All Politics Come Up Short

This post is a bit different.

A lot of things go unsaid here. Right now I want to say something about how I don't say anything about one of the things left unsaid.

So far I have not revealed any of my political views on this blog. This has been very hard for me to do, and I'm always tempted to say something about politics. I link to a lot of blogs which discuss Christianity and politics.


Here's a glimpse of my mood about politics:

Suppose we lived in a world where there was no crime. Suppose this world had a clean environment. Let's suppose people paid no taxes and yet got a number of excellent government services. Everyone agreed with the foreign policy one hundred percent of all the time. Imagine unemployment did not exist in this utopian nation.

This is simply the best politics can promise us. And you know what? It has a major flaw. It is totally incapable of giving anyone the desire to get out of bed in the morning. No one is going to wake up and say, "Ah! There is no crime ... my life is worth living!".

We think these accomplishments will add value to life, but I am convinced they do not!

Certainly politicians do the best they can -atleast some do, I don't know for sure which ones. At the same time there is this vanity to politics that cannot be separated from it. So often a person can understand public policy but fail to understand their own personal life.

To me, that is a terrible loss.

People express to me their fear or gladness that a certain person is in office. Usually my response is political because I have strong political views. But sometimes I step back and wish to tell them, "Don't you know there is nothing new under the sun?".

Maybe that means I don't have strong political views.

In any case I find that however firmly I believe about a public policy issue, there is something stronger inside me that says, "It doesn't matter!!".

Don't get me wrong: it's okay for Christians to get elected into office. In fact I do my best to make sure it happens (yes, I vote). I think these leaders should do their best to express their Christianity through the policy they inact.

What is the line to be crossed? Simply this: when they say, "I am a Christian because I voted in such and such a way".

Eternity is infinitely more interested in one's opinion of how one should live personally, and not how the public is to be governed. We will each have to answer for the policies we hold ourselves to, and not the policies the government holds its citizens to.

I believe this distinction is profoundly important. People were constantly misunderstanding Jesus Christ for this very reason. They wanted to make him the King of Israel and then -much later- the King of their priorities.

Jesus makes the distinction between giving to the state what is the state's and giving to God what is God's. A distinction is not necessary except when two things are different. In this case Jesus separates the exterior world of public policy from the inner world of our hearts -which belong especially to God.

Personally I believe conservatives are tempted to say politics and obedience to God are identical because they want to give themselves a solid pat on the back -just for assenting to a bunch of ideas. Liberals are tempted to keep their obedience to God totally out of politics so they can get votes from those who openly approve of sin.

When one stands naked and alone before God, neither political conviction is advantageous.

Two writers who I have great respect for are Camus and Sartre. I firmly believe their failure to fully understand what it means to exist is related to how political they became. Sartre as a matter of fact gave up existentialism entirely so he could focus on communism.

I don't say that as an attack on communism. I say that as an attack on the failure of politics of every kind to explain to us who we are and what meaning we can find in an otherwise meaningless world.

What topics tempt me the most to write about? Abortion and homosexuality. Even though I have arrived at my opinion on these topics on the basis of what I find to be mere devotion, I realize that having the best view on these issues is very different from living a life of devotion.

And it kills me because inside me is a voice saying, "You are withholding your views on abortion and homosexuality because you want approval from men." And so, as a matter of conscience I sometimes post on other people's blogs what my true feelings are.

The most I can say here -in this place of mere devotion- is that one's views about homosexuality and abortion should be based soley in devotion to God however despised they are by men. Devotion, when it becomes serious, is obedient.

Having the best view on abortion and homosexuality is a triumph in understanding God's law. God has demanded that his servants are to live righteous lives, but understanding God's law is not the same thing as understanding the power of the Gospel.

One final thought: Jesus noted that the pagans love to hold power over one another. So too, the democrats love having power over republicans and republicans love to hold power over the democrats. A person cannot discover what it means to be born again by having power over others.

It is supremely a matter of how much self-control a person has.

Kierkegaard's View of Suffering

In the last moments of his life, Kierkegaard endured heavy physical trauma.

In times of physical agony, one often asks what meaning the suffering has and why he was chosen for it. Kierkegaard provides a profound description of how God sees the devotion of those who suffer:

What does God really want? He wants to have souls that can praise, adore, worship, and thank him-the business of angels. That is why God is surrounded by angels. Because the sort of beings of which there are legions in 'Christendom,' the sort who for 10 rixdollars will roar and trumpet to God's honor and praise-that sort of being does not please him.

