Dedicated to all my friends from B.Y.O.B. (Bring Your Own Bible).
Thank you for challenging me over the past two years.
Thank you for challenging me over the past two years.
I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.
Quoth Charlie Brown,
"I Got a Rock"
"I Got a Rock"
Scripture:
If some have cause to celebrate, join in the celebration. And if others are weeping, join in that as well.
Romans 12:15 (The Voice)
If I could be like that
I would give anything
Just to live one day
In those shoes
If I could be like that
What would I do?
What would I do?
From "Be Like That" by 3 Doors Down
It has been nearly two years since I joined my current Bible study group. A number of times over the past two years I have found myself spiritually challenged by the books and Scriptures we have studied. Last year, we studied the book Crazy Love, in which Francis Chan puts forth a high standard for being follower of Christ.1 To me, this standard seemed darn near impossible to attain. A number of times, I found myself wanting to put the book down and yell out, "ALRIGHT, I GET IT! I'M NOT REALLY A CHRISTIAN!"
During the summer, two good friends of mine led the group through the book The Gospel According to Peanuts. This book, written by Robert L. Short, examines the spiritual themes of the Peanuts comic strip. To my surprise, this work presented the "Li'l Folks" in a much more negative light than one might expect. We discussed Charlie Brown's anxieties and insecurities, Linus's unhealthy attachment to a security blanket, and Sally's incessant fawning over Linus, Sally's "Sweet Baboo." We also discussed the wisdom and Christlikeness of Snoopy.2
For some reason, I seemed to relate to Charlie Brown more than I related to the rest of the cast. One day I made the comment that Charlie Brown's insecurities stem from the fact that he compares himself to his peers. I think that an iconic scene from the 1966 Halloween special It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown demonstrates perfectly what I mean. In this scene, Charlie Brown and his friends go out trick 'r treating. After they visit each house they look in their bags and tell each other what they received.
"I got five pieces of candy!" says Lucy.
"I got a chocolate bar!" says another child.
"I got a quarter!" says another.
Charlie Brown looks in his bag, pulls out the contents and sadly says, "I got a rock."3
Charlie Brown's statement - "I got a rock" - says it all. His trick 'r treat bag is a microcosm of his life. Charlie Brown looks at the other kids, then looks at himself, and feels as though he is lacking.
Other kids aren't called Blockhead all the time.
Other kids can manage to get a kite into the air.
Other kids play on baseball teams that actually win a game once in a while.
Other kids don't constantly get the football jerked out from in front of their feet by some snotty girl and end up falling on their backsides.
Other kids don't get rocks in their trick 'r treat bags.
To be honest, I don't really know what was going on in Charles Schulz's mind when he created the character Charlie Brown. I made my analysis of Charlie Brown, having read myself into his story, as I do with most stories. One of my many character flaws is that I am quite often guilty of comparing myself to other people. So often I look at the lives of the people around me, look at my own life, and feel like I "got a rock" when everybody else got good stuff.
The office building where I work is next door to a bowling alley, so, during the summer, I often bowled during my lunch break. I am not a very good bowler, but one day I was on a hot streak and bowled five strikes in a row. My final score for the game was 195, which is actually a very good score. I have never been skilled at sports whatsoever, but this one good score prompted me to join a bowling league with my coworkers for the fall. Lately I have not been bowling very well, and I find myself looking at my coworkers' scores to see if anyone is doing worse than I am. A number of times, I have been the one with the lowest score.
I have come to the conclusion that nothing good can result from comparing oneself to one's peers. If a person thinks he is better than other people, he is being prideful. If a person thinks he is inferior to other people, he runs the risk of becoming envious. In either case, the results are "deadly." Though I am sometimes guilty of pride, I more often find myself "green with envy" of other people.4
I'm sad to say that the disease of "Facebook envy" has infected my soul. I look at Facebook and see friends that are now "in a relationship" or are engaged, and I remember my own chronic singleness and begin to wonder if there are monasteries for Methodists. I see friends who are getting their master's degrees or are setting out on great adventures in life and remember that I am, by my own volition, a "working class hero" who jockeys a desk day after day. I see all the friends my own age who now have children of their own and feel like I have been completely left behind.
