I sit at the top of my attic stairs at the moment, listening to peaceful music like Death Cab & Joe Purdy, and Death Cab mutters a line, that says "Love is watching someone die, who'se going to watch you die?" I thoroughly enjoyed that line, and thought it deserved some dissecting. But not tonight. I have not prepared myself well enough for a post on the definition of love, and I'm pretty sure there are a ton of books already about that.
Tonight's post is about innocence & frailty, and why being a kid is where it's at. I read this book over Christmas break, a secular fictional book, that coincidentally paralleled the Christian story, and I thought I'd write on it. In the book, a five year old named Jack is trapped with his mother in one Room, their whole lives. He however loves the room, and doesn't understand why his all-knowing, constantly loving, mother would ever want to leave this 'paradise' he calls home. The real truth is that she was kidnapped and he was born there, but that doesn't tie into this at all. If you haven't read the book, I will ruin it for you tonight.
See, in the book they escape, and suddenly Jack's life twists upside down. He doesn't understand everything around him like he did in his one room, his mother is distant and can't always tell him the answers, and he must constantly get medicine to become accustomed to the absurd amount of germs in the air new to his body. This terrible twisting of the fate reflects the story of all of us at some point in our lives. We 'escape' from the all-knowing comfort of God's warmth, and suddenly we can't handle everything around us. No one is there to help us, and we don't know why. The difference is that while Jack couldn't return to his old life, we can return to our God.
More than anything, this is about innocence, as I said. Picasso, the acclaimed artistic genius, said "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist when we grow up."
This extremely to the point quote slapped me in the mental face this morning, and my mind started working.
Matthew 18 says “Therefore, whoever takes the lowly position of this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven. 5 And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.”
And so it is my opinion that we all start out with eyes aglow, staring up at the store window, wondering what the shiny bicycle is. Eventually, knowledge takes the place of imagination, and we know; it’s just a boring two-wheeled vehicle, nowhere near as fast as my Mazda.
As we grow, we learn, and soon our minds are full of useless & important facts, and the child in our hearts disappears, replaced by an adult, wary and exhausted. If you pictured the supposed ‘perfect Christian,’ would he be tired and worried, with a frown on his face, life in routine, or would he be standing tall, with a big smile and eyes straight forward? I think the latter is the answer, and I think those characteristics stem from the child inside.
To recount this semi-short and almost incomplete post: John Locke may have been correct, to an extent. We all may be evil, but we do begin our lives with a sort of ‘Tabula Rasa,’ as he said; a clean slate. As we grow, we become more knowledgeable, stronger, and more evil. We (myself included) begin to think we are powerful, and our egos grow or even shrink, to the point of unhealthy behavior. Losing our childhood faith leads to the moving away from truth, the moving away from our Father. We even found a new word for someone who ‘trusts too much,’ calling them naive. The point of this is: perhaps naivety isn’t such a bad thing.
Food for thought; God bless,
Austin
Thursday, January 20, 2011
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
Necessity of Solitude
There’s a line in my CRP, This Side of Paradise, in which Amory Blaine’s mother says to him, “No one person is necessary to you or me.” This is the protagonist’s mother, at the beginning of the book, telling her young child an important reminder for the future. She is simply reminding him, in nine words, that he can thrive just as easily with no one by his side.
The statement is ironic, because through out the first chapter, Amory’s mother never leaves his side. In their immense wealth, she does all she can to make sure he is perfectly healthy and happy. When he is sick, there are multiple doctors always by his side. So it is almost comical to hear her say that no one is necessary.
The word necessary has always bothered me. In humor, people always say things like “that wasn’t necessary,” or ask “Was that necessary?” and my response in my head is always “No, but is anything?”
My thoughts were reflected by Beatrice’s words in the book. But I came to realize that when we say necessary there is an implied “to” after the word; money is necessary to live, books are necessary to read.
So what is Beatrice Blaine trying to really say? That “no one person is necessary to live”? I guess so, because in Amory’s life, he discovers that his solitude is all he possesses, as he cries out as the novel ends “I know myself…but that is all.”
Amory loses love, friends, and all of his wealth through out the novel. His life is not over, but his purpose has seemingly been dissolved. No one is necessary for his survival, but they must somehow be necessary, as he is now miserable, right?
Loneliness is a powerful foe. There is little to do to drive it away. Sure, a person by himself or herself may call a friend or something to that effect, but in the end they are still alone. We as Christians are called to embrace loneliness, I believe.
My mission statement (one that I am terrible at putting to action) is that I influence as many as I can with just my attitude. As I’ve said before, through 1 John 4:16, it is our Christian calling to show love through our actions, rather than just preach verses and hope to convert. Therefore, when I think of solitude, I realize it is one of the key schisms in my religion. We are called to love but told we will be alone? That doesn’t seem to make sense.
In Ecclesiastes 1:3-4, Solomon writes “What benefit to people get from all the effort which they expend on earth? A generation comes and a generation goes, but the earth remains the same through the ages.”