No, the angels please him. And what pleases him even more than the praises of angels is this: When, during the last lap of this life-when it seems as if God transforms himself into sheer cruelty and with the most cruelly devised cruelty does everything to deprive a person of all lust for life-when a human being nonetheless continues to believe that God is love and that it is from love that God does this-such a human being then becomes an angel.

And he can certainly praise God in heaven, but of course the time of instruction, schooltime, is always the strictest time. It is as if a person had the idea of traveling the whole world over to hear a singer with a perfect voice: That is how God sits in heaven and listens. And every time he hears praise from a human being whom he has brought to the most extreme point of weariness with life, God says to himself, 'Here is the voice.'"

Sin And Self-Deception

When tempted, no one should say, 'God is tempting me.' For God cannot be tempted by evil, nor does he tempt anyone; but each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown gives birth to death."
James 1:13-15

Desire ... sin ... death. All three are often described in purely external terms.

Suppose someone steals icecream on a hot day. "It was a hot day, and the icecream was good-looking. God allowed it to be here. How could I not desire it?". Since one has no freedom whether or not to desire the icecream, one presumably has no freedom whether or not to steal the icecream either.

Then the gravity of the act begins to sink in. One considers stealing bad, but one is also a thief. One says, "I do not approve of those thieving low-lifes. How could I accept them?" And then, "I am a theiving low-life." And then, "I do not accept myself." This is the process which James describes as something that grows. And then what we have is a person with a healthy body, a beating heart, a fully-functioning brain, but the person is -in an alternative understanding of the word- dead. Soon, all their will is going into forgetting the choices they have made or ignoring their priorities.

Is the sinner deceived by desire, sin, and death? Or do we have something much harder to understand ... is the sinner deceived by the sinner?

James is suggesting that the self is deceived by the self, but this is a hard thing to understand.

If a woman comes by my house looking for her dog, and I know the dog is inside my house, and I say, "I do not know where that dog is!" then I deceive the woman. But how is it that I can ask myself, "Where is that dog of my neighbors?" And then to respond falsely, "I do not know where that dog is!".

But this is what James is saying that we have all done.

James is not afraid to tell the person looking at the icecream, "The desire is not in the icecream! It is your own desire!". He is not afraid to approach the one who stole the icecream and say, "You stole the icecream, and God did not make you do it!" He is not afraid to find the person standing on the edge of the bridge and say, "You are the one throwing yourself into death!"

Part of the problem is blaming others and the external world. In order to stop running from oneself, one must be vulnerable and transparent to oneself. No one makes us sin. We throw ourselves into it.

A life lived by excuses ends in suicide of one form or another, but a life that admits its wrong-doing finds life abundantly.

Jesus is standing at the door and knocking. Sure enough, we can hide our heads under the pillows and say, "How would God want anything to do with me? I have no choice but to believe He could not!". Or we can recognize that we have a choice to make.

We can say, "I don't know how God could love someone like me, but I believe He does!". We can say, "I am allowing myself to be tempted, and I will choose to say 'no'." And we can say, "I'm not going to desire that."

As soon as we realize what we can do, the choice is as simple as recognizing what we want and who we want to be.

The Hypocrite's Proverbs

During my years in college I did not smoke. I did not do drugs. I did not have sex with anyone. I had very little alcohol and only on breaks. I obeyed all the rules of the college I went to and then some. But my ways were evil, and my heart was full of disobedience.

Ultimately I blame myself for the sorrows I carried. To justify my ways to others (not to myself or God) I kept a very strict set of rules -perhaps you could call it a system. This system was not in conflict with any of my academic activities, in fact many people found such a systematic view to be acceptable and even honorable.

At a certain point God confronted me with my double-minded ways. In the pain of confronting my hypocrisies, I felt like God was telling me, 'I'm not after your systematic brain. It's your love that I require.' But I can't really put the way God said it in words. Not the way I heard it at least.

At any rate, after all this took place I wrote up a list of proverbs that hypocrites live by. A lot of the rules are the meaningless rules I heard people holding us to, but a lot of them are my own as well. God is doing a great work in my heart, and I am enjoying life a lot more!



