Oh, the Good Health of Laughing at Self!

This week Ginger and I lay in bed characteristically catching up on the little events of each other’s day before letting the night carry us off into Nirvana. True to form, the conversation was quite free to flow where it would as she played Words With Friends, a form of Scrabble, on her iPhone, and I enjoyed being prone and relaxed.

“Oh,” I remembered, “and I also called Mom today. While I was talking to her I heard ‘Blliiing! Woooga, wooga, wooga’ in the background.” It was my best attempt at mimicking the sound Words With Friends makes when it gives you new letters. I figured Ginger would be happy to know Mom was playing the game Ginger has found to be such a good way to unwind.

But as soon as I told Ginger this homely little bit of news a warning bell went off in the back of my mind. When Ginger is “in a far country” and calls home in the evening, she wants my full attention and quickly detects if I am doing something else as she is talking to me. She finds that quite offensive. 

Yup, sure enough, she didn’t pause to ponder the possibility of having a new playing partner, instead she asked, “She was playing while you were talking to her?”

“Yes.”

“How rude!” she erupted.

“I’m talking to you…” I offered, in defense of my mother.

Ginger’s hypocrisy hit her like a ton of bricks. I could see it crash into her consciousness as she paused mid-play. (Split-second of silence, then…) Gales of laughter! She saw the silliness of her knee-jerk pronouncement while caught in the very act she was denouncing. Oh how that gave her the giggles! It was a joy to see her so amused! It’s one of the many things I love about her.

When my own laughter subsided, I mused, “What a different end of the story it might have been if the Pharisees had laughed (like you just did) when Jesus held up a mirror for them.” Ah, if it could only have been that way for them, then, and that way for each of us now and always.

My Sad Allegiance to Confucius

I love Lao Tzu and see in him as refiguring Christ. Lau Tzu promoted the growth of the human heart and healthy consciousness. Confucius embodied the Roman solution to the earth’s problems: power, authority, calculation.

While I was reflecting on my need to be more positive in my communication with Ginger, I heard the unexpected words coming straight from my own lips. “My desires are with Lau Tzu, but my allegiance is with Confucius.” In my heart I hope for following the example of Christ, but with my mouth I dwell on what’s going wrong, what’s about to be lost, what trend society is on, ad nauseum.

This squinty-eyed vigilance comes from my enneagram 6 personality. I trust in numbers more than in people. That’s my nature, the foundation of my personality. And if I want to defend that skepticism by saying that people are not inherently trustworthy, then I should remember my Hawaiian passage on this very point.

In Hawaii I experienced rapid-fire proof that people really aren’t trustworthy, but simultaneously I learned to trust God. In the light of my confidence in Him, it was as though I learned to trust others. I would even tell people, “The more I learned to trust God, the more I learned to trust others.” Now I can state it more accurately, “The more I trusted God, the less I feared the machinations of others.” I found that God could bring good from all things.

The question is not whether people are trustworthy, but whether God is. I believe that people can mess things up royally and God can use the mess to the good of anyone open to His voice. He can use anything as an object lesson leading us to greater understanding. I believe that, so I should talk from that position of trust, if not in people, in their Creator.

If I am so taken by Lao Tzu’s confidence in the Way, I need to quit calculating the perils as though I clung to Confucius’ more mechanistic philosophy.

God of the Selfless Heart

Satan loves to see smiles on the faces of people he is robbing of their later healthy and harmony. Satan also delights in the agonized, twisted, and shrieking faces of anyone that he’s tired of, or who has refused to glide into his ruinous forms of “happiness.”

God, on the other hand, doesn’t care what kind of face you bring—bitterness, joy, peaceful contemplation, extreme frustration; He doesn’t care; it’s all good as long as long as you’re allowing Him to give you the things that are needed for sustainable health and harmony. His own face twists in agony when ours does. His Spirit groans with our groaning.

