What we do for ourselves dies with us. What we do for others and the world; remains and is immortal. – Albert Pine

If you could walk past the teachers’ lounge and listen in, what sorts of stories would you hear? An Iowa high school counselor gets a call from a parent protesting the C her child received on an assignment. “The parent argued every point in the essay,” recalls the counselor, who soon realized why the mother was so upset about the grade. “It became apparent that she’d written it.”  - Parents Behaving Badly, Time Magazine

It is not easy being a parent and it is not even easy being a kid.  Childhood as well as parenthood is rift with its own set of problems.  It would seem that the world has opened a floodgate of anxiety that has impacted both parents and their children.  The world has just gotten more in-your-face with technology taking massive strides in bringing its problems to your attention 24/7.  Is there no end?  I write this post with a deep sense of sadness towards the children of the future.  We may be asking them to take on too much and too fast.

I remember quite fondly when I was little, planting pumpkin seeds in the backyard and taking on the responsibility of watering them whenever the ground was dry.  I remember when the pumpkin plant blossomed that it was right to cut off all, but one blossom in order that the plant’s nutrients would go towards growing one pumpkin and not seven.  My sister and I did submit our pumpkin in the local plant nursery’s, “Autumn Festival Pumpkin Contest”.  No, we did not win first place that year (ours was the smallest pumpkin submited), but we had the joy of winning a ribbon for our patient efforts.  Maybe there is a lesson in all that.

No one expected that after placing the pumpkin seed into the ground and watering it, that it would spring up that very night.  Time must have its place to allow nature to run its course.  Children likewise are not a shopping mall, where you can simply walk in and come out with your desired merchandise.  Rather, our children are best represented by the garden.  The time and care we invest into our children yields a wonderful return over time, but it is our patience and effort that help them grow.  I am not sure where we lost it, but the term “commitment” has all but vanished from our societal expecatations.  With a consumer mentality, we are trained that our wants and needs can be gratified instanteneously.  It is this short-sighted expecation that has led to a rising dissatisfaction with “weathering through the storms”.  We see this continuously in the marriages that are torn apart through divorce (“how can you expect me to stay with someone I don’t love?”), the aggressive and often rude exchange by demanding customers (“I pay for this service and I want it now!”), drifitng friendships (“things just aren’t the same anymore.”) and the general attitude that tough challenges are meant to be ignored.  Of all the people who can benefit the most from our commitments, the first should be our children.  It has been our failure to endure through the hardships that has led to children themselves becoming non-commital on almost everything.  Our commitments are also a commentary on who we are as a person.  The things we devote our time, energy and care to tells the world who we are.

Next, I don’t ever think I came across a perfect pumpkin.  Sure there were big ones and small ones and odd shaped one, but never a perfect one.  Each pumpkin came with its inherent flaws and perfections.  We must realize as human beings we are privy to such “flaws and perfections” and even more so our children.  This is why it is so important to face things as they are.  No amount of wishful thinking or idealism will train our kids to grow up to be exemplary.  It is when we realize that our responisibily lies with training them, that we can get over a false sense of just “trying to be their friend”.  Kids need parents, they can get friends on the school playground.   I understand that a lot of parents just want what is best for their kids, but sometimes that means saying “no” to something they think is best for themselves.  Stop making excuses for your child’s misbehavior because then the child is left thinking that any excuse is justifiable for any wrong doing.   Saying “no” does not make you a bad parent, but leaving your child to raise themself does.  No child is equiped and ready to go the moment they enter this world, but that is why you are so important.  Never underestimate the value in not always giving children what they want, but supplying them with everything they need.  Children need food, shelter, a hug, someone to speak to, and heart that understands, but most importantly a parent.  They can’t give this to themselves, but you can.   I ask you to have the courage to be a parent and stand committed to the future, the future of your child.  We change the future through the children we leave behind.