Here are the Hypocrite's Proverbs:

Avoid mirrors at all costs. If you must look into a mirror, avoid looking into your own eyes. If you discover that someone you know looks in a mirror, refer to him or her as a narcissist.

Everywhere you go people are watching. If you travel to India, Paris, or Tokyo, you will find people. Therefore, if you must do the right thing, do it because people are watching you.

Join an accountability group. You are weak and you cannot choose the Good on your own. Therefore find as many acquaintances as possible to pressure and trick you into choosing the Good. Going through the motions of Christianity is just as good if not better than Christianity.

The most important thing is to talk about the Right thing, whether you believe it or not. Don't worry about being "for real". Tell people to do the Right thing even if you don't care about doing it yourself.

Keep tax collectors and prostitutes far from your acquaintance, but close to your mouth. Do not refer to them incessantly, but instead make subtle remarks about their indecencies. Remember that tax collectors and prostitutes are everywhere except within.

Make every effort to believe orthodox doctrine – the more obscure the better. After all, it is far easier to make distinctions in ten different kinds of grace than to believe for one moment that God has forgiven you.

Better to live in pretence than to admit open rebellion.

If you are a man, let the girls know that you don't believe in makeout sessions. This will make it easier to have makeout sessions with them.

If you are a woman, advise younger girls to commit to not dating for a semester and to eat lots of icecream in the cafeteria, but remember to never go near icecream because it could prevent you from finding a boyfriend.

The most important thing in preparing for death and the end of the world is to avoid considering death and the end of the world.

Always have a list of vaguely irrelevant principles to talk about. Rebuke your acquaintances when they don't finish their food in the cafeteria, or when people watch movies without first reading the book, or when people don't eat a balanced diet, or when a church doesn't have a liturgy. Tie up heavy burdens for men to carry, but do not lift a finger to help them. Refer to these principles as "scruples" and always pretend that they have something to do with the Right thing.

Use the words "appropriate" and "virtue" as many times as possible. Say things like, "Well, I don't play video games in my spare time because I follow virtue," or, "I don't wear spaghetti strap shirts because they're not appropriate." The words "virtue" and "appropriate" have the convenience of being able to mean everything and nothing.

Keep everything as abstract as possible. When someone says, "Were you hitting on my girlfriend?", Say something like, "Ideally speaking, a girlfriend would not respond to interferring gentlemen." Above all, never let your "Yes" mean "Yes" or your "No" mean "No".

Remember to be scientific and technical. When someone says, "What does death mean?" Answer: "Death is a result of vital organ failure." Remember that science and objectivity are the best evasions of all.

If you are a woman, be emotional and capricious as a principle. Whenever the impulse seizes you to comfort and console your friend do not resist. Whenever you desire to shout and rage and lose all composure do not stop to reflect about your raging. Keep your reflections far and your self farther.

Always practice dying to self. This will allow you to be controlled more by your influences and by others. The reason Christians carry crosses is really to remind themselves to disappear to themselves quietly as if they have no intention of living.

When exegeting a passage, always pay especially close attention to authorial intent, historical background, and the connotation. Take a deep breath and say, "This is not about me!" Then you will successfully prevent the passage from being personally interpreted and incorporated into your life.

If you are interested in dating a woman, plan lots of activities, give her lots of chocolates and flowers, open doors for her, and above all shower her every quality in bushels of poetry. If you do all this she will never have the faintest suspicion that you have no care for her whatsoever. Love is a talented deception, and it is far easier to be a gentleman than a lover.

The immortal soul sees Justice. The mortal body does not see Justice. Make it a point to let the soul pursue what it sees and the body to pursue what it sees. Do not consider any kind of spiritual relation between the two.

In the event that an authority commands something, accept it immediately without consideration. If anyone asks why you accepted the command say, "The authority has spoken, and we must accept their words unconditionally." Then do your best to forget hearing the command in the first place.

If you are a man, become a worship leader. Let the rhythm and sound carry you according to its own measure. If you must insist on anything, may it be in avoiding resolve of every kind.

If you are a woman, make a list of every man who talks to you during the day. When your friends ask you why you are writing down the names of men, tell them that it is a list of your stalkers.

