Lenten Reflection: A Crack in the Dirt

The following is the fourteenth in a series of reflections on The Great Divorce.
For more reflections on this work, check out the hub page for the series.

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

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A Crack in the Dirt

A reflection on chapters 12 and 13 of C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce

Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.

Luke 16:26 (NRSV)

She said, "If we're gonna make this work

You gotta let me inside even though it hurts

Don't hide the broken parts that I need to see"

She said, "Like it or not it's the way it's gotta be

You gotta love yourself if you can ever love me"

From "Whatever It Takes" by Lifehouse

Things like dating and romantic relationships simply don't come naturally to me, and this reality has caused me a great deal of frustration and anguish over the years.  In college, having already suffered a lot of rejection and heartache, I became rather desperate and tried to glean some help from pickup artists and dating gurus.  I only took advantage of the free email newsletters and podcasts that were offered - I'm way too cheap to shell out the money for paid subscriptions.  Though this stuff might have motivated me enough to score some lunch or coffee dates with a few girls at my college, I think it ultimately did more to hurt me than it did to help me.

YouTuber Dean Leysen, who has spent a lot of time spoofing pickup artists, says,
Plain and simple, most guys get into pickup because they're insecure.  What technique-driven pickup [gives you is] an act - a persona that sort of works in social settings.  If you're getting into this because you're insecure or don't like the way you are or come across, technique-driven pickup is not going to help you: it's going to hide you.  Instead of learning how to be confident, you're going to learn to be someone else...  So you didn't fix your self-esteem, you basically destroyed it completely by accepting the idea that the only way to be socially popular is to not be you.¹

In my opinion, Leysen hit the nail on the head.  Ultimately what I learned from pickup artists and dating gurus is that, if I wanted to go out on dates and have romantic relationships with women, then I had to pretend to be somebody that I wasn't.  Unfortunately, I'm a crappy actor.  The idea that I couldn't be lovable or desirable as I was only made me all the more jaded and resentful.  If I couldn't be loved for who I was, then why even bother?²

---

The saintly spirit Sarah has come to the forest to meet her husband who has just made the trip from Hell, but she is met in the forest not by one ghost, but by two.  One is a hideous, shrunken, deformed ghost that is "no bigger than an organ-grinder's monkey."  The other is a tall, skinny, shaky ghost that speaks dramatically and makes exaggerated gestures as if trying to be impressive, like a bad actor.  The dwarfish ghost is Sarah's husband Frank, and the actor ghost is a puppet he controls with a leash.  Sarah only addresses Frank, but Frank responds to her, using the actor as a mouthpiece.  The dwarf jerks the leash, and the actor speaks on his behalf.

Frank has expected to find Sarah miserable in Heaven without him: he expects that she will depend on him the same way she did in their earthly lives together.  Sarah reveals that she now has all she needs in God's love.  To Sarah, this means that they can now love each other purely and not selfishly, but Frank is dismayed.

Throughout the conversation, Frank uses his puppet to lay on the melodrama.  Sarah begs him to let go of the leash and get rid of his mouthpiece.  She says,
Frank!  Frank!  Look at me.  Look at me.  What are you doing with that great, ugly doll?  Let go of the chain.  Send it away.  It is you I want.  Don't you see what nonsense it's talking?"
Sarah tells Frank that there is no need for him to try to be impressive any longer.

Frank nearly lets go of the leash, but, in the end he grabs hold of it as if his life depends on it.  Realizing that she no longer needs him as she needed him before, he begins to wallow in self-pity, trying to make Sarah feel sorry for him.  He grows smaller and smaller until he is completely absorbed by the actor ghost.  With the true Frank gone, Sarah says, "Where is Frank?  And who are you, sir?  I never knew you.  Perhaps you had better leave me..."  The actor ghost accuses her of not loving him, and Sarah responds, "I cannot love a lie.  I cannot love the thing which is not.  I am in Love, and out of it I will not go."  The actor fades into nothingness.

---

Jesus once told a story about a rich man who lived a life of luxury and a poor beggar named Lazarus who lived on the street near the rich man's house.  Though the rich man had more than he needed and probably passed by Lazarus every day, he never did anything to help him.  Eventually they both died.  Lazarus ascended to Heaven to stand at the side of Abraham, the ancestor of the Jewish people, and the rich man descended into Hell, presumably because of his indifference.  The formerly rich man called out to Abraham, saying, "Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue; for I am in agony in these flames."

Abraham answered him, saying, "Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things, and Lazarus in like manner evil things; but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony.  Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us."³

In Love Wins, Rob Bell suggests that the "great chasm" that separated Lazarus from the rich man was within the rich man's own heart.  Even in the fires of Hell, the rich man never changed.  Notice that the rich man did not ask to get water for himself; instead, he wanted Lazarus to drip water into his mouth, proving that he still believed that he was superior to Lazarus.⁴  He was too good to even ask Lazarus directly, so he asked Abraham to send Lazarus out to run errands for him.  C.S. Lewis, in another of his books, writes, "I willingly believe that the damned are, in one sense, successful, rebels to the end; that the doors of Hell are locked on the inside."⁵

Having just witnessed the encounter between Sarah and Frank, the protagonist asks his teacher why the residents of Heaven do not do more to help the ghosts of Hell than to just meet them when they get off the bus.  He wonders why they cannot go into that "great chasm" from which they emerged in the bus.  The teacher stoops down, plucks a blade of grass, points to a crack in the dirt and says, "I cannot be certain that this is the crack ye came up through.  But through a crack no bigger than that ye certainly came."  The teacher goes on to say that Hell is so small that the entirety of it could pass through the digestive tract of a butterfly completely unnoticed.

The residents of Heaven cannot go into Hell because they cannot fit into Hell.

Hell, the great town that went on as far as the eye could see, the town that seemingly kept expanding with each miserable soul who moved to the boundary, was located in a crack in the dirt.  The cliff they rounded when they arrived in Heaven was just one side of that tiny crack.  Not only were they flying as they rode the bus, they were growing.  That said, perhaps Hell is not actually expanding but rather shrinking to make space for all the new delusions.

Sarah and Frank, in their earthly life together, did not have a particularly healthy marriage.  Frank was a very insecure man (hence the dwarfish ghost) who hid behind machismo and manipulated Sarah with pity (hence the ghost with bad acting skills).  Sarah had a need to feel loved and desired, and Frank had a need to feel needed.  At some point Sarah learned to find her self-worth in the fact that she is a dearly loved child of God.  Frank drew his self-worth from being Sarah's proverbial "knight in shining armor."  Ultimately he would not let go of his facade, and he basically let the knowledge that she no longer needed him to save her from her loneliness destroy him.

Donald Miller, in his book Scary Close, writes that, after breaking off his engagement with his fiancee, he went through a week of group therapy.  During that week, he learned that, at some point early in life one begins to believe that there is something fundamentally wrong with oneself.  In other words, early in life, a person learns shame.  Don learned that, to cover up the shame, a person will construct a persona or "false self" that will hopefully make him or her lovable to others.  The persona might be made up of good things like humor, intelligence, or talent, but it prevents a person from truly being known and loved.⁶

Every ghost who wishes to stay in Heaven must give up the thing that would keep him in his own personal Hell.  For example, the ghost who had a lizard riding on his shoulder needed to give up the vice that had taken over his life, if he wanted to continue his journey in heaven.  Similarly, Frank needed to give up the persona he had been using to hide his insecurity and to make him feel that he was in control of things.  In the end, he wouldn't drop the act, allow his true self to be seen, and accept that he could be loved and desired simply for who he was.