The Picture of Dorian Gray has got to be one of my favorite books in the classics.  Set in the Victorian age, the reader is given glimpses into the life of the affluent upper class.  It is not the time period that is intriguing, but the main character, Dorian who finds himself making a Faustian gamble for eternal youth.  What would one do if they could stay young forever, and time with all its sins and flaws could be abated?

Oscar Wilde takes the imagination on a journey of the sensuous life and questions if a life lived in pleasure can truly be lived without consequence.  One of my favorite parts is the presenting of the portrait of the Dorian to the young boy himself:

“How sad it is!” murmured Dorian Gray, with his eyes still fixed on the portrait.  “How sad it is! I shall grow old, and horrible, and dreadful.  But this picture will remain always young.  It will never be older than this particular day of June. . . . If it were only the other way!  If it were I who was to be always young, and the picture that was to grow old!  For that –for that– I will give everything! Yes, there is nothing in the whole world I would not give!  I would give my soul for that!”

The Christian is always mindful that the desires unchecked lead the person’s own destruction.  This book will provide both illustration and thought to this aspect of man.  What role does the desires play in giving meaning to life?  Wilde himself having been known to make it an issue that man has only to figure out one thing in his life: whether he will be interesting and amusing or boring.  Given our age, would we say that the desires have gone mad (as if to say that the stars wander freely from their constellations) and what result in society at large has resulted from this freedom of the desires?   What importance does God place in the role of desires in men?  Why has society tended to make age a vice and youth, a virtue?  What is commendable about living a life that embraces all stages of life?  How does Oscar Wilde depict the nature of man?

These are just some of the questions that ought to challenge the Christian reader to further reflection and search for meaningful answers.  It is important to note, that there will always be a piece of Dorian Gray that crops up in every young generation.  Our challenge is not merely to face the problem of short-sightedness and sensuous living found amongst our youth, but to provide a coherent, bbiblical,  meaningful answer to the blessings of old age and clarify again the beauty of the self-disciplined individual.

In conlcusion, I think the reader will find this book both thought provoking, and shocking.  It stands as a wonderful literary accomplishment whose critique of the human’s proclivity towards endless pleasure will leave the reader in sad agreement.

Throughout my time on this earth, I have found that one of my most fruitful times were often when I found myself meditating on the things I would pick up and read.  At a very young age, one of my greatest passions were reading books.  I would often incur the jokes of my siblings for always having a book on hand or reading for extended periods of time in the vehicle during travel.

One of my favorite hangout places when I was younger was the public library.  It often served as a quiet sanctum from the worries and cares of day to day life.  It was always interesting to see that unspoken law of the library that “silence be observed at all times” being honored by adults and children.   I am afraid that now even librarians are worried about their relevance in an society that no longer needs to travel to the library to get its information.  That is a legitimate concern.    Consider this brief reminensce as a window into my passion for an area of learning that has challenged and grown my intellectual habits.

As a Christian, one of my greatest concerns for the Church is seeing a renaissance of learning that will open up new avenues of understanding specifically with a Christian view.  It is fascinating that in the past the seat of learning found itself grounded within the church and only given the last few centuries have we begun to see this shift into the secular arena.  The church’s relinquishing of ground in the academia has brought on a shattered visage of Christ’s church.  A secular society has all but decided that the Christian community has long since been bereft of the mind and that her appearance in the public square can be seen as nothing more than the forays of a fool.

This project that I hope to undertake (I just need to find the time to sit and write) will give thoughtful book suggestions.  It is often hard to navigate in the shifting sea of books that multiply daily.  If you are like me, you do not have the time to read books that will be a waste of time.  I find that often many Christian websites and blogs center their book reviews on current Christian books on the market.  These individuals’ efforts are truly a blessing and I find myself taking up some of their suggestions every now and then, but I have often worried about being too narrow in the prospects a Christian is willing to read.

