Indeed, he is with me. When I get out of his way—and mine—and I pray, it is he who answers me. When I quiet my mind and listen, it is his quiet voice that I hear. There is emotion in his voice but no disquiet. Sometimes there is urgency or reproach but he doesn’t shout. When I am walking in obedience, feeling full of the confidence that only he can give, I am pulsating with the life that flows through me—as my blood does during physical exertion. When my own will swells my head and my chest, however, his flow is decreased as I increase.
The picture that comes to my mind as I describe what it is to quench the Holy Spirit with a resurgence of my own will is one of atherosclerosis. A blood vessel, one moment bulging with its load of corpuscles, begins to slim. As its sides cease their bulging and it regains its previous slender appearance, its color grows less ruddy and its curves less pronounced. In time, it is narrow, colorless and rigid.
Cutting the vessel at some point along its length and viewing it in section will reveal what is going on. Deposits of plaque, clots and lipoprotein have accumulated on its inner walls. The once-translucent vessel walls are now opaque; its precious cargo of life-giving blood no longer shines its ruddy blush through them. The once elastic vessel fabric, stiffened by the crud caked on its inner surface, no longer bulges and pulsates with the passage of blood along its length. Its interior volume diminished by the growth of the plaque, it now delivers a mere fraction of its former shipment.
This is what happens when the Spirit, who always fills my mind and heart with his wisdom and joy, is joined by my will. My will is fallen and broken; the love that the Spirit brings to my relationships becomes tainted with my own selfishness. To the extent that I am thinking my own thoughts, experiencing my own feelings, speaking my own words and working my own deeds, the wisdom he reveals and the love and joy he expresses become diminished.
My desire to amputate my past and crucify my will, so that only the Spirit remains to animate my physical body, is what this ‘blog is all about. I want to decrease that he may increase. Yet, it seems, I never seem to go away completely. In fact, I seem to come back stronger each time I seem to have finally left the scene! Were it not for the fact that even my holy brother, Paul the Apostle, has written that he struggled with this very obstacle to faith, I should have long ago thrown up my hands in frustration, declaring, “I’m just not good enough to be a Christian!” In fact, I’m not good enough. However, God takes my “not enough” and transforms it into his “enough” simply by adding a single ingredient.
Grace is that ingredient. Even though my selfishness keeps my flow of truth down to a trickle, preventing its flooding the world, that trickle still gets through. Even though my self-doubt keeps my prayers to a minimum, hardly battling without ceasing, they are still heard and honored. Even though my fear of failure prevents God’s works from flowing through me, I still manage to do some good. That’s because God augments whatever I manage to produce with whatever is needed to make it “enough”. His adding that “whatever is needed” is called Grace.
The key to maintaining the flow of grace through my life is Faith. I think it unfortunate that this word—which is not a verb in English—has been largely replaced by the word “believe” in English Bibles. I think this because, in English, the word “believe” conveys the meaning of something done with the mind. Faith, on the other hand, refers to something done with the totality of one’s being. I suppose that, for the intents and purposes of Christianity, Faith could be defined as “trying with all of your substance to move God’s love into the world”. Obviously, if someone as holy as Saint Paul couldn’t defeat his will entirely, there is some likelihood that I will never succeed in giving the whole of my being over to God’s service either. In fact, there is considerable likelihood. So what am I to do?
Fortunately, all I need do is everything I can. Whatever I prove unable to do, God is faithful to do for me. If my potential capacity is eighteen units of truth per day, and I only manage to deliver eight, God will make up the remaining ten units—and never chastise me for having fallen short on my quota. That’s because he knows that focusing my attention on what I failed to accomplish will give me a mindset of failure. On the other hand, he also knows that focusing my attention on what I managed to accomplish will give me a mindset of success. So, my success will grow; my failure will eventually shrink to zero.
Knowing that God will not chastise me for failing to succeed completely helps to keep my mind focused on pleasing him. If he, being righteous, does not chastise me, shall I pretend to be even more righteous than he is by chastising myself? May it never be! It is time for me to stop beating myself up merely for being human! As virtuous as they may sometimes seem, other Christians are no holier than am I. The truth is that I already have the victory; the lie is that I will remain unworthy of being his disciple until I am completely crucified and he has arisen in my place. The truth is that God’s grace is sufficient for me; power matures in weakness.
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