A great divide separates Hell, the land of delusion, from Heaven, the realm of all Truth.  Perhaps, by building walls to protect us, we are actually building the very walls of Hell around ourselves, walls that love cannot breach.  The walls that protect us inevitably become our prisons.  Love forces itself on nobody.  Perhaps the only way to truly experience love of any kind - friendship, companionship, or even God's love - is to embrace vulnerability and allow ourselves - our true selves - to be seen and known.


Notes:

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LW5ftkoWIgQ
2. This may or may not be at least part of the reason I've become such a wet blanket in regards to all things romantic.
3. Luke 16:19-31 (NRSV)
4. Rob Bell.  Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived.  2011, HarperOne.  pp. 74-76
5. C.S. Lewis.  The Problem of Pain.  ch. 8
6. Donald Miller.  Scary Close: Dropping the Act and Finding True Intimacy.  2014, Thomas Nelson.  pp. 19-20

The photograph of the cracked dirt was taken by Pixabay user zulubo, and is public domain.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.

Lenten Reflection: St. Sarah of Golders Green

The following is the thirteenth in a series of reflections on The Great Divorce.
For more reflections on this work, check out the hub page for the series.

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find this post helpful, please consider sharing.

St. Sarah of Golders Green

A reflection on chapter 12 of C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce

Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain,

but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised.

Give her a share in the fruit of her hands,

and let her works praise her in the city gates.

Proverbs 31:30-31 (NRSV)

They say in Heaven love comes first

We'll make Heaven a place on Earth

From "Heaven Is a Place on Earth" by Belinda Carlisle

The thirty-first chapter of the Book of Proverbs describes a "virtuous woman" or "capable wife," depending on the Bible translation one is reading.¹  In some Christian circles, this passage of Scripture is used as a checklist of things a woman should do in order to become an ideal Christian housewife.  Many Christian women are aware of the Proverbs 31 woman.  Many look to her as a role model, but many others consider her to be an unreasonable standard and the bane of their existence.

A few years ago, writer Rachel Held Evans spent a year exploring different dimensions of "biblical womanhood."  One month, she attempted to do all the things detailed in Proverbs 31 as if it actually was a checklist, and, over the course of that month, she learned that there is much more to that passage than meets the eye.²

---

The protagonist gets the opportunity to watch a parade in Heaven.  First, numerous angels dance and throw flower petals through a path in the forest.  Next, two rows of singers line up on both sides of the path - one row of young men and one row of young women.  Next, accompanying musicians march through the path.  There are also many animals present: cats, dogs, birds, and horses.  The protagonist then sees the spirit for whom the procession is being held, whom he describes as a woman of "unbearable beauty."  The protagonist's teacher says that this woman is "one of the great ones," a saint who has achieved fame in Heaven.

This spirit has come to the forest to meet her husband who has just made the trip from Hell to Heaven.

---

The person for whom the procession was held was not canonized as a saint by an institutional church, nor was her ministry well-known like Mother Teresa's work in Calcutta.  Her name was Sarah Smith, and, in her Earthly life, she lived in a suburb of London with her husband.  The people who took part in the procession for her were all those whose lives she touched.  Her care was not limited to other humans but was extended to all living creatures, hence the many animals present.  "In her, they became themselves."

The protagonist's teacher describes her thusly:
Every young man or boy that met her became her son...  Every girl that met her was her daughter...  Everyone on whom her [motherhood] fell went back to their natural parents loving them more.  Few men looked on her without becoming, in a certain fashion, her lovers.  But it was the kind of love that made them not less true, but truer, to their own wives...  Every beast and bird that came near her had its place in her love...
In other words, Sarah oozed love, and she brought out the best in everyone who met her.

According to the teacher, "fame in [Heaven] and fame on Earth are two quite different things."  On Earth, a person might be famous for any number of reasons: money, social status, physical appearance, power, influence, talent, or number of Instagram followers.  In Heaven, a person might achieve fame for one reason and one reason alone - love.  In Heaven, beauty is a physical manifestation of the love inside a person's heart.  The spirits of Heaven all appear bright, youthful, and healthy, and the protagonist describes Sarah's beauty as "unbearable."  By contrast, the ghosts from Hell all appear ghastly, and those ghosts who try to appear outwardly impressive end up appearing silly, contorted, or grotesque.

According to Rachel Held Evans, the Hebrew phrase that is translated "virtuous woman" or "capable wife" in Proverbs 31 is eshet chayil, which is better translated "woman of valor."  As she attempted to follow Proverbs 31 to the letter, she learned from a Jewish friend that the passage is actually not a checklist but a song Jewish men sing or recite to honor their wives on the Sabbath.³  This song is not unlike those sung by troubadours to celebrate the accomplishments of great warriors, as it is filled with militant language that is typically lost in English translations.⁴

I would argue that Sarah Smith was a true Proverbs 31 woman, for she was not merely a "capable wife" but a woman of valor and a soldier of God.  It is people like her and other saints who show us how to combat darkness and conquer the world - not with military might or with political pressure, but with self-giving love - one act of kindness, one encouraging word, one work of justice at a time.  Sarah was a light to all with whom she crossed paths, and the people who experienced her love took that light with them and shared it with others.

Rachel came to the conclusion that "the Proverbs 31 woman is a star not because of what she does but how she does it - with valor."⁵  This is a lesson that all of us - both women and men - need to take to heart.  We are all called to be valorous soldiers of light and goodness in a world plagued by darkness.  We conquer not with violence or force, but with love.


Notes:

1. See Proverbs 31:10.  The KJV and NRSV are referenced above.
2. Rachel Held Evans.  A Year of Biblical Womanhood: How a Liberated Woman Found Herself Sitting on Her Roof, Covering Her Head, and Calling Her Husband "Master".  2012, Thomas Nelson.
3. Evans, pp. 87-88
4. Evans, pp. 75-76
5. Evans, p. 95

The photograph of the forest path was taken by Wikimedia Commons user Tognopop, and is public domain.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.

Lenten Reflection: The Only Good Lizard

The following is the twelfth in a series of reflections on The Great Divorce.
For more reflections on this work, check out the hub page for the series.

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find this post helpful, please consider sharing.

The Only Good Lizard

(Is a Dead and Resurrected Lizard)

A reflection on chapter 11 of C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce

Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.  Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

John 12:24-25 (NRSV)

You tear me down

And then you pick me up

You take it all

And still it's not enough

You try to tell me

You can heal me

But I'm still bleeding

And you'll be the death of me

From "Death of Me" by RED

In a previous blog post, I noted that a couple of years ago I made a list of my priorities and came to the realization that my number-one priority in life was what people thought of me.  I realized that something in my life seriously needed to change.  The exact sentence I wrote beside my list was, "This priority needs to die."  The very next day, I offered my preoccupation to God, asking God to take it from me and kill it, so that I might truly be the person God created me to be.

---

The protagonist sees one ghost walking around with a small, red lizard perched on his shoulder.  This lizard flicks it's tail against the ghost's back like a whip and whispers incessantly into the ghost's ear, refusing to settle down until the ghost agrees to do what it wants him to do.  When the ghost finally gives in and does what it says, it shuts up and goes to sleep.  The ghost is not particularly proud of the lizard: in fact, the ghost's exact words to describe the lizard are, "It's so damned embarrassing."