One of the dangers is the chronic narrowing of one’s perspective.  Have you ever been engaged in a conversation and found yourself flummoxed by the fact that your not getting anywhere?  No matter how many times you seem to reiterate what it is your trying to put across you just cannot seem to connect.  I found myself in this predicament more than once, but I began to find that by starting where my listener was often gave us common ground to work with.  One of the ways to discover this common ground is knowing more about where your listener is coming from.  Books allow us to do just that.  They broaden our perspective and allow us address more fairly the listener’s concerns.

Another danger is irrelevancy.  Now by saying this I am not saying that the Christian church be all things to all people, but that the church truthfully engage where society is.  Dr. Ravi Zacharias made a point in saying that during World War II, one of the ploys that the U.S. Forces used against the German Nazis were the use of rubber dummies.  These rubber dummies would be deployed in certain areas of the battlefield to focus the enemy’s fire.  The goal was to both divert fire and to use up the enemy’s resources making it safe to land U.S. paratroopers in hostile places on the battlefield.  The question is simple: where is the church using its resources?  Have we been diverting our efforts towards things that do not meaningfully engage our congregations or the public at large?

Martin Luther, I think makes this issue clear:

If I profess with the loudest voice and clearest exposition every portion of the truth of God except precisely that little point which the world and the devil are at that moment attacking, I am not confessing Christ, however boldly I may be professing Christ.  Where the battle rages, there the loyalty of the soldier is proved, and to be steady on all the battlefield besides, is mere flight and disgrace if he flinches at that point.

I propose to set forth a growing book list that will not only account for only Christian classics or books (these are both edifying and necessary), but also books like the classics, sociology, science, philosophy and history (among other things).  The focus will always be towards a growing understanding of the Christian faith, but also with discourse along the broad spectrum of literature shared amongst a broader group of society.  I challenge you to be bold in reading some of these books (some of them may even come from people critical of the Christian faith), opposition can do one of two things: 1) keep you down 2) challenge you to rise to meet it.  I pray that it will be the second.  God bless.

Yet even so, truth is very beautiful; more so, as I consider, than justice–today’s pursuit–which easily puts on a false face.  In the nearly seven decades I have lived through, the world has overflowed with the bloodshed and explosions whose dust has never had time to settle before others have erupted; all in purportedly just causes.  The quest for justice continues, and the weapons and the hatred piled up; but truth was an early casualty.  The lies on behalf of which our wars have been fought and our peace treaties concluded! The lies of revolution and of counter-revolution! The lies of advertising, of news, of salesmanship, of politics!  The lie of the priest in the pulpit, the professor at his podium, the journalist at his typewriter!  The lie stuck like a fish bone in the throat of the microphone, the hand-held lies of the prowling cameraman!  Ignazio Silone told me once how, when he was a member of the old Comintern, some stratagem was under discussion, and a delegate, a newcomer who had never attended before, made the extraordinary observation that if such and such a statement were to be put out, it wouldn’t be true.  There was a moment of dazed silence, and then everyone began to laugh.  They laughed and laughed until tears ran down their cheeks and the Kremlin walls seemed to shake.  The same laughter echoes in every council chamber and cabinet room, wherever two or more are gather together to exercise authority.  It is truth that has died, not God. -Malcom Muggeridge, Chronicles of Wasted Time

I find it interesting that long before the tirade against Christianity issued forth from Neitzche’s pen.  Before the madman ever appeared on the cobblestone village streets with his lantern to prophecy the death of God.  History showed that we in many ways had the death of truth.  Even more interesting was the lack of show and pomp that followed Truth to her grave.  While the world was busy watching God’s funeral procession, no one stopped to play a lament for His forerunner: Truth.  I am sure that Truth’s sepulcher still stands with the words inscribed upon the headstone: Homo Mensura (man the measure).  Man once bound by order is chained in chaos.  God in men’s minds may have died, but I am sure that Dionysus (god of wine and gluttony) or Plutus (god of riches and wealth) will do us just fine.  Man may not look to these deities as gods, but all the better when they cannot be seen and acknowledged for what they are; their rule is sure to go on unchallenged.