Sometimes I feel like I'm running a race, watching people run past me when they were already ahead of me in the first place.
When I am honest with myself, I have to admit that I have a lot going for me. I am intelligent and honest, and I have been told that I am a pretty good writer. Sometimes, though, I think that, given the chance, I would trade some of those things away if I could only have what other people have. Essayist Joseph Epstein once noted, "Of the seven deadly sins, only envy is no fun at all." I'm beginning to think he was right.
As I stated earlier, my Bible study group has challenged me a number of times since I joined. Earlier this year, we studied the Letter to the Romans. This study was itself a challenge, for I had to face a number of my own lingering questions about God, salvation, and atonement. My lenten series of blog posts this year came from my own wrestling these questions.5
When my group studied the twelfth chapter of the letter, I was presented a new challenge. Amid a series of exhortations to the Christians in Rome, St. Paul writes, "Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep."6 It's the former of the two instructions that gives me trouble, for, while those around me are rejoicing about accomplishments, relationships, and new adventures in life, my own "green-eyed monster" awakens to remind me that my life is not like I want it to be.
I think that a cure for both envy and pride is humility. Humility is not, as many people mistakenly think, self-deprecation or low self-esteem. During the fall of last year, my group studied The Screwtape Letters. In this work, C.S. Lewis paints a beautiful picture of humility as a type of self-forgetfulness. He describes a humble architect who "could design the best cathedral in the world, know it to be the best, and rejoice in the fact without being any more (or less) or otherwise glad at having done it than he would be if it had been done by another." According to Lewis, a humble person is "so free from any bias in his own favour that he can rejoice in his own talents as frankly and gratefully as in his neighbor's talents - or in a sunrise, an elephant, or a waterfall."7
When I went bowling this week, I decided to forget about competing with anyone and to instead bowl in the moment, focusing on my technique, treating the game as just another practice game. I decided to be happy when other people bowled strikes and spares and to be patient with myself when I threw the ball into the gutter. I was happy with the results, for I bowled better this week than I had in previous weeks.
Perhaps this should be my approach to life in general, to forget about how my life compares to the lives of my peers, to celebrate with my friends when they have cause to celebrate, to let my friends celebrate with me when I have reason to celebrate, and to live in the moment, forgetting about where my life is going and focusing on the task at hand. As so many people who have gone before me have said, life is not a race but a journey.
I have come to the conclusion that people were never meant to be compared to each other, for we are all as unique as leaves, clouds, and snowflakes. Each person has a different path to take in life, and each person travels on this path at his or her own pace. To you the reader, I encourage you to be yourself and to not compare yourself to others. Love yourself for who you are, and love other people for who they are. When other people have a reason to celebrate, join them, and offer them the same opportunity when you have a reason to celebrate. I will try to do the same.
Notes:
1 - Francis Chan and Danae Yankoski. Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God. 2008, David C. Cook Books.
2 - Robert L. Short. The Gospel According to Peanuts. 1965, Westminster John Knox Press.
3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5tIhwITwhSg
4 - I'm beginning to think that my observation about Charlie Brown may be a little more astute than I originally thought. A few years ago, I learned that, according to the enneagram personality model, I am a Type Four, otherwise known as the "Individualist," the "Romantic," or the "Artist." Fours are creative, feel unique among their peers, seek authenticity, and fear insignificance. Fours are also prone to envy. Proponents of the enneagram personality model often type Charlie Brown as a Four as well. I guess it takes one to know one.
5 - Perspectives for Lent 2012: "Looking Towards the Cross"
6 - Romans 12:15 (NRSV)
7 - C.S. Lewis. The Screwtape Letters. Ch 14
The image featured in this introspection is from the 1966 Halloween special It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.
If you have any feedback, thoughts, stories, or even arguments to contribute, please leave comments.
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