At the lizard's insistence, the ghost agrees to go back to the bus to return to Hell.  On the way, he is met by an angel who offers to silence the lizard for him.  At first the ghost is quite grateful that the angel would do such a thing for him, but then he learns that the angel is not offering to merely quiet the lizard but is instead offering to kill the lizard.  At first the ghost refuses the angel's help.  Though the lizard is a source of constant misery for the ghost, he fears that the angel's killing the lizard will somehow destroy him as well.

The lizard, realizing that it's life is in jeopardy, wakes up and begins to plead for it's life and even tries to bargain with the ghost.  Having finally taken enough grief from the lizard, the ghost relents and accepts the angel's help.  With flaming hands, the angel grabs the lizard, wrenches it until its back breaks, and throws it to the ground.  The ghost passes out from pain.

Then something amazing happens.  The ghost begins to transform, becoming bright, solid, and healthy like the residents of Heaven.  At the same time, the dead lizard begins to move again.  It grows and morphs into a magnificent stallion.  The reborn spirit mounts the stallion and rides it into the mountains to continue his journey in Heaven.  This is the first success story the protagonist witnesses since arriving in Heaven.

---

Jesus, realizing that his own death was near, once said, "Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit."  So often, when Christians speak of death, they are not always referring to literal, physical death: sometimes, death is a metaphor for surrender.  One might speak of "dying" to something to refer to the act of surrendering it to God.  One might speak of "dying to self" to refer to putting aside one's own plans and desires for the sake of a greater good.

By now, I hope you've realized that many things in The Great Divorce are not what they initially appear to be.  The lizard sitting on the ghost's shoulder is not merely a pet but rather a physical manifestation of something in the ghost's life.  The lizard represents something that nags the Ghost constantly and seems to have a measure of control over what he does.  Ultimately it is something that needs to die and be resurrected.

Though seemingly malevolent, perhaps the lizard could be compared to the "grain of wheat" of which Jesus speaks, while the horse could be compared to the thing that "bears much fruit."  Notice that, at first, the lizard uses the ghost as a vehicle, but, after it is put to death and resurrected, it serves as a vehicle for the newly reborn spirit.  The protagonist's teacher reveals that the lizard was the embodiment of lust, while the stallion the lizard became was the embodiment of a holy, God-given desire.  The corrupted thing the man once served was redeemed and transformed into something that would serve him greatly on his journey forward.

Every human being is created with a libido, a creative impulse that includes but is not limited to sexual desire.¹  All things, even those things that are completely natural and God-given, have the potential to become corrupted, and, as we all know, the libido is no exception.  When the libido becomes something that a person serves, it will get him or her into all kinds of trouble, but, when the libido has it's proper place in a person's life, it can serve a person greatly, driving him or her to be creative, to seek relationships with other people, and to even start a family.  In it's proper place, it can bring out the best in a person, but, if it is corrupted, it can bring out the worst in a person.

St. Paul, in a letter to his protege Timothy, writes that "the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil."²  Writer Christian Piatt suggests that Paul's statement would be no less true if money was replaced with something else in one's life.  Love, he proposes, "when misdirected or misapplied" could very well be "the root of all evil."  Piatt goes on to say,
If we invest our love in anything other than God first, it mutates into idolatry, making room for no other.  It is a selfish, consuming, jealous kind of love, and yet one that never satisfies.³

Before the protagonist witnesses the episode with the man and the lizard, he watches another ghost from Hell demand to see her son.  This mother lost her son when he was still young, and she spent the next ten years of her life grieving his death - to the detriment of her husband and daughter.  Her brother, who was a resident of Heaven, tells her that she will not become solid enough for her son to be able to see her until her instinctual motherly love for her son becomes something greater.  "You cannot love a fellow-creature," he says, "till you love God."  Lewis suggests that even something as pure and holy as motherly or fatherly love has the potential to become corrupted and turn into idolatry.

The Christian faith teaches us that death is not the end of the story.  Typically, people take this truth to mean that there is life after death, but I believe this principle also applies to the metaphorical "death" of surrendering something to God.  In another book, The Screwtape Letters, Lewis suggests that what God takes away with the left hand God gives back with the right and that what God gives us is greater than what we surrender.⁴  When we surrender something to God, God gives it back to us resurrected, redeemed, purified, and magnified.

Jesus says, "Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life."  We will not experience the eternal, abundant life God desires for us if we are holding on to the things in our lives with a white-knuckle grip.  Some things we must learn to hold loosely, while other things might need to die and be resurrected within us.  We need not fear surrendering such things to God, for what we stand to gain is so much greater that what we might lose.⁵


Notes:

1. Wikipedia: Libido
2. 1 Timothy 6:10 (NRSV)
3. Christian Piatt.  "Love: The Root of All Evil."  Father, Son, and Holy Heretic, 03/11/15.
4. C.S. Lewis.  The Screwtape Letters.  ch. 14
5. I explore this idea in greater depth in my recent sermon "Dying to Live."

The photograph of the agama lizard was taken by D. Gordon E. Robertson and is used under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.

Sermon: Dying to Live

Delivered at Piedmont Park United Methodist Church in Greenville, South Carolina on March 22, 2015.

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find this post helpful, please consider sharing.

Dying to Live

Audio Version

Now among those who went up to worship at the festival were some Greeks.  They came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and said to him, "Sir, we wish to see Jesus."  Philip went and told Andrew; then Andrew and Philip went and told Jesus.  Jesus answered them, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified.  Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.  Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.  Whoever serves Me must follow Me, and where I am, there will My servant be also.  Whoever serves Me, the Father will honor.

"Now my soul is troubled.  And what should I say - 'Father, save Me from this hour'?  No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.  Father, glorify Your name." Then a voice came from heaven, "I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again."  The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder.  Others said, "An angel has spoken to Him."  Jesus answered, "This voice has come for your sake, not for Mine.  Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out.  And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to Myself."  He said this to indicate the kind of death He was to die.   

John 12:20-33 (NRSV)

Lead me to the cross

Where Your love poured out

Bring me to my knees

Lord I lay me down

Rid me of myself

I belong to You

Lead me...

Lead me to the cross

From "Lead Me to the Cross" by Brooke Fraser

A few years ago, in early 2010, I had a dream in which I was dead.  Specifically, I dreamed that I was a ghost and that only one person, my mother, could see me.  (Though, I have no knowledge about what lies beyond this life, I suppose my subconscious was able to construct this dream by drawing from various ghost movies I had seen.)  I remember that, in this dream, I wanted to find a way to let my friends know that I was gone and say goodbye to them.  I also remember telling my mother that I needed to figure out where the other ghosts hang out - apparently, I wanted to be with my own kind.

I would wager a guess that a dream analyst would tell us that a dream about death is not necessarily a dream about death, for death is sometimes symbolic of change.  At the time I had my strange dream, I had been out of college for several years, yet I was still involved with my college religious group.  I think that, deep down, I understood that my time with that group was coming to an end.  In fact, in my dream, it was that particular group of friends to whom I wanted to say goodbye.  I never felt as though I was unwelcome with that group, but I knew that I didn't really fit in.  I didn't have any peers at my home church, so I clung to my college group like a ghost clinging to his earthly residence.  I was already aware of a Bible study group for young adults at a church downtown, and, a few months later, when I could no longer bear the feeling of being half-in and half-out, I decided to visit this group.  I can honestly say that, over the past four years, it has been a joy and a blessing to share the journey of faith with my own kind once again.

---

Jesus has just ridden into Jerusalem on a donkey to the accolades of the people, as if He was in a royal procession.¹  Passover is drawing nigh, and among the people gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate are some Greeks who want to speak with Jesus.  These Greeks are perhaps God-fearers, in other words, Gentiles who have not fully converted to Judaism but still believe in the God of the Jewish people.²  Two of the disciples go to tell Jesus, and Jesus says, "The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified."  He knows that something significant is about to happen.  Whatever looms on the horizon is apparently dark and ominous, for He begins to speak about very heavy subjects like life and death.