I take my following thoughts from G.K. Chesterson, that tower of a man, whose eyes would see well beyond their times.  As with every revolution there is an emancipation.  Emancipation of both virtue and vice.  Remember though that emancipation does not necessarily mean freedom.  The former is to have been bound, but no longer; whereas the other, in its truest sense, is to never have been bound.  Chesterson is right to point out that with such revolutions both vice and virtue go mad.  Whereas justice was always accompanied by truth, both wander now freely.  Love in its excesses has turned erotic and abusive.  Gluttony in the mean time is no where to be seen. Aldrous Huxley in the Brave New World, envisioned that men would not be overcome by violent forces outside of them, but rather that men could be chained by their own desires.  Our age has seen no freedom (men will never be autonomous) no matter how loudly they cry.

G.K. Chesterson is most insightful at this point.  With the madness of virtue came their excess.  Humility is not lost among men, but glorified.  We fault pride for having made men unwilling to acknowledge the truth, but why not his modesty?  Is it not heard loudly in halls of learning, “But even I don’t know. . .”  In hopes of being humble, he modestly makes no claims.  What right do I have to to say such things? It is said that if one were to take two crabs and place them in a crate with no lid one would not need to fear that they would escape.  If you observe closely, whenever one crab attempts to climb out the other pulls it back in.  Neither escapes.  So it is with man.  In his demand for humility he has demanded all be as he is.  Humility if we have not noticed has changed her name as of late: tolerance.   Could it be that fear of pride stops us from claiming any inheritance?  Is knowing to great that in claiming to know I have sided for arrogance?  Maybe for some it is the pride of humility unchecked that willingly brandishes the sword of skepticism.  We play to this madness when we punctuate our statements with, “Well, that is just my opinion or feeling. . .”

We should not fail to notice that it is in Christianity that we can lament such loses of virtue.  I am afraid that for the materialist or atheist not one tear can be shed.  Their world cannot justify such noble things.  What is love if not a chemical reacting to another one?  Justice, that act whose purpose means nothing more than survival?   Truth, which can only be that which works?  It leaves both nature bereft of wonder and man bereft of greatness.  To the atheist we must ask why care if we believe in God, if nature is free to determine us in this way?  Why argue when even your arguments cannot change this natural fate?  Dust to dust, ashes to ashes. Nature made me this way.  This shall be the greatest defense and who can argue?  Nature makes a savage god, and she has not made man “a little lower than the angels”, but rather lower than dirt.  For at least dirt is not aware of its futility, but for this man is most to be pitied.

To the atheist we have only to ask how they propose to bandage such deep wounds?  Their world makes no place for man.  It was the French poet, Eustache Deschamps, who penned this dirge:

Why are the times so dark

Men know each other not at all,

But governments quite clearly change

From bad to worse?

Days dead and gone were more worth while,

Now what holds sway? Deep gloom and boredom,

Justice and law nowhere to be found,

I know no more where I belong.

I know no more where I belong. That is the cry of our age.  With the death of truth came the death of man. Men must rediscover truth or any act to survive is useless.  Truth when it can take its rightful place amongst the virtues is then able to bless all God’s creations.  We read:

So Pilate entered his headquarters again and called Jesus and said to him, “Are you the King of the Jews?”  Jesus answered, “Do you say this of your own accord, or did others say it to you about me?” Pilate answered, “Am I a Jew? Your own nation and the chief priests have delivered you over to me. What have you done?”  Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If my kingdom were of this world, my servants would have been fighting, that I might not be delivered over to the Jews. But my kingdom is not from the world.” Then Pilate said to him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate said to him, “What is truth?”

After he had said this, he went back outside to the Jews. . .

If only Pilate had stopped to listen to the answer, I am certain that he would have heard Jesus’ simple answer: ““I am the way, and the truth, and the life.”  For man he road back to truth begins with a cross.