Satan delights in our semi-conscious frivolity and in our suddenly-conscious despair. God doesn’t feed on our moods, He interprets our moments by where they are trending. Our face is free to reflect our perception of our current situation. His face reflects the joy or sorrow of where our current responses are leading us. He is about restoration despite the current cost.

This is because God is about us, and Satan is about himself. We have accepted a picture of God that makes Him seem as egocentric as Satan… “but in a good way.” However, viewing God as “all about Himself,” whether we see Him as generous or oppressive, is our first error. Satan is the one who is all about self, and his delight is when we adopt the same self-focus and even project that onto God. God is tied up in His people; Satan, in destroying them.

When I experience the thrill of schadenfreude I am tasting the sweet frosting on Satan’s sick cake. When I delight someone because I am angling for something I want, I am again sharing in the heart of Satan. When I please another in order to win their loyalty, I am again straying from the way God acts. The only time I share in the heart of Christ is when I desire to bless someone else, free of any payback—even paybacks as intangible as their gratitude or my desire to be seen as a good person. I believe it’s good to enjoy their gratitude, but if its absence causes hurt and resentment in me then I am acting from the wrong heart. 

How Language Softens Our Resolve, Part 3

Is it possible that our soft language of tolerance is one more gyration seeking to skirt God’s law? Must our colorful lexicon of inclusion become blind to the black and whites of conviction? Not everything is a shade of “okay.” Like oil and water some approaches to life are simply incompatible. Identifying polar opposites can give us the power of clarity. I need this power of discernment, this gift of shock, this occasional rude awakening. Calling something “sin” sets it across the line from where I want to be.

Why has our language become so tolerant of the things that fragment families; so passive towards that which causes profound pain; so accepting of moral junk food? At the same time it has grown intolerant of those sentiments (e.g. purity, fidelity, and moral restraint) that once protected families.

Perhaps our language has only followed our passions. Sexual pleasure is our Achilles tendon. Rightly working, it propels our walk. Twisted, it cripples us. A twisted sexuality promises us “no limits.” It prods us to experience that intense pleasure, that transient sense of intimacy and completeness, with any object we find desirable. It creates a need for self-deception so that we can do what we know is unhealthy and unsustainable. So our language volunteers to deceive us, to lull us into that very thought that there are “no limits,” we can sample all the dishes without blowing our diet.

Intellectuals are just as biological as the rest of us. So once their passions are hooked and finally warped, their persuasive speech and rationalizations turn to the business of eroding the very foundations of moral sensibility. They pose arguments and experiments to build a case against ultimate meaning, against moral absolutes, against the notion of a Creator; especially one that might encourage self-restraint.

When I’m surrounded by others who have eaten of that fruit, it is easy to accept the social and polite language. That language, after all, offers me the freedom to minimize the evil that would be unleashed by my own moral failure. Yet, it’s not just a “failure,” it is sin. Sin is evil. Sin is myopic self-focus. Sin is anti-God, and sin is a beginning of a long chain of heart-rending sorrows. Calling a sin by its right name should provide a strong desire for escaping it.

I will likely keep using the preferred language of politeness while in the social world of “personal choices,” but in my own life I need the power and clarity of calling a sin a sin. Doing so, immediately reminds me that there is One who has an opinion about the sins that destroy His children. Gratefully, that One is always ready to clean me up and nourish me when I bring my bleeding and poisoned mind back to Him.

This life is not some kind of “pre” school. I can’t just messily finger paint whatever comes into my meandering mind. I must develop the mature discipline of an artist who is creating a masterpiece of a life that means something. There are color combinations and techniques to use and others to avoid. There are surfaces we paint on and those we don’t. I want my completed painting to be a thing of beauty, sensible and reliable to all who depend on me, and transportable into the next generation, perhaps even the next world.