During pains of reluctance or hesitation, always remember past spiritual achievements or future expectations – even if they are nothing more than exagerations. When poaching food from your roommate, just remember that you went on a mission trip in highschool. When seeing the needs of the poor, always remember that you can help them tomorrow. In all things avoid living in the moment.

Reverse the roles of freedom and necessity. When a woman wants to know why you love her, tell her she is irresistable. When she wants to know why you haven't carried out your commitments, tell her that you have the freedom to do whatever you want.

Get lots of things and lots of attention. Make your phylacteries wide and your tassels long. In your accumulation of everything to everyone, make sure that you never accumulate a self to catch your own attention.

Calvin's Decision

My favorite book in the forth grade (courtesy of Mr. Winningham at Carrol Elementary) was Wayside School is Falling Down. In Chapter fourteen Calvin is turning a year older. He explains to his friends what he values as a birthday present. His explanation is particularly interesting as it relates to time:

See, I usually get toys ... but they break, or get lost, or something happens to them. But this year I'm getting something I'll never lose. I'll have it for the rest of my life.

Calvin is a boy who looks at the way immediacy is overshadowed in the possession of a lifelasting gift. Unlike most children, this longing is stirring inside him, and it is a powerful force. In the story it brings him to an absurd possibility.

When Terrence asks him what he's going to get, he replies, "A tattoo."

Then come the suggestions from his classmates.

Steven tells him to get a snake. Deedee tells him to get an eagle, saying, "They're the best!". Kathy emphatically suggests Calvin get a tattoo of a dead rat. Jason tells him to get a naked lady.

Calvin responds to his peers with one of the most profound reflections I have ever heard in my life:

I just don't know ... I've never had to make such a tough decision. Nothing else I do matters very much. It's not like choosing jelly beans! If you pick the wrong color jelly bean, big deal, you can always spit it out. But once you get a tattoo, you can't change your mind. You can't erase tattoos. Whatever I get I'll have for the rest of my life!

Calvin describes in some sense a mood he feels in light of making a lasting choice. It is a choice he intends to be committed to. The effects of his choice will be with him while he is glad to have made the choice, and the effects will be with him when if he regrets it too.

Although getting a tattoo has nothing to do with devotion per se, Calvin's choice shows the anxiety of standing before the rest of our lives with a choice to make. The devotional life is similar in this way, and I often find myself in a similar state when I hear God's words as He speaks them to me: "You shall love ...".

Calvin's friends are in the light-hearted world where amusements are here today and thrown away the next day. But Calvin desires to approach life with a certain kind of seriousness. An approach that he can seriously live with.

In this light the fun, (and in Jason's case) erotic aspects of the choice are transfigured by its permanence.

It was easy for the others to make suggestions. They wouldn't have to live with it for the rest of their lives.

So Calvin returns to school the next day, and everyone is curious about what he got. He recalls a provoking conversation with his father:

It was a real tough decision ... I almost got a leopard fighting a snake. But then my dad told me to think about it. He said it was sort of like getting a second nose. You may think you want another nose, because that way if one nose gets stuffed up, you can breathe through the other nose. But then he asked me, 'Calvin, do you really want two noses?'

The father's counsel is wise (as the teacher is quick to point out), but in a peculiar kind of way. He makes a foolish suggestion and then argues in favor of it, and then says, 'But do you really want to make this foolish choice?'.

In a way, the father's advice is not to lean on our 'thoughts' about what to choose, but to instead look at making the choices we can live with ... to look at our priorities and notice instead the things we want, and not necessarily the things which have the most easily recognized value.

Calvin shows off his tattoo. It's a potato.

Everyone groans. They start telling Calvin all the things they would have gotten: a kangaroo, an eagle, a lightning bolt, etc. Bebe tells Calvin, "It's a pretty potato ... I wish I could draw potatoes that good." But the narrator tells us: "But even Bebe thought it was a dumb tattoo."

An important consideration for living a life of devotion is that when attains a personally impassioned understanding of what one wants, one will often find that few others are also interested in that thing.

And the ones who say they do are usually liars.

The end of the chapter is magnificent. I will quote it in entirity.

All day everyone told Calvin what they would have gotten: a fire-breathing dragon, a lightning bold, a creature from outer space.
None of them said they would have gotten a potato.
But Calvin knew better. He knew it was easy for his friends to say what they would have gotten, because they really hadn't had to choose. He was the only one who really knew what it was like to pick a tattoo. Even Mrs. Jewls didn't know that.
He looked at his potato. He smiled. It made him happy.
He was sure he had made the right choice.
At least he was pretty sure.