You know they say that the color of a rose often symbolized something.  Most often adorn their loved one’s graves with white flowers, but I wonder why not others?  For the lavender rose it meant enchantment, white for innocence and purity, pink the symbol of elegance and grace, yellow for happiness and warmth and orange for desire and enthusiasm.  However, it is the red rose that symbolizes the best of love when given to our loved ones.  Do you think that Truth would like red roses?

I think they will do just fine.

Deception

The most recent headlines in Austria are centered on Josef Friztl, a 74 year old man notorious for having imprisoned his own daughter in the cellar for 25 years. He repeatedly raped his daughter and fathered seven children by her, likely killing one of his twin sons then burning the remains.  As the details come forth we cannot help but find ourselves riveted by the tragedy of this young life who was victimized and violated.  I find it no surprise that the famous F.B.I. behavior profilist, John Douglas in his book, Mind Hunters, confessed that one of the  underlying questions both victims and profilists face in understanding the killer/rapist, is “why”?  What does it take for a man to rape or the woman kill?  I want to suggest and hopefully develop for you the case that postmodern man, through his own ambition for autonomy has divorced himself from reality.  It is this great divorce that has led to a time where political correctness shapes for us what it is we tolerate and accept.

A powerful thing words are.  They give us the means by which we can conceive and understand the world we live in.  Words are the windows by which we are able to see the world, but it is not always clear at times that the words we use to describe the reality we face actually describe it.  We have a word for this misleading: deception.  The CIA has a term that is used amongst the intelligence community to speak of the perception of giving useful information to a source while not disclosing important information: disinformation.  How much of what we read, see or listen to is disinformation?   I think even the word “disinformation” can rightfully be called deception.

All Relative?

An underlying philosophical assumption seems to perpetuate the acceptance of these “deceptions” so often spoken loudly of by the politicians, academics, scientists and (sadly) religious leaders.  It is called relativism.  Relativism basically states that truth is relative and that there is no true truth or absolute.  You and I encounter this line of thinking when in the midst of a serious discussion we hear “well, what you believe is fine for you and it works for you, but I believe. . .”  There is no monopoly on truth.  We are stuck with our preferences, that although may be contrary to one another, are equally valid.  You and I are to see the virtue of this approach as charitable, the playground ethic of “play fair” spread out to embrace far more than sharing the ball between little Tommy and Susan.

Herein is where the problem lies.  In saying that there is no truth and that it is all relative are you not stating a truth, namely that there is no truth?  The contradiction is catastrophic and yet we live everyday in the midst of a culture that has made such thinking a virtue.  Allan Bloom in his book, The Closing of the American Mind, has this to say about relativism and its inundation into the classroom:

The student , of course, cannot defend their opinion [that is relativism]. It is something with which they have been indoctrinated.  The best they can do is point out all the opinions and cultures there are have been.  What right, they ask, do I or anyone else have to say one is better than the other?  If I pose the routine questions designed to confute them and make them think, such as, “if you had been a British administrator in India, would you have let the natives under your governance burn the widow at the funeral of a man who had died?,” they either remain silent or reply that the British should never have been there in the first place.  It not that they know very much about other nations, or about their own.  The purpose of their education is not make them scholars but to provide them with a moral virtue–openeness.

. . . The point is not to correct the mistakes and really be right; rather it is not to think you are right at all. (p.26)

A World of Water

The attitude of indifference has led to this predicament we now find ourselves in.  When words are no longer used to speak truthfully of reality, but are used to manipulate it or change it then we ultimately end up alienating ourselves. I want to draw upon an illustration from the late Francis Schaeffer (The God Who is There) that I think will drive my point.

Imagine that you are in a room with no windows or doors.  You are simply surrounded on all six sides by walls.  Let us then fill this room up with water so that it becomes an aquarium and we will call this room “the World”.  In this world we will place man with the ability to swim around in it and give him gills so that he can breath, this is the world that man exists in.  Then let us empty the room of all its water and leave not one drop.  What do you think happens to the man who has lived in world of water?  He dies.