At this time, Jesus makes a seemingly paradoxical statement: "Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life."  Writer Shane Hipps makes the comment that Jesus' mysterious statement sounds less like a paradox and more like a bummer or a buzzkill.  If you love your life, then you're sure to lose it; however, if you hate your life, then you'll have it forever and ever.  Whether you love your life or hate your life, you're apparently straight out of luck.³

Typically, when we read the Bible, we do not think about the fact that we are actually reading English translations of ancient Hebrew and Greek writings.  Whenever a piece of literature is translated from one language to another, there is a risk that some meaning will be lost in translation.  This seemingly paradoxical statement by Jesus is one example in which an important nuance is lost in the translation from Greek to English.  What we cannot see in our English translations of the Bible is the fact that Jesus is actually using two different words for life.  The word for the life Jesus calls us to either hold loosely or else lose entirely is psuché, which could also be translated as either "soul" or "self."⁴  The word for the life Jesus says we might gain is zóé,⁵ which is often coupled with the word aiónios to form the phrase zóé aiónios which is translated "eternal life."⁶

Considering the fact that Jesus is actually speaking about two different kinds of life, perhaps Jesus' statement is not really a paradox or a bummer.  Perhaps what Jesus is describing is really more of a tradeoff.  In the book Selling Water by the River, Shane Hipps describes psuché life as "a life encased in time and destined to die, marked by the churning waves of rise and fall, health and sickness, gain and loss, joy and pain."  By contrast, he describes zóé life as "a life that has no birth or death date, one that does not fail us or leave us, but one that endures in endless radiance and simple serenity."⁷  Psuché, Hipps argues, is like the weather, while zóé is like the sky itself.⁸  When our focus is set on the temporal things of life, we live at the mercy of our ever-changing circumstances; however, when our focus is set on the eternal, abundant life God offers us, we can enjoy our lives in peace in spite of our circumstances.

If we want to experience and enjoy the life God desires for us, then we must not hold the temporal things in our lives with a white-knuckle grip: we must learn to hold these things loosely.  Immediately before Jesus makes His mysterious statement about life, He says, "Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit."  In the Christian faith, when we speak of death, we are not always referring to literal, physical death.  Death is sometimes a metaphor for surrender.  Elsewhere, Jesus says that His followers must take up their crosses every day in an act of self-denial.⁹  St. Paul, in one of his letters, writes about being "dead to sin,"¹⁰ and, in another letter, he writes about "putting to death" the sins within oneself.¹¹  When we speak of "dying to self," we refer to the act of putting aside one's own plans and desires for the sake of something greater.

Of course, the death of which we speak is not meant to be the end of the story, for Jesus speaks of a great potential resulting from this death.  Something on its own could be compared to a mere seed, but, when it is surrendered to God and metaphorically buried, it bears fruit, becoming much more than it is on its own.  In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis suggests that what God takes away with the left hand God gives back with the right and that what God gives us is greater than what we surrender to God.¹²  In other words, when we surrender something to God, putting it to death, God gives it back to us resurrected, redeemed, purified, and magnified.

This concept is illustrated quite vividly in another of Lewis's books, The Great Divorce (a book that has been on my mind a lot lately).  This strange and fantastical novel tells the story of a group of ghosts from Hell who take a bus ride to Heaven, where they are met by spirits who plead with them to stay.  Though they are all more than welcome to stay in Heaven, many of them, of their own free will, get back on the bus for the return trip to Hell.  Those who truly want to stay in Heaven must surrender - or perhaps I should say, "die to" - the one thing that would keep them in Hell, the one thing they might make themselves miserable to keep.¹³

One of the ghosts who made the trip from Hell to Heaven is seen walking around with a small, red lizard perched on his shoulder.  This lizard flicks it's tail against the ghost's back like a whip and whispers incessantly into the ghost's ear, refusing to settle down until the ghost agrees to do what it wants him to do.  When the ghost finally gives in and does what it says, it shuts up and goes to sleep.  The ghost is not particularly proud of the lizard: in fact, he seems to be rather ashamed of it.  The lizard is not merely a pet but rather a physical manifestation of something in his life - something that nags him constantly and seems to have a measure of control over what he does.

At the lizard's insistence, the ghost agrees to go back to the bus to return to Hell.  On the way, he is met by an angel who offers to silence the lizard for him.  At first the ghost is quite grateful that the angel would do such a thing for him, but then he learns that the angel is not offering to merely quiet the lizard but is instead offering to kill the lizard.  At first the ghost refuses the angel's help.  Though the lizard is a source of constant misery for the ghost, it is, in fact, a part of him, and he fears that the angel's killing the lizard would destroy him as well.  The lizard wakes up and begins to plead for it's life, and it even tries to bargain with the ghost.  Having finally had enough, the ghost relents and accepts the angel's help.  With flaming hands, the angel grabs the lizard, wrenches it until its back breaks, and throws the dead lizard to the ground.  The ghost passes out from pain.

Then something remarkable happens.  The ghost begins to transform, becoming bright, solid, and healthy like the residents of Heaven.  At the same time, the dead lizard begins to move again.  It grows and transforms into a magnificent stallion.  The reborn spirit mounts the stallion and rides it into the mountains to continue his journey in Heaven.  The man's lust, represented by the lizard, was put to death and resurrected as a holy, God-given desire, represented by the stallion.  The corrupted part of himself that he once served was redeemed and transformed into something that would serve him greatly in his journey.¹⁴

---

Jesus knows what lies ahead of Him: He knows that what looms on the horizon is a cross.  He has ridden into Jerusalem as if He was a king, and He has made a scene in the temple in protest against the corruption of the religious establishment.¹⁵  He has angered the wrong people and crossed the line too many times, and the wheels are already in motion to bring Him down.

As you probably know, in the Bible, there are four interpretations of the story of Jesus.  Most Biblical scholars agree that the Gospel of Mark was the first of the four Gospels to be written and that the Gospels of Matthew and Luke draw heavily from it.  It is believed that the writer of the Gospel of John was aware of the Gospels already in circulation and set out to write something a little different.  It could be said that the first three Gospels, which are often called the Synoptic Gospels because of their similarity, tell us what Jesus did, while the Gospel of John tells us more about who Jesus is.¹⁶  The Gospel of John, from which we are reading today, often serves as a minority report to the other three Gospels.

As Jesus nears the time of His death, the Gospels of Mark, Matthew, and Luke portray Him "deeply grieved, even to death," praying, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me," before surrendering His will to God, saying, "Yet not what I want but what You want."¹⁷  The Gospel of John, by contrast, portrays a totally unshakable Jesus who says, "Now my soul is troubled.  And what should I say - 'Father, save me from this hour'?  No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour.  Father, glorify Your name."  To Jesus, the road that leads to the cross is the road to God's glory, for, as we all know, what lies beyond the cross is an empty tomb.

One might expect a movement to fizzle out if it's leader was tragically killed, but this is not the case for the work Jesus came to earth to start.  Jesus once compared the Kingdom of God to a mustard seed.¹⁸  Shane Claiborne, in his book The Irresistible Revolution, points out that the power of a mustard seed is released when it is crushed.¹⁹  Mustard, that pungent stuff some of us like to put on our hamburgers and hotdogs, is a paste made of ground up mustard seeds.  The work Jesus started did not end after He died.  On the contrary, it exploded, spreading like wildfire.  After the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, the Spirit that fueled His ministry was unleashed on the world.