Edifying Quotations

Over the last two years I have sent out work emails concluding with signature quotes. I would most like to come out and tell everyone about what a difference Jesus has made in my life, but I feel indirect communication is required. Note this: the practice I have developed is in open violation of company email policy. When I told a friend and fellow believer I was doing this, he told me he would never do it. On the other hand, no one has asked me to stop, and as for myself I have no regret.

Feel free to copy and use them as your signature quotes. I usually added a new one every week. Here they are:

The greatest danger, that of losing oneself, can pass off in the world as quietly as if nothing at all had happened.
Anticlimacus

To have a self, to be a self, is the greatest concession made to man, but at the same time it is eternity's demand upon him.
Anticlimacus

It is the minor players that make up the cast of the drama of life ... for they are life!
Bob Kane

The most improbable things sometimes turn out to be quite true!
Batman (Bob Kane)

The apostle of humiliated thought will find at the very end of humiliation the means of regenerating being to its very depth.
Camus

We used to wonder where war lived, what it was that made it so vile. And now we realize that we know where it lives ... inside ourselves.
Camus

Doubt is an uneasy and dissatisfied state from which we struggle to free ourselves and pass into the state of belief.
Charles Saunders Peirce

No one can harm the man who does himself no wrong.
John Chrysostum

No one is free who does not reign over himself.
Cladius

Existence itself mocks everyone who is engaged in becoming purely objective.
Climacus

Immortality is subjectivity's most passionate interest, and it is precisely in interest that the proof lies.
Climacus

If truth has to be true for all, then it is no more than a consensus of generalized opinion.
Climacus

The thinker who can forget in all his thinking also to think that he is an existing individual, will never explain life.
Climacus

Be careful not to let the world squeeze you into its mold.
Craig Englert

Genuine punishment, the only effective kind, that deters and pacifies ... is contained in an awareness of one's own conscience.
Dostoyevski

In the majority of instances human beings, even the evil-doers among them, are far more naive and straightforward than we suppose. And that includes ourselves.
Dostoyevski

Beauty is not only a terrifying thing - it is also a mysterious one. In it the Devil struggles with God, and the field of battle is the hearts of men.
Dostoyevski

Let everyone sweep in front of his own door, and the whole world will be clean.
Goethe

I'm not a smart man, but I know what love is.
Forest Gump

Most people want to be some place else. Few want to be where they are.
Martin Heidigger

You have to go on and be crazy. Craziness is like heaven.
Hendrix

Blues is easy to play, but hard to feel.
Hendrix

Life is ten percent what happens to you and ninety percent how you respond to it.
Lou Holtz

Nothing is beautiful from every point of view.
Horace

A bruised reed He will not crush.
A smoldering wick He will not snuff out.
Isaiah

Some people are so fond of bad luck they run half way to meet it.
Douglas William Jerrold

Clean the inside of the cup and the outside will be clean as well.
Jesus

Narrow is the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.
Jesus

Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.
Each day has enough troubles of its own.
Jesus

A book should serve as the ax for the frozen sea within us.
Franz Kafka

Affliction is able to drown out every earthly voice ...
but the voice of eternity within a man it cannot drown.
Kierkegaard

The more definitely conscience is developed in a person, the more expansive he is, even if in other respects he closes himself off from the entire world.
Kierkegaard

At the hour of death there is only this one consolation,
that one has not avoided opposition but has survived it.
Kierkegaard

A genius is not a little candle that goes out in the wind, but is a raging fire that the storm merely incites.
Kierkegaard

The measure of a man's fundamental disposition is this:
how far is what he understands from what he does?
Kierkegaard

Human beings are perfectible. One can easily get them to do one thing as another, just as easily get them to fast as to live in worldly entertainment - only one thing is important to them, that they are just like the others.
Kierkegaard

Personality is only ripe when a man has made the truth his own.
Kierkegaard

The more a man can forget, the greater the number of metamorphoses which his life can undergo. The more he can remember the more divine his life becomes.
Kierkegaard

If someone thinks that love and peace is a cliche that must have been left behind in the Sixties, that's his problem. Love and peace are eternal.
-Lennon

