I listen to far more books than I read because I’m in the car so much. I’m wading through C.S. Lewis’ Mere Christianity and it’ll be worth three more reads at minimum before next year. Needless to say, something jumped out at me as he discussed how free will factors into our existence.
In this particular instance he used the illustration of fire and the natural consequence of encountering it closely and directly. He said that there are certain indisputable outcomes associated with getting close to fire, namely that you are warmed or, in extreme cases, burned. The fire, he said, can’t offer you warmth or injury; it can only be. Proximity does the rest. He referenced a geyser to illustrate the same general point noting that one gets sprayed based again on how near one chooses to get to the fountain.
It’s the simple analogies, right? The visuals effectively articulated how experiencing joy, peace, abashed bravery in the face of certain peril, etc. are all byproducts of moving closer to God. But there are knockoffs of these benefits which can be gained sans the Divine. At least that’s where I went mentally as I listened to the YouTube clip. There is a satisfaction that impedes us, a “cheap impostor” posing as virtue. In his book Simply Christian: Why Christianity Makes Sense, N.T. Wright said, “…Made for spirituality we wallow in introspection. Made for joy we settle for pleasure. Made for justice we clamor for vengeance. Made for relationship, we insist on our own way. Made for beauty, we are satisfied with sentiment…” And I take this to mean that we expect God to deliver to us things core to our being without proximity to him. More and more it would seem that people are repulsed by the Christian God with his parameters and fraudulent representatives. But oddly enough, if you take sports for instance, many would agree that travel youth sports is corrupt. Scores would say that ethics in college football are compromised due to financial gain. And while we’re all agreeing, perhaps there’s no discussion about what we really desire when we oppose exploitation, Performance Enhancing Drug abuse, self-destructive behavior and the like.
What we really desire sounds a lot like meritorious outcomes where a guy simply trained to run that 4.45 40-yard dash and outran his counterparts. We really want ourselves and other parents to not schmooze so much about college scholarships while their 11-year-olds shoot the front end of a 1-and-1 free throw. I think we also desire significance, security, peace of mind that we’ve given the best effort we can and pure joy of participating in something we love. Of course these desires are perverted and/or muted the farther we get from the source.
Truth is, the 12-year old who has sex for the first time on a dare just wants to feel like she’s worth something or like he’s some semblance of a man. The 45-year-old middle manager frequents the Gentleman’s club for the same reason given the state of his marriage and job. And the Christian Singer/Superstar touring churches while her marriage spirals toward ruin is in the same genre of human conditioning. Let’s keep going. People who teach so-called sexual responsibility via various forms of conscientious contraception and regular HIV tests are searching for the hope that they are making a difference in lives. Just as an aside, they are. They’re even helping to curb wanton self-destruction but their quest, I presume, winds up voided. Crusades against animal cruelty and social justice advocates who lead grass roots campaigns against abduction/trafficking/child soldiering are also trying to “warm” at the fire.
There is a gross transcendence in God’s offering to his creation. It is both offensive and efficacious. But it is so extreme in its mandate and so simple in his application that it is dismissed as archaic. Where people would consider their own faith in Jesus Christ a failed experiment they’ve made the mistake of moving so far from proximity to, say, scripture and documents that explicate the life of the incarnate Christ that disillusionment quickly occurs. And that’s when we become experts at being offended by God, his virtue and his protective parameters. But the way of God was never meant to be dubbed elementary, pedestrian and obsolete. And it’s certainly not harmful. It’s simply not always fun given the appetite we’ve cultivated. And that’s why “character talk” is boring. That’s why videos about character have to have John Wooden in them to get views. That’s also why coaches think intimidation equals execution. I think this is why Lewis has been so controversial and yet respected. He knew his native England was moving quickly into a post-Christian intellectualism. My mom used to say, “You can be too smart for your own good.” I agree with her and that statement probably just means that when we think we’re so smart we don’t need to rediscover the source of our greatest aspirations and inspirations, we’ve replaced our smarts with something far less noble.
“All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy, for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must end one life before we can enter into another.”