As Christians - people who follow in the footsteps of Christ - we do not need to fear death, be it a physical death or a figurative dying to oneself, for we believe in Resurrection.  St. Paul compares Christ to a firstfruits offering,²⁰ meaning that the Resurrection of Christ is a taste of things to come.²¹  We have the assurance that the pain of death, whatever form that takes, will give way to the joy of new life in the same way that Good Friday gave way to Easter Sunday.  As Paul writes, "For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain."²²  We can be confident that what we stand to gain is so much greater that what we might lose.  In the words of writer Jesse Turri,

Life is only death, or death is life disguised

We endure this time of death until by life we are surprised²³

Christ came that we might have life and have it abundantly,²⁴ but we will not experience what God has in store for us if we are holding with a death grip our lives as they currently are.  If we want to experience the rich, abundant, eternal life God desires for us, then we must learn to hold on loosely to the things in our lives, and we might even need to die to certain things.  As Christians - people called to take up their crosses daily and follow Christ - we do not need to fear dying to ourselves, for we believe in the promise of Resurrection.  We can hold on to the hope that what God offers us is far greater than anything we might surrender.

Thanks be to God.  Amen.


Notes:

1. John 12:12-19
2. Wikipedia: God-fearer
3. Shane Hipps.  Selling Water by the River: A Book about the Life Jesus Promised and the Religion That Gets in the Way.  2012, Jericho Books. p. 153
4. http://biblehub.com/greek/5590.htm
5. http://biblehub.com/greek/2222.htm
6. N.T. Wright.  "Going to Heaven?"  Published in The Love Wins Companion.  2011, HarperOne.  p. 34
7. Hipps, 161
8. Hipps, 156
9. Luke 9:23
10. Romans 6:11
11. Colossians 3:5
12. C.S. Lewis.  The Screwtape Letters.  ch. 14
13. C.S. Lewis.  The Great Divorce.  ch. 1-9
14. The Great Divorce, ch. 11
15. John 2:13-22.  In Matthew, Mark, and Luke, Jesus cleanses the temple shortly after he rides into Jerusalem.  In John, it happens much earlier.
16. Adam Hamilton.  Making Sense of the Bible: Rediscovering the Power of Scripture Today.  2014, HarperOne.  ch 11-12
17. Matthew 26:38-39 (NRSV)
18. Mark 4:30-32
19. Shane Claiborne.  The Irresistible Revolution: Living as an Ordinary Radical.  2006, Zondervan.  p. 337
20. 1 Corinthians 15:20-22
21. N.T. Wright explores this at length in his book Surprised by Hope: Rethinking Heaven, the Resurrection, and the Mission of the Church.  2008, HarperOne.
22. Philippians 1:21 (NRSV)
23. This couplet was taken from a poem within Jesse Turri's short story "The Desecration."
24. John 10:10 (NRSV)

The photograph of the peanut sprout is public domain.

Lenten Reflection: Not a Project

The following is the eleventh in a series of reflections on The Great Divorce.
For more reflections on this work, check out the hub page for the series.

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find this post helpful, please consider sharing.

Not a Project

A reflection on chapter 10 of C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.  It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.  It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 (NRSV)

I only know what I've been working for

Another you so I could love you more

I really thought that I could take you there

But my experiment is not getting us anywhere

From "My Favorite Game" by The Cardigans

In the Sanctuary of Mercy Church in Zaragoza, Spain, there was a fresco of Jesus Christ painted by Elias Garcia Martinez.  Though the wall painting was not thought to be particularly valuable, it was special to the congregation and to the surrounding community.  It had fallen into a state of disrepair due to moisture damage, so, in 2012, an elderly parishioner who had the the best of intentions took it upon herself to restore it, thinking she had the approval of the priest.  Unfortunately, her restoration attempt didn't turn out so well.¹

Some commentators suggested that, after the failed restoration, the person in the painting looked less like Jesus and more like Saturday Night Live's clay man Mr. Bill.

---

One of the ghosts who made the trip from Hell to Heaven is met by her mother-in-law and learns that her husband is already there.  She is rather hesitant see him again, still angry for his utter ingratitude for all she had done for him in their life together.  According to the ghost, it was she who persuaded her husband to take on the extra work that ultimately led to his promotion.  He might have thought that working thirteen hours a day was difficult, but he had no idea that, for her, making a man out of him was a 24-7 job.  When he came home from work, she still had to do the hard work to pulling him out of himself, otherwise he would just sit around and mope all evening.

The ghost remembers all the other things she did for her husband.  At one time, he had a little hobby of writing - he even talked about writing a book someday - but it was she who got him to give up all that nonsense and focus on a real career.  It was she who showed him how stupid his friends were and got him to associate with people who had some class and influence.  It was she who got him to buy a bigger house so that they could properly entertain those friends.  It was she who bought him a dog to make sure that he got out of the house and got some exercise every day.  The woman did all of this for her husband, and never once did he show her any sign of appreciation or enjoyment.

Maybe, if the ghost's husband had been more of a man, he wouldn't have had a nervous breakdown.

---

King Solomon mused that "it is better to live in a corner of the housetop than in a house shared with a contentious wife."²  That said, I wonder if this ghost's husband was the type of man who would often retreat to the rooftop to collect his thoughts.

Actually, if he did have a habit of retreating to the rooftop, he probably didn't have it for long.

Albert Einstein once said, "Men marry women with the hope they will never change.  Women marry men with the hope they will change.  Invariably they are both disappointed."  This statement is, of course, a gross generalization.  I am sure that there are some women who want their husbands not to change and some men who would like for their wives to change, and I hope that there are some men and women who do not approach marriage in such a way.  Even so, Einstein's observation certainly applies to this particular ghost.  Not only did she want her husband to change, she tried to force him to change, and she was inevitably disappointed when he proved to be somewhat less than malleable.

One problem that has been the ruin of many relationships in our day in time is the search for what psychologist James Hollis calls the "Magical Other."  According to Hollis,
The Magical Other is the idea that there is one person out there who is right for us, will make our lives work, a soul-mate who will repair the ravages of our personal history, one who will be there for us, will read our minds, know what we want and meet those deepest needs; a good parent who will protect us from suffering and spare us the challenging journey of individuation.³

The search for the Magical Other has become ingrained into pop culture.  The Magical Other is the person to whom one can say, like Tom Cruise to Renee Zellweger in the film Jerry Maguire, "You complete me."  The Magical Other is the nonexistent person to whom Noel Gallagher of the band Oasis wrote the song "Wonderwall": "Maybe you're gonna be the one that saves me."  So often, we think we're searching for a lover, when we're actually searching for a savior.  To fill a "God-shaped hole" is way too much to expect from a husband or a wife.

I don't know all of the dynamics at work in the ghost's marriage.  I don't know if the woman was searching for her Magical Other, but it is obvious that her husband fell far short of her expectations for him, so she tried to shape him into someone who did meet her expectations.  She did her best to "fix" him.

We all have imperfections, but it is not our job to try to fix each other.  John Burke, in his book No Perfect People Allowed, compares all of us broken human beings to Rembrandt paintings caked in mud.  One who found such a painting would not throw it in the trash, for it is still a priceless masterpiece despite the mud.  One also wouldn't try to clean the painting on her own, otherwise she might make the problem worse, not unlike the woman who tried to restore the fresco of Jesus.  A wise person would trust such a job to a master.⁴  Likewise, when we encounter each other in our brokenness, we don't try to fix each other.  First of all, we don't really know how to fix people, and, second of all, our definition of a character flaw is likely different from God's.  Trying to fix someone only leaves him or her all the more broken.  Instead of trying to fix each other, we are to entrust each other to the Master, namely God.