How Language Softens Our Resolve, Part 2

Here’s a fact: God’s law is not complicated, but our efforts to get around it are. In fact, our efforts to circumvent God’s clear directives are excruciatingly tangled. Our aversion to law is so out-of-control that we even avoid the word. We talk about “God’s way” or “God’s will” or “God’s plan.” “God’s law” sounds… well, a bit legalistic, don’t you think? Downplaying “law” is only one of the gyrations we use when we try to get around a clear “right” and “wrong”. If our hearts are bent towards something, we fashion our language to bring that thing into cultural acceptance. So, I want to keep looking at the impact of our language on the erosion of our moral resolve.

I’m all for giving other people the freedom to chart their own course, to think their own thoughts, and to agree or disagree with my ways. But the language required for polite discourse with those of other beliefs is not the best language for me as I consider my challenges. If I even get close to thinking “My, she’s beautiful. I wonder how it would feel to…” I am not making a “poor choice.” I am not considering an “alternate lifestyle.” I am not even being “irresponsible.” Whether those phrases mildly approve or disapprove of what I imagine, they are all… well, too mild. There is still old-fashioned power in the word sin, and I need that power to jolt me out of self-indulgent ponderings.

We may think that “sin” is too judgmental. We may believe there are many different “normals,” many alternatives to the Judeo-Christian worldview, especially in regards to sexual issues. Yes, there are many alternatives to Bible injunctions. But there are also many alternatives to good food, some are even tasty, but that doesn’t make them preferable. We are bombarded by ads of people scarfing down all kinds of junk with smiles on their faces surrounded by healthy families. It’s a lie, and we know it, but we still joke about our addiction to some favorite treat, and we reach for the package that hisses “ssssinfully deliciousssss.” How has the use of the word “sin” become a twisted and enticing recommendation?

Healthy-people-eating-junk-food ads create a picture of health while promoting the very things that destroy it. Morally we are on the same junk food diet. Sexual integrity is more frequently, broadly, blatantly, and subtly attacked than is dietary integrity. Even the grocery store check-out line is almost more about sex than about food. Sexual misconduct is so ubiquitous it has almost become the canvas upon which our lives are painted. It is so pervasive that we don’t consciously notice the half of it.

While we struggle to live Christian lives of personal integrity we spend time and money to avoid looking “unsexy.” Why is it that one of our best Adventist marketers used the word “sexy” as a synonym for “energetic and persuasive,” even while shooting video in a room featuring all child models? I was there. Why is it a rising young Adventist pastor initially promoted his upcoming breakout session with the title “Pimping Your Website”? I was there, too. Why is it we are told that “for people under 30 the f-word is an accepted part of speech”? We are all witnessing this.

Ever since advertising stumbled on “Don’t sell the steak; sell the sizzle,” we have been inundated with a stream of sexual sizzle. It permeates our language, and erodes our personal congruence. While we want to see others as Jesus saw them, we are constantly trained to see them as potential objects of desire, eye candy, things to exploit. Whoever is not “hot” is not worth it.

Is it that big a deal? Am I being too sensitive? Am I simply failing to change with the ever-changing language? While it is true that language constantly changes (and now even faster than ever) it is also true that change is not always good. At tightly-packed public events I stay aware of my wallet. 

Changing it from my pocket to someone else’s is not a good change. In the same sneaky way language has stolen from our society a large amount of purity. Even to the point that “purity” seems a little bit flat. It’s just not “sexy.”

We need to back up and take a good look at the culture we are swimming in. Living in America today is like attending a seminar in Las Vegas. In the morning in our hotel rooms we spend time in worship. We try to remember that God loves each person, no matter how they look. We try to maintain a pure view of the worth of others. But then we have to walk on streets carpeted with pictures of flesh for sale. It’s totally incongruous. It can even be dizzying and disorienting. And the incongruence is not limited to Vegas. Don’t we rally to end human trafficking, and then talk of pimping our trucks? Don’t we assert the value of every person only to hear our kids say “my bitch” as a term of ownership and dominance?

Our culture preaches self-esteem, but it has planted the crudest term for sexual exploitation in the center of young mouths. Can we wake up from the hypocrisy? If so, can we unpolluted the river? We can’t claim high moral ground and fight for noble moral causes while filling our mouths or our entertainment with immoral language.