– Anatole France, French Poet/Journalist/Novelist
Departure is forced, volunteered and unforeseen. Change exhilarates while it alienates. But change isn’t change if you haven’t left part of yourself behind. This week I got laid off from a job. The pink slip I received, which has turned into standard issue over the last four years for California teachers, was followed by certified mail last week. So I went to the post office and signed for my letter which stated that my services are no longer needed…for now. Thankfully I had recently accepted a new position offered as the impending layoff loomed but there was still a sense of loss. And it’s fresh stuff too.
It’s the feeling you have when you’ve been to school in one neighborhood and suddenly have to move. All of sudden, there’s a vacuum where familiarity once lived. You remember how you used to know where all the homies hung out at lunch, how long it would take for the lunch lady to run out of orange juice and which teachers gave tests on Thursdays because students are absent a lot on Fridays. Before 2004-2005 I had never taught in a secondary classroom. Eight or so years later, handling kids in grades 8-12 is not just second nature, it’s fun and maybe even comfortable. And wouldn’t ya know, a brotha is on the move again.
The craziest piece is that I’m going back to the job I had before I became a teacher. But that point is moot. You can mourn a change and celebrate it at the same time if you invested during your time in said old stompin’ grounds. The classroom has a certain suitability for me. At this juncture, being 36 years and some change old and childless, I have some balance of maturity and childishness. There’s an appreciation for middle-school and high school antics that I probably wouldn’t have if I was steeped in diapers. Who can say? What I do know is that leaving has always been a sad event for me. For me the new place and the old place are mutually exclusive. You don’t have to love one and hate the other. There’s simply a part of you left behind that you wish you could bring with you. But such is the truest journey. Without change I suppose there’s stagnation. I’ve learned to take the days as they come in the current post knowing that “Wheels Up” can occur whenever God says so.
It is possible to exude things, to project onto others a certain sense or feeling. I didn’t think it real until recently though when I paid attention to how quickly and profusely people apologize to me. Students, players that I coach and even other adults commonly avoid eye contact when they have news they think will, “let me down.” I thought it strange and more than that, sad. There is something angry in my nonverbal communication, something accusatory, something final. There’s an extremely critical posture in which I situate myself that threatens to unapprove and unfriend. It’s weird. Finding this truth had to be the product of revelation because it’s hard to see yourself through the eyes of other people.
The revelation started with me asking my wife, “Do I give off this vibe that suggests I’m done with you if you perform below my expectation?” Her answer was quick and precise in the affirmative. The next day, after training my Varsity basketball team, I brought up the subject and saw several players smiling with resonance. It was harrowing as I realized that one of my vices is passive aggressive intimidation; I specialize in guilting people into submission. It’s hard to provide anecdotes without guessing at how this stuff occurs when I’m dealing with people. So I won’t try to describe. Needless to say, there’s something brutish about it and I saw it in a dream a couple of nights after I realized what I’d been doing.
Fresh off of two trips to see Marvel’s The Avengers, I dreamed that the Incredible Hulk was trying to destroy me. His usual 10-15 foot tall, 1125 lb self, he proceeded to tramp and thrash as I struggled to evade him. The more angry he got, the larger he seemed and fear, while part of the experience, was not the focal emotion. I was more confused than anything wondering how I’d become the object of his rage. There was destruction all around me as he had battered the streets trying to rid the earth of me. I guess I should’ve been flattered that he’d pay me so much attention. But upon awakening, it was clear that the dream was a hackneyed metaphor for internal conflict. I was fighting myself.
The temptation to control people with high expectations is fueled by something beastly. There is a hate that can brew as the things of this world disappoint us. If a Hulk resides in me, he is characterized by the belief that people won’t change and their actions signify absolute evil. The Hulk, at least this version, is not unlike Marvel’s rendition. He is unruly and unpredictable. At his best he is an indomitable force for vanquishing villains. At his worst he is an indiscriminate hurricane willing to annihilate anything that isn’t HIM. And so that was my dream. I didn’t fight the Hulk with his own fury for fear that in doing so I would destroy myself. But it is clear that hating certain habits, traits and practices must not ever translate to people. The jurisdiction of condemnation doesn’t belong to me. I ought to choose to offer life at every encounter.