Though the thirteenth chapter of Paul's first letter to the Corinthians is often read at weddings, this famous discourse on love was not written specifically about marital love.  Still, what Paul writes about love applies to marriage.  According to Paul, love "bears all things" and "endures all things."  "All things" even includes the annoying traits of one's spouse.⁵  Love, Paul says, "does not insist on its own way."  A partner is not a project.  If one cannot love and accept a person for who he or she is, then one should not marry the person.

Personally, I am still coming to terms with the reality that my Magical Other doesn't exist and that, if she did exist, I probably wouldn't lucky enough to be the Magical Other she had in mind.  I don't know if I'll ever get married, but, if I do, I hope that whomever I marry will understand that I'm not her project.  I hope that she would accept me and love me for who I am, and I hope that I would do the same for her.

It is not our job to fix each other, for no mere mortal has the divine wisdom necessary to accomplish such a task.  It is also not our job to save or complete each other, for that is way too much to expect from anybody.  What is our job is to love other people as we love ourselves, whether or not people change and whether or not people meet our expectations.


Notes:

1. http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-19349921
2. Proverbs 25:24 (NRSV)
3. James Hollis.  The Eden Project: In Search of the Magical Other.  1998, Inner City Books.  p. 45
4. John Burke.  No Perfect People Allowed: Creating a Come-as-You-Are Culture in the Church.  2009, Zondervan.  p. 97
5. Please realize that I am not referring to situations in which domestic abuse is involved.  Calling the police might actually be the most loving thing a person could do for an abusive spouse.

The photograph of the rose is public domain.

Lenten Reflection: Trial by Fire

The following is the tenth in a series of reflections on The Great Divorce.
For more reflections on this work, check out the hub page for the series.

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find this post helpful, please consider sharing.

Trial by Fire

A reflection on chapter 9 of C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce

Everyone then who hears these words of Mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock.  The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock.  And everyone who hears these words of Mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand.  The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell - and great was its fall!

Matthew 7:24-27 (NRSV)

Ruin my life - the plans I have made

Ruin desires for my own selfish gain

Destroy the idols that have taken Your place

'Till its You alone I live for

You alone I live for

From "Ruin Me" by Jeff Johnson

A Cherokee grandfather once told his grandson that, within each and every person, two wolves are fighting to the death.  One wolf represents all kinds of evil - "anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego."  The other wolf represents all goodness - "joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith."  The grandson asked his grandfather which one will win, and the grandfather answered, "The one you feed."¹

I would say that this story is basically The Great Divorce in a nutshell.

---

The protagonist has watched several conversations between the ghosts from Hell and the spirits who came to meet them in Heaven.  Finally, he encounters the spirit who came to meet him personally, the 19th-century Scottish writer and theologian, George MacDonald.  The writings of this great thinker had a profound influence on the protagonist in his earthly existence, so he is inclined to trust him.

The protagonist, still filled with anxiety because of his conversation with hard-bitten ghost, asks his teacher whether or not he and the other ghosts are allowed to stay in Heaven.  The teacher assures him that anyone who truly wants to stay is welcome to do so, but their staying hinges on a choice.

---

In most Christian traditions, the states of postmortem existence that get the most attention are Heaven and Hell.  Some Christian traditions, particularly those of a Roman Catholic or Orthodox variety, espouse the concept of Purgatory, a third kind of existence that is neither everlasting joy (Heaven) nor everlasting despair (Hell).  In fact, Purgatory is not everlasting at all.

In The Great Divorce, Hell and Purgatory are essentially the same place - the dank, dingy, drizzly "grey town" depicted at the beginning of the story.  The protagonist learns from his teacher that, for the souls who choose to stay, the town is Hell - as is everything in their lives that preceded their entry into it.  On the other hand, for the souls who choose to leave and never return, the town is Purgatory, just another stop on a homeward journey.  Basically, the "grey town" is either a soul's final destination or the place a soul finds its way to Heaven.

Though many people think of Purgatory as a mere "waiting room" for people who weren't quite good enough to get into Heaven, Purgatory is, by definition, a state of temporary punishment meant to prepare a soul for Heaven.  The name Purgatory is derived from the Latin word purgātōrium which literally means "cleansing."  It is also related to the English word purge.²  Purgatory, in some Christians' cosmology, is a place where a soul is purged of evil.

The protagonist and his teacher overhear a ghost venting to a spirit about her many grievances.  She talks about the friend who stood her up on the way to the bus, the roommate who mistreated her in the town, the surgeon who didn't know what he was doing, and the inept workers at the nursing home.  The spirit to whom she is talking cannot get a word in edgewise.  The protagonist doesn't think that the ghost is deserving of Hell: far from being evil, she just has a bad habit of complaining.  His teacher raises the question whether the ghost is "a grumbler" or "only a grumble."  If she is a grumbler, then she could be healed of her grumbling; but there is a possibility that she has been grumbling so long that she is incapable of doing anything else.  She might have become like the hard-bitten ghost, incapable of seeing the good in anything.

As the grandfather hinted in his parable, the impulses within us that we "feed" will become stronger and stronger, while the impulses within us that we "starve" will become weaker and weaker.

Perhaps we will all pass through fire at some point.  Maybe the question is whether or not there will be anything left of us on the other side.  The fire could either purify us or destroy us: it all depends on the stuff that makes us up.  The teacher says, "If there's one wee spark under all those ashes, we'll blow it till the whole pile is red and clear.  But if there's nothing but ashes we'll not go on blowing them in our own eyes forever.  They must be swept up."  In other words, anyone that can be saved will be saved.

According to the teacher, "There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, 'Thy will be done,' and those to whom God says, in the end, 'Thy will be done.'"  The ghosts who really want to stay in Heaven will surrender whatever it is that would keep them in their own personal Hells.  For each ghost who chooses to get back on the bus, there is something he will make himself miserable to keep.

The big ghost returned to the bus because he would not give up the idea that he was better than a forgiven murderer.  The bishop returned to the bus because he would not give up his endless debating and questioning and accept the Truth he was offered.  The hard-bitten ghost returned to the bus because he would not give up the notion that he's outsmarted a universe that was out to get him.  If Ikey wants to stay in Heaven, he will have to give up his shortsighted ambitions.  If the shame-filled ghost wants to stay in Heaven, she will have to give up her pretensions and step into a place of vulnerability.  A wise friend of mine suggested that maybe the one thing each ghost who returns to the bus refuses to give up is somehow connected to pride.

According to the teacher, the cries of the damned sound like this:
"I always served my country, right or wrong."
"I sacrificed everything for my art."
"They never got the better of me."
"I always looked out for number one."
"At least I was true to myself."

Though Lewis writes about Heaven, Hell, and Purgatory, he really only describes two outcomes.  What distinguishes the two is not location but rather the state of a person's heart.  Hell is just a state of mind, but Heaven is reality itself.  The damned, who would rather "reign in Hell" than "serve in Heaven," spend eternity in their own delusions, while the saved see the errors of their former ways and embrace Truth.  That said, maybe the question we should be asking ourselves is not, "Will God let me into Heaven?" but rather, "Do I even want to go to Heaven?"  In the words of Dallas Willard, "I'm quite sure God will let everybody into Heaven that can possibly stand it," but "Hell is just the best God can do for some people."³

So is Lewis correct in his portrayal of the afterlife in The Great Divorce?  To be honest, I have no earthly idea, but what he says makes the most sense to me, even if it is only an opinion.  None of us really know what lies beyond this life.  A few people have claimed to have returned from Heaven or Hell - and have made a lot of money from it - but I am highly suspicious of their claims.  As I hinted in an earlier post, this story is really less about the "hereafter" and more about the "here-and-now."  Maybe this earthly existence is, in itself, a trial by fire.