How Language Softens Our Resolve, Part 1

I still notice a filmy skirt on a lithe body jauntily strolling down the walk. Anything wrong with that? I’m a delightedly married man and wouldn’t consider trading my wife for any sweet young thing. …but I notice. Is that bad? Can I help it? I was “born that way” so it can’t be wrong.

But what happens after I notice? I was also born wanting to take impulse into action, is that still okay… since it’s “natural?” What comes after the first heart palpitation? Some people refer to pretty women (especially pictures of nude women) as “eye candy.” Naturalists tell us that evolution has hardwired the male for pursuit and conquest. So I guess that’s just my luck. Evolutionary genetics would declare me quite alright. I’m not lustful; I’m poly-erotic.

Wait. Problem. My wife doesn’t believe in evolution, at least not the kind that would excuse any philandering. (There’s nothing like a threat to our social sensibilities to make us commence vigorous Bible-thumping.) God said, “No,” and Jesus said, “Don’t even think about it.” Starkly clear, if you ask me.

But what if some naturalists are right, and “God” is just the personification of one particular moral code? What then? Do I only imagine a God who frowns on lust, because someone sometime invented God as an icon for a set of moral behaviors?

(Hmm… back up a minute: Why is it that the naturalist personifies their worldview as “evolution” and we blindly accept their pronouncement as somehow scientific, i.e. “true”? “Hardwiring” (a term they use) is a result of intentional action, not dumb luck. “Evolution has hardwired…” this is blatant personification. We’ve got to be honest about it when it happens. So “The male is hardwired” is a naturalist’s statement of personified personal opinion, not empirical fact. The fact that we see some human males acting like creatures of less nobility, does not prove a point.)

Or what if God is real, but His prohibitions—stated clearly in both Testaments—were only the personal opinions of those particular authors? Couldn’t something written 2,000 year ago in a very different cultural setting no longer be binding on us? Maybe self-control was necessary when pregnancy and disease were harder to control. Perhaps modern science, medicine, and technology have made moral restraint unnecessary. Again, my wife would assert that on the issue of sexual self-restraint, the Bible is still wise. Okay, but I really didn’t start this post to write about that.

Here’s what happens in me after the first head-turning moment when my eye wanders. I have a choice. I can, as a happily married man (who would like to remain so), entertain either of two thoughts. First, I can give in to Old Man Naturalism and say, “I was designed this way for some purpose important to our species, so even though I believe in marriage, I’ll just enjoy a little daydreaming. It is my heritage.” The problem is that I’m not an innocent little boy. My adult, sophisticated daydreams lead into all kinds of dark alleys and dead ends. So, yes, I can give in to a brutish interpretation of what it is to be human, but why? Why volunteer for a fractured life where the mind and heart follow a path which is forbidden to the body?

Well, here’s a bigger problem. Those who choose to freely explore the meanderings of mind and heart usually find a way for the body to join in, at least secretly. I recently read an article in Psychology Today where four women faced this problem. Each had a marriage that was less than perfect. Think about that; what a shame. But if they gave out a gold star to every person who is currently in a perfect marriage, there’d be a huge warehouse of unawarded gold stars, I’m thinkin’. “Perfect” doesn’t happen very often in this real life.

Anyway, each wife found a different solution. One found a lover and has decided to enjoy the romance without her husband’s knowledge, indefinitely. Another found a lover and then, after some emotional turmoil, induced her husband to find a partner and then to agree to an ongoing marriage “with extras.” A third moved a long way from her husband to take a job on the opposite coast. She is free to do as she will while on her own, and they manage to work up a spark for each other on their rare times together. A fourth has simply invited her lover into their marriage and though it causes some tensions, it’s “working.” The psychologist reviews all four as viable options and dissects the pros from the cons of each case. Curious that he didn’t find the wife who refused an extramarital partner. Perhaps she never needed the “advantage” of his counseling. Maybe that’s why he was unaware that she, and thousands more, still believe that fidelity, with all its challenges, still works better.