I don't care what they say I won't stay in a world without love.
John Lennon

Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see, but it is impossible. Humans hide their secrets too well...
Rene Magritte

I only know that when I'm in it, love isn't silly at all.
-McCartney

Somebody once asked me if I ever went up to the plate trying to hit a home run. I said, 'Sure, every time.'
Mickey Mantle

The number of rational hypotheses that can explain any given phenomenon is infinite.
Parkinson's Law

At the far end of an infinite distance, a coin is being spun. How will you wager?
Pascal

The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing.
Pascal

Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself in what he approves.
Paul

Where there are tongues they will be stilled.
Where there is knowledge it will pass away.
Paul

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging symbol.
Paul

On wild trees, the flowers are fragrant, on cultivated trees, the fruits.
Flavius Philostratus

Time goes by … and when it’s gone … love goes on and on.
Robin Hood

Discovering the truth about outselves is a lifetime's work, but it's worth the effort.
Mister Rogers

Very frankly, I am opposed to people being programmed by others.
Mister Rogers

Freedom is what you do with what has been done to you.
Sartre

Life begins on the other side of despair.
Sartre

Heat not a furnace for thy foe so hot that it do singe yourself.
Shakespeare

Leaves appear green while they are alive.
Only after their death do we see their true color.
The Shepherd of Canaan

The calculated often fool themselves, but even a fool can fall in love.
The Shepherd of Canaan

The age demands comedy. If this were actually what our generation needed, then the theater perhaps needs a new play in which someone's dying for love is made ludicrous.
John the Silent

Spiritually speaking, he is only deceived who deceives himself.
John the Silent

In eternity, there is not the slightest complication to make the accounting difficult and the evasion easy.
SK

Alas the door of fortune does not open inwards so that one can force it by charging at it; it opens outwards and so there is nothing one can do.
SK

I would rather speak with children. For one may still dare to hope that they may become rational beings; but those who have become that-- God help us!
SK

What do busy botchers achieve? Are they not like the housewife who, in confusion at the fire in her house, saved the fire-tongs? What else do they salvage from the great fire of life?
SK

The distinction which the world makes is namely this: if a person wants to be all by himself in being selfish - which, after all, is rarely seen - the world calls it selfishness, but if in selfishness he wants to form a group with several other selfish people, the world calls it love.
Kierkegaard

It is so hard to believe because it is so hard to obey.
SK

There is a lot of talk in the world about treachery and faithlessness-and, God help us, it is all too true-but still let us never because of this forget that every man has in himself the most dangerous traitor of all.
SK

The law is like a ponderous speaker who cannot say everything in spite of all his efforts, but love is the fulfillment.
Kierkegaard

The past can be regarded as nececssary only if one forgets that it came into existence,
but is that kind of forgetfulness supposed to be necessary?
Kierkegaard

He who in truth loves his neighbour loves also his enemy.
The distinction friend or enemy is a distinction in the object of love,
but the object of love to one's neighbour is without distinction.
Kierkegaard

Every man has in himself the most dangerous traitor of all.
Kierkegaard

The poet understands everything, in riddles, and marvellously explains everything, in riddles, but he cannot understand himself, or understand that he himself is a riddle.
Kierkegaard

Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people they don’t like.
Will Smith

The unexamined life is not worth living.
Socrates

You are not ready to face so great an enemy. Not until you have vanquished the enemy within yourselves.
The Sphinx

Patience, my son. To summon your power for the conflict
to come, you must first have power over that which conflicts you.
The Sphinx

When you doubt your powers, you give power to your doubts.
The Sphinx

He who questions training only trains himself at asking questions.
The Sphinx

The wise man knows that he is weakest when he thinks himself strong.
The Sphinx

It is certain because it is impossible.
Tertullian

There is no such thing as society. There are individual men and women.
Margaret Thatcher

The courage to be is the courage to accept oneself, in spite of being unacceptable.
Tillich

The awareness of the ambiguity of one's highest achievements (as well as one's deepest failures) is a definite symptom of maturity.
Tillich

Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.
Tolstoy

The world of the happy man is a different one from that of the unhappy man.
-Wittgenstein

Resting on your laurels is as dangerous as resting when you are walking in the snow. You doze off and die in your sleep.
Wittgenstein

It seems to me that, in every culture, I come across a chapter headed "Wisdom." And then I know exactly what is going to follow: "Vanity of vanities, all is vanity."
Wittgenstein

The one who lies to himself and believes his own lies comes to a point where he can distinguish no truth either within himself or around him, and thus enters into a state of disrespect towards himself and others.
Zosima

Singled Out !