As the Cherokee grandfather taught his grandson, good and evil are battling within each of us.  Christianity teaches us that good will ultimately win the final victory against evil, so, if evil wins the battle within us, then we lose.  Some things will persist into eternity, while other things will be swept away like a sandcastle at high tide.  We must learn to nurture whatever is good and eternal within us, to let go of all that is evil, and to hold loosely all that is temporal.  Lewis suggests, "No soul that seriously and constantly desires joy will ever miss it," so maybe one of the things we should all "feed" within ourselves is the desire for the love, peace, and joy that God desires for all of us.


Notes:

1. http://www.firstpeople.us/FP-Html-Legends/TwoWolves-Cherokee.html
2. Wiktionary: Purgatory
3. Quoted by John Ortberg in Soul Keeping: Caring for the Most Important Part of You.  2014, Zondervan.  p. 22

The photograph of the gray wolf was taken by Flickr user MrT HK and is used under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.  The photographer is in no way affiliated with this blog.  The photograph was cropped for use on Wikipedia.

Lenten Reflection: Drinking Our Shame

The following is the ninth in a series of reflections on The Great Divorce.
For more reflections on this work, check out the hub page for the series.

I share these thoughts hoping they are of help to someone else.

Comments are always welcomed.

If you find this post helpful, please consider sharing.

Drinking Our Shame

A reflection on chapter 8 of C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce

They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

Genesis 3:8 (NRSV)

Although the names change

Inside we're all the same

Why can't we tear down these walls

To show the scars we're covering?

From "Inside Us All" by Creed

Two years ago, while I was on a retreat, I listened to a man deliver a talk about priorities.  In a moment of reflection after the talk, I decided to write down my own personal priorities.  As I made my list, I had a small epiphany: I realized that my number-one priority in life is what people think of me.  I came to the conclusion that something in my life seriously needed to change.

I did not have the words for it at the time, but I was beginning to realize that a driving force in my life is shame.

---

The protagonist is now uncertain of the motives of the people of Heaven: he wonders if the ghosts have been invited to Heaven only to be mocked before their ultimate demise.  Unsure of what to do next and sensing danger at every turn, he seeks safety in the thick of the woods.  He comes to a clearing and spies a ghost, whom he describes as a well-dressed woman, trying to hide among the bushes at the center.  This ghost is being pursued by a spirit from Heaven.  When the spirit finds her, she begs him to leave her alone, and he pleads with her to come out of hiding and accept his help.  The ghost reveals that she is terrified to be seen as ghastly and transparent by a bunch of bright, healthy, solid people.  She is repulsed by the idea that they might see through her.

---

A story at the very beginning of the Bible tells us that, when God created the first human beings and made them the stewards of the earth, God placed one prohibition on them: they were not allowed to eat the fruit of a singular mysterious tree called the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.¹

What do you think they did?

They did the one thing they weren't allowed to do: they ate the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

When the first humans ate the forbidden fruit, they realized, for the first time, that they were naked.  For the very first time, they experienced vulnerability.  Afraid to be seen, they tried to sew fig leaves together to cover themselves.  When they heard God walking nearby, they hid themselves, perhaps among bushes like the ghost from The Great Divorce.²  For thousands of years, people have debated exactly what the forbidden fruit represents or what knowledge was contained within it, but I think it is easy to see that one thing the people who ate the fruit learned is shame.  This strange story at the beginning of the Bible locates shame and vulnerability near the heart of the human experience.

Dr. Brené Brown, a researcher who has spent a number of years studying shame, describes shame as "the fear of disconnection" from other people which is underpinned by "excruciating vulnerability."  Shame is the experience of fearing that there is something about oneself that, if made known, will make one unworthy of connection with others.³

Like the protagonist, the shame-filled ghost has had a revelation of her own darkness, and she feels vulnerable.  She has seen herself for who she is and she is afraid of others' seeing her in the same light.  Regarding shame and vulnerability, the spirit tells her,
Don't you remember on earth - there were things too hot to touch with your finger but you could drink them all right?  Shame is like that.  If you will accept it - if you will drink the cup to the bottom - you will find it very nourishing: but try to do anything else with it and it scalds.

Brown, in her research, basically came to the same conclusion as the spirit.  "Whole-hearted people," people she describes as having "a strong sense of love and belonging," have learned to fully embrace vulnerability.  They are willing to be seen for who they are; they are willing to be imperfect; and they have the courage to share their lives honestly.  To them, what makes them vulnerable, makes them beautiful.⁴  To use the spirit's language, "whole-hearted people" drink their shame, and their vulnerability becomes for them a source of strength.

I think a lot of people reject the Church for the same reason that the shame-filled ghost tries to hide: they don't want to be seen as broken and flawed by a bunch of seemingly perfect people.  What they don't realize is that many Christians come to church every week wearing their "Sunday best" both literally and figuratively.  In other words, they've become skilled actors and liars, only pretending to be perfect.  Family members can scream at each other all throughout the car ride to church and then, at the moment they arrive at the church parking lot and open the car doors, act as though they just stepped out of a Norman Rockwell painting.⁵

With all my heart, I wish that churches were places where people could be healed of their shame, as they are meant to be.  Unfortunately, they have actually become breeding grounds for shame.  In some churches, image is everything, for some faults or mistakes just might get a person judged, shunned, or kicked out.  Such churches are places not where people become whole, but rather where people become better actors, thereby becoming more broken.

According to Brené Brown, "Empathy is the antidote to shame...  The two most powerful words when we're in struggle: 'Me too'"⁶  About those wonderful words of healing, Rob Bell writes,
When you're struggling, when you are hurting, wounded, limping, doubting, questioning, barely hanging on, moments away from another relapse, and somebody can identify with you – someone knows the temptations that are at your door, somebody has felt the pain that you are feeling, when someone can look into your eyes and say, "Me too," and they actually mean it – it can save you.⁷

The spirit from Heaven tries to comfort the shame-filled ghost in a "me-too" kind of way, saying, "We were all a bit ghostly when we first arrived, you know.  That'll wear off.  Just come out and try."  Later on, another spirit will say to another ghost, regarding the process of adapting to Heaven and becoming whole, "It's all right, we all had to do it."

English statesman Oliver Cromwell once said to the artist who was commissioned to paint his portrait,
I desire you would use all your skill to paint my picture truly like me, and not flatter me at all; but remark all these roughnesses, pimples, warts, and everything as you see me, otherwise I will never pay a farthing for it.⁸
Ever since I had my epiphany two years ago, I have tried to embrace a more "warts-and-all" approach to life.  I am trying to do my part to make the faith communities in which I participate to become places where people can embrace vulnerability and be healed of their shame.

If we want to embrace the life and community God has intended for us, we will have to "drink" our own shame and step into a place of vulnerability.  We can also work to cultivate honest, non-judgmental communities in which people may feel free to do the same.  People need to see our "warts" so that they're not afraid to reveal their own.