Here, Solomon preaches disaster, and in reading this I wonder our meaning and purpose. We are definitely called to be alone on this earth at times, because God will always be with us. Sometimes this feeling of ultimate futility stems from us attempting to fight through the loneliness without our God on our team. He is our coach, and leader. We can’t play without our coach.
He even says “Then they will hand you over to be persecuted and will kill you. You will be hated by all the nations because of my name.” (Matthew 24:9) stating in plain bold words that we will be alone, and it will be for Him. We may struggle and hurt, we may lose hope, but we can find our strength in the fact that no matter how dark the space is around us, no matter how much pain we go through, God is still holding us up.
In the (fantastically twisted) movie Donnie Darko, a seemingly crazy old woman named Roberta Sparrow, or “Grandma Death” as the town calls her, approaches Donnie, whispering unknown words in his ear.
Later, Donnie tells his therapist about this occurrence.
Doctor: “Well what did she say to you?”
Donnie: “She said that every living creature dies alone.”
Doctor: “How did that make you feel?”
Donnie: “It reminded me of my dog Callie. She died when I was eight. She crawled underneath the porch.”
Doctor: “To die?”
Donnie: “To be alone.”
This almost meaningless chat in the movie struck me as powerful, as I understood that internal struggle is universally lonely in that moment. The dog, feeling its strength going away, fled from the ones who cared for it, to be alone as it died. We constantly flee from the world when we are in pain. When people ask “Are you okay?” we respond with “I’m fine.” And put on a smile.
It’s alright to be in good spirit in the bad times, and it’s good to seclude yourself sometimes, just don’t try and succeed through those times without your God. I’ve tried, and you probably have too. It doesn’t work too often.
Cheers, & God bless,
Austin
The statement is ironic, because through out the first chapter, Amory’s mother never leaves his side. In their immense wealth, she does all she can to make sure he is perfectly healthy and happy. When he is sick, there are multiple doctors always by his side. So it is almost comical to hear her say that no one is necessary.
The word necessary has always bothered me. In humor, people always say things like “that wasn’t necessary,” or ask “Was that necessary?” and my response in my head is always “No, but is anything?”
My thoughts were reflected by Beatrice’s words in the book. But I came to realize that when we say necessary there is an implied “to” after the word; money is necessary to live, books are necessary to read.
So what is Beatrice Blaine trying to really say? That “no one person is necessary to live”? I guess so, because in Amory’s life, he discovers that his solitude is all he possesses, as he cries out as the novel ends “I know myself…but that is all.”
Amory loses love, friends, and all of his wealth through out the novel. His life is not over, but his purpose has seemingly been dissolved. No one is necessary for his survival, but they must somehow be necessary, as he is now miserable, right?
Loneliness is a powerful foe. There is little to do to drive it away. Sure, a person by himself or herself may call a friend or something to that effect, but in the end they are still alone. We as Christians are called to embrace loneliness, I believe.
My mission statement (one that I am terrible at putting to action) is that I influence as many as I can with just my attitude. As I’ve said before, through 1 John 4:16, it is our Christian calling to show love through our actions, rather than just preach verses and hope to convert. Therefore, when I think of solitude, I realize it is one of the key schisms in my religion. We are called to love but told we will be alone? That doesn’t seem to make sense.
In Ecclesiastes 1:3-4, Solomon writes “What benefit to people get from all the effort which they expend on earth? A generation comes and a generation goes, but the earth remains the same through the ages.”
Here, Solomon preaches disaster, and in reading this I wonder our meaning and purpose. We are definitely called to be alone on this earth at times, because God will always be with us. Sometimes this feeling of ultimate futility stems from us attempting to fight through the loneliness without our God on our team. He is our coach, and leader. We can’t play without our coach.
He even says “Then they will hand you over to be persecuted and will kill you. You will be hated by all the nations because of my name.” (Matthew 24:9) stating in plain bold words that we will be alone, and it will be for Him. We may struggle and hurt, we may lose hope, but we can find our strength in the fact that no matter how dark the space is around us, no matter how much pain we go through, God is still holding us up.
In the (fantastically twisted) movie Donnie Darko, a seemingly crazy old woman named Roberta Sparrow, or “Grandma Death” as the town calls her, approaches Donnie, whispering unknown words in his ear.
Later, Donnie tells his therapist about this occurrence.
Doctor: “Well what did she say to you?”
Donnie: “She said that every living creature dies alone.”
Doctor: “How did that make you feel?”
Donnie: “It reminded me of my dog Callie. She died when I was eight. She crawled underneath the porch.”
Doctor: “To die?”
Donnie: “To be alone.”
This almost meaningless chat in the movie struck me as powerful, as I understood that internal struggle is universally lonely in that moment. The dog, feeling its strength going away, fled from the ones who cared for it, to be alone as it died. We constantly flee from the world when we are in pain. When people ask “Are you okay?” we respond with “I’m fine.” And put on a smile.
It’s alright to be in good spirit in the bad times, and it’s good to seclude yourself sometimes, just don’t try and succeed through those times without your God. I’ve tried, and you probably have too. It doesn’t work too often.
Cheers, & God bless,
Austin
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