During my senior year of highschool I traveled to California to check out one of the many Bible colleges in the area. The tour included a chapel service in the campus gym.



When I entered my arms were loaded with admissions material. I was looking through the requirements for a couple different majors, and thinking to myself, "Can I survive Calculus 1 and 2?".

Before the preaching started I felt like I needed to focus on the message. I remember thinking that I needed to listen to it as if the speaker was addressing only me.

It should be noted that there were about a thousand people in the gymnasium. During highschool I was assigned the job of counting the people every Sunday at church, so I think that's a fair estimate.

Apparently the speaker also went to this school. He began talking about a prank he pulled for a chapel service -not much different from this chapel service.

He explained that he was constantly getting in trouble with the school faculty -the vice provost in particular. So one day he grabbed some buddies and decided to pull a prank.

The speaker and his friends were able to unlock the gymnasium durning the day. Then they picked up the vice provost's car and carried it into the gym.

While I was listening (I assume he had one of those cordless mikes) the speaker walked to the middle of the gym and pointed to the exact place where he set the car down with his friends.

He explained that the vice provost was scheduled to speak in chapel the next day.

Of course they wouldn't miss out the chance to see the provost's embarassment so he sat with his friends high up in the bleachers.

Please note: I was also sitting high up in the bleachers.

The speaker explained that when the vice provost came into chapel everyone was pointing and laughing. Apparently word had gotten around who's car was parked in the middle of the gym.

The vice provost and the faculty were pretty sure who had put the car in the middle of the gym, but no one had any proof or witnesses.

While I was listening to the story, the speaker began making his way through the audience.

'So before the message began,' He said as he was walking around students sitting on the floor, 'The vice provost made his way through the audience just like this...'

The speaker stopped at the foot of the bleachers -at the row I was sitting at. He began climbing the stairs.

'Then the provost began climbing these stairs...'

I was sitting clear at the top of the bleachers and the speaker came to my aisle. As he was talking I noticed the speaker was looking right at me.

'Then he started walking up the row toward me.' He said.

The speaker stopped and looked down at me and then sat down.

At that moment it was like I was the only person in the gym to which the speaker was addressing himself.

'Then the provost said, 'Doug, did you bring my car in here?''

I was ready to confess everything.

...

Eventually the speaker continued his message and walked back down to the podium.

What I discovered that day was the dramatic intensity of being singled out in a very large crowd. And then to be asked a question.

Every so often we discover in life that we are not the only ones here. We go to events where we see hundreds and sometimes thousands of people.

Sometimes when we are around this many people we think we will be more likely to escape the requirements that we think are imposed on us.

We think, "Yes, but surely all these people will not be questioned. There are simply too many of them."

But eternity has singled us out.

And it asks us questions all the time: "Yes, that was very polite and all, but do you really care for that person?" And, "Is that what this person means to you that you would say that about them?"

And sometimes we dangle ourselves in the crowd ... hoping our distance will aid our escape of these questions -the question directed specifically toward us as individuals.

But eternity is not fooled. It does not have the hardest time looking for us in the crowd. And someday everyone ... yes everyone ... will give an account of their actions.

In the eyes of eternity, it does not matter if it takes forty days or thirty years. It does, after all, have eternity.

So I say, be careful how you live. And pay attention to the questions you hear your conscience asking you now.

Then you will be ready for the questions to come later.

A Devotional Existence

I made an update to the wikipedia article on "Christian Existentialism".

I don't consider myself to be an "existentialist" per se, but there is something primarily existential about spiritual truth.

The biggest problem in the study of existentialism is no one takes it with the seriousness it demands. It proclaims, "You are dust and to dust you will return," but the philosophy crowd runs around saying, "Oh ... here's idea. And here's another one."

Part of the problem is that too many people have stopped reading the Bible ... or they still read it but have lost sight of its radical message. They proclaim a Bible that is for all, but not a Bible that is for them personally.

My point in describing the Bible as an existential writing is to highlight the emphaticness of choosing in light of the fate that awaits us all.

So dive into the article.
And dive into the Bible!