Notes:

1. Genesis 2:15-17
2. Genesis 3:6-8
3. Brené Brown.  "The Power of Vulnerability."  June 2010, TEDxHouston.
4. ibid
5. Brené Brown.  "Listening to Shame."  March 2012, TED2012.
6. I think I heard Jay Bakker describe one such scenario from his childhood.
7. Rob Bell and Don Golden.  Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for a Church in Exile.  2008, Zondervan.  pp. 151-152
8. Wikiquote: Oliver Cromwell

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Lenten Reflection: Swamp Water for the Soul

The following is the eighth in a series of reflections on The Great Divorce.
For more reflections on this work, check out the hub page for the series.

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Swamp Water for the Soul

A reflection on chapter 7 of C.S. Lewis's The Great Divorce

But to what will I compare this generation?  It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another,

"We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;

we wailed, and you did not mourn."

For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, "He has a demon"; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, "Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!"  Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.

Matthew 11:16-19 (NRSV)

We’re not cynics, we just don’t believe a word you say

We’re not critics, we just hate it all anyway

From "Cynics & Critics" by Icon for Hire

Not too long ago, on a late night talk show, comedian Louis C.K. made the observation, "Everything is amazing right now, and nobody's happy."  He watches people become angry when their smart phones freeze, and he wants to tell them, "Give it a second!  [The signal is] going to space!  Can you give it a second to get back from space?"  He hears people complain about their airplane flights, and he wants to ask them, "Oh really?  What happened next?  Did you fly through the air, incredibly, like a bird?  Did you partake in the miracle of human flight...?"¹

I think Louis C.K. has a point: people are way too negative when they have so many wonders to enjoy.

---

The protagonist realizes that if flowers cannot be picked and if grass cannot be bent, then the water is probably solid to him as well.  He begins running upstream on top of the water, but, when the current becomes too fast for him, he walks on the smooth rocks next to the stream.  He likes this new land, and he longs to stay.  Having overheard two conversations between ghosts from Hell and spirits from Heaven and having heard the waterfall's words to Ikey, he has come to the conclusion that if he were to stay in Heaven long enough he just might grow accustomed to the environment.

The protagonist runs into ghost whom he describes as a "hard-bitten man."  This person once traveled to many different wonders of the world, and he came to the conclusion that they're all a bunch of tourist traps built and run by the same global organization.  He finds the afterlife no less disappointing: Hell is just a dumpy town like any other, not at all the place of exquisite torment promised in Dante's Inferno, while Heaven is totally uninhabitable.  He has decided to head back to the bus, having seen all that he needs to see.

To the hard-bitten ghost, there are only two options: he can return to the slum of a town where he has been living or he can allow himself to be tricked into tormenting himself trying to get used to a hostile environment.  Basically, "You're damned if you do, and you're damned if you don't."  The hard-bitten ghost's words begin to weigh on the protagonist.  Trying to be positive he says, "At least it's not raining here."  The hard-bitten ghost replies,
I never saw one of those bright mornings that didn't turn to rain later on...  It hadn't occurred to you that with the sort of water they have here every raindrop will make a hole in you, like a machine gun bullet.  That's their little joke, you see.  First of all tantalize you with ground you can't walk on and water you can't drink and then drill you full of holes.

The protagonist's sadness turns to fear.

---

One day Jesus becomes rather frustrated with people's unwillingness to listen, so He calls them out for their negativity and stubbornness.  One of His contemporaries, a rather eccentric prophet named John, lived in the wilderness, wore weird clothes, ate weird foods, fasted often, and abstained from alcohol.  People dismissed him as a crazy, demon-possessed person.  Jesus, on the other hand, was quite different from John: He enjoyed wine and dinner parties with all kinds of people.  People dismissed Him as a drunkard and a glutton who hung out with the wrong crowd.  One can almost hear Jesus yelling out, "Nothing's good enough for you people!  What do you want?!"

Apparently what Louis C.K. has noticed about people is nothing new.

Cynicism has roots within ancient Greek philosophy.  Originally cynics were people who put aside worldly things to pursue inner virtues.  Over time, the concept of cynicism devolved into "an attitude of distrust toward claimed ethical and social values and a rejection of the need to be socially involved."  At it's best, it can be a type of prudent skepticism toward people's motives, but, at it's worst, it can be a type of negativity toward humanity in general.²

I think it's plain to see that the "hard-bitten" ghost with whom the protagonist speaks has given in to cynicism.  The conversation between these two ghosts offers us a number of lessons about cynicism and about negativity in general.

First of all, a person can always find a reason to be negative.  The hard-bitten ghost has seen numerous wonders of the world, both natural and man-made - the Pyramids of Egypt, the Taj Mahal, Niagara Falls, and other places many people would give their right arms to see up close - and somehow he has come to the conclusion that they're all just a bunch of tourist traps manufactured by some organization.  If a person doesn't want to see the good in anything, then she won't see the good in anything.

Second, cynicism has an adverse effect on one's faith.  The hard-bitten ghost doesn't trust the "management" in Heaven any more than he trusted those who wielded authority on Earth.  If there is nothing good to be found in the world, then what does that fact say about the God who created the world?  If one refuses to ever trust in other people, then why would one trust in the God who created those people in the image of God?  Furthermore, it seems to me that God has chosen to work primarily through the people God created.  St. Paul compares the Church to the "Body of Christ,"³ or, as some people say, Christ's "hands and feet."  If you shut yourself off to other people, then you're shutting yourself off to the agents of God.

Third, negativity can be an excuse to be lazy.  If a person is basically screwed no matter what he decides to do, then why would he bother to do anything?  Negativity is a spirit of "Why bother?"  Considering the choice between an uninhabitable Heaven and a stagnant Hell, the hard-bitten ghost says, "They've got you either way."  The protagonist asks him what he would like to do if he had the choice, and he replies that it's up to whoever is in charge to suit the public.  Why should he put forth the effort to make any decisions for himself when others have all the power to make any change?

Lastly, one's negativity can affect other people.  The hard-bitten ghost's attitude causes the protagonist to sink into depression, and he begins to wonder if he really is invited to stay in Heaven.  When the hard-bitten ghost suggests that they've all just been lured there only to be destroyed by the rain, the protagonist begins to question the motives of the spirits in Heaven.  Negativity has the same effect in the here-and-now.  Sometimes listening to negative people sucks the life out of me.  Other times, when I am surrounded by negative or cynical people, I find myself complaining more often or making more cynical statements, perhaps just to keep up.

I once read that cynicism can serve as a hard shell that protects a broken heart as it heals.⁴  Perhaps there is some truth to that notion, but cynicism is not meant to be the permanent state of a person's heart.  A scab provides a protective cover for a wound as it heals, but, once the wound has healed, the scab is meant to flake off.  Perhaps cynicism and negativity protect us from being hurt by people or disappointed by life, but, if we shield ourselves from the bad things in life, then we shield ourselves from all the good things as well.  Numbness is numbness.⁵

There is a popular series of books titled Chicken Soup for the Soul.  Drawing upon the therapeutic qualities of hot soup, the title implies that the stories contained therein will warm a person's heart.  I would compare negativity to dirty, contaminated swamp water for the soul.  It is a hardness of heart that prevents us from experiencing the blessings God desires for us.  May we be willing to lower our defenses so that we may be receptive to all the good that God has to offer us.  May we seek the healing of our wounds and not protection from the world around us.


Notes:

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEY58fiSK8E
2. Wikipedia: Cynicism (contemporary)
3. 1 Corinthians 12:27
4. Micah J. Murry.  "Confessions of a Recovering Cynic."  Relevant, June 27,2014.
5. Steven Blair.  "Elf More, Grinch Less."  The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection podcast, 12/22/2013.

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