Here’s a second thought I can entertain. I can follow Charles Wittschiebe’s advice. During his heyday as Adventism’s sex doctor back in the ‘70s, Wittschiebe suggested that men enjoy the beauty God has created. “God made all kinds of beautiful things in nature, and the female form is one of them. Enjoy, but don’t let it lead to infidelity.” This advice is preferable to the naturalist’s because it has the remembrance of God in it. And I have great respect for Wittschiebe and his attempt to counter misconceptions about God and sex. But I, personally, have a hard time “enjoying” a plate of brownies that I know I will never taste. Gazing at them makes it all the worse.

So whether I am “naturally hardwired for conquest” or I am a “justified lover of beauty,” I still have a struggle ahead if I have chosen to live by God’s law. In the two following posts I will look at additional features of our language that make it even harder to prevail in that struggle.

"God Is Love, And..."

In January of this year I wrote “God Is Love, But…” Now I see that we not only have problems with our “buts,” we also have problems with our “ands.” Sometimes “and” can be as dismissive as “but.” So in the spirit of letting God have His way with us, here goes!

“God is love, and… my dietary shortcomings have nothing to do with His final commandment that we love one another.” (For the purpose of this post, I will limit my illustrations to dietary ones which are easier to talk about than more serious failings. But I believe the logic will hold for any “work” we have to do.)

We reason that God asked us to live a pro-social life. We are to love others, and that will be visible in the things we do for them and to them. Whether or not my hand reaches out for one more chocolate seems trivial in the shadow of the Greatest Commandment. Anyway, I want the freedom to live as I wish, and I don’t want my wishes scrutinized. I’m even willing to give more offering, help more strangers, be more courteous; if it will allow me to continue eating, watching, spending, and thinking as I want.

“The whole salvation issue is not about chocolate” True enough, but in reality it’s not even about treating others well. Salvation is really about whether we trust Him enough to allow Him to mess around in our lives and transform us. Looking to any set of behaviors—yes, even the hallowed pro-social ones—is legalism.

Did He provide pardon for our sins through His death on the cross? Yes. Did He promise to prepare a better place for us? Yes. Did He promise to come back and receive us unto Himself? Yes, but… (and remember the “but” is always about something outside of God.) …but He told us that the fish will be sorted, the grain will be separated from the chaff, and the ones without robes will be cast out. This work of judgment, this reaping what we have sown, is clearly outside of God. It is only the natural result of habitual choices.

God has promised to make all things new. Maybe when we are wise enough to treat the earth with respect and tender loving care, He will give us a New Earth… and probably not until then. What would be the point? John never said, “Behold, I saw a new heaven and a new landfill.” John told us that at that time of re-creation God will also give us glorified bodies. Again, I would imagine, that will happen after we are ready to treat our new bodies like the finely-crafted creations they will be. 

Before God gives us these wonderful, new things, something in us will change. Something will fit us for life in a clean place. Something will prepare us to receive and care for the glorious bodies that He will give us. What is that something? Will we reach perfection prior to His return? Will He give us the gift of perfection “in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye”? Will He give us the first 1,000 years to “finally get it right”?

People debate such things. But however He chooses to work the change in us, we all know we will be different. Even our own limited imagination does not see child molesters in heaven. We can’t even imagine some legal things like slaughter yards there. Not even some wonderfully helpful things like kidney dialysis. We will be different in that different place. And since He has never forced people’s decisions, we can assume that our change will come by our consent.

So it makes sense to begin practicing right now to be responsive to His promptings. Why not start with the little things? What’s to lose? A change in diet will improve life here, and is great practice for simply letting Him lead. And that's the point. It's not about our willpower, it's about making His voice more enthralling than our own appetites. I suspect that learning to hear and respond to His promptings is the best way to fulfill His Greatest Commandment—that we should love Him with all our heart, with all our mind, with all our soul, and with all our strength.