This is where you and I find ourselves.  A world deprived of water and man incapable of existing in this foreign environment.  Relativism, political correctness and even tolerance has manufactured an artificial reality.  It reminds us that the soul of man can still die while he yet lives.

So we know that the words we use were intended to reflect reality and when the words cease to reflect reality they deceive us.  When the words we use embrace relativism they breed apathy, and political correctness deceives by making reality into something other than it is (disinformation).

We Still Need Sin?

To return to the Fritzl case that I started with, can we not say that it is in our courtrooms where we find lawyers manipulating words in order to justify the heinous acts of the criminal.  Should it not disturb us that in the one place where justice was intended to be served, people are being led to carry out anything but justice.  Rudolf Mayer, the defense for Josef Fritzl, has dared the impossible by stating:

He’s not trying to pretend that he’s innocent. All he’s saying is that he isn’t a killer, that he’s not a monster. It’s important to realize that he did evil things because of his illness. Of course people want to portray him as a monster. But he’s also human, and there was another side to him. He was a Jekyll and Hyde. What he did was logical, and showed intelligence in the sense that he’s clever and cunning and carried out his plans to the letter. But he was driven by a dark side which he couldn’t control.  Of course he’s sick and suffering from a psychiatric illness, otherwise he wouldn’t have done these things. We’re planning a defense of insanity.

We know that words are trying to change the reality of the situation when the defense finds that it can only resort to a plea of insanity in order to justify such heinous acts.  The defenses assumption is explicit, “it is all in how you look at it.”  Think for a moment though, if a heinous act like incest and rape can be categorized as acts of insanity then why not small ones?  When I lie knowingly, is there not a sense of insanity that goes into claiming something that is not?  When I act out in anger am I not at the moment acting insane and not in control of my better senses?  Should I be absolved from any consequences that may result from my acts of insanity?  I couldn’t help it, I was insane at the time.  We know this to be a wrong plea because it does not reflect the reality of the situation.

In an article found in TIME magazine entitled, “Sin & Psychology”, the researcher Hobart Mowrer told a gathering of 7,000 psychologist that maybe sin is necessary to explain the predicament that men find themselves in:

We psychologists. have largely followed the Freudian doctrine that human beings become emotionally disturbed, not because of their having done anything palpably wrong, but because they instead lack insight. We have set out to oppose the forces of repression and to work for understanding. [This leads to] the discovery that the patient or client has been, in effect, too good, that he has within him impulses. especially those of lust and hostility, which he has been unnecessarily inhibiting. And health, we tell him, lies in recognizing and expressing these impulses.

There is a very tangible and very present hell on this earth. It is this—the hell of neurosis and psychosis—to which sin and unexpiated guilt lead us. If it proves true that certain forms of conduct characteristically lead to emotional instability, what better or firmer basis would one wish for labeling such conduct as destructive, self defeating, evil, sinful?

. . . not only have we disavowed the connection between manifest misconduct and psychopathology, we have also very largely abandoned belief in right and wrong, virtue and sin.

It should interest us when psychologists have found that maybe the category of sin should not be abandoned.  I do admit that the article claims that Mowrer does not imply by the usage of sin to  mean the “salvationist’s vision”, but I only ask how else are we to take it?  If sin best expresses the “illnesses” many people suffer from then why the guarded statements?  Could it be that such frankness would be too insulting to his fellow collegues or an instance of a slight slip into political correctness?  I will not further speculate.

Christ, Greater Than All These

I end with this.  The thing that makes tragedy so tragic is the hopelessness that the character finds herself in.  In a way the fairy tales of younger year speak more truly to the human’s deepest longing than many people are willing to admit.  Cinderella needs her prince charming.  Snow White her true love to break the spell which bound her in the throes of deathly sleep.  The Beast was in need of that lady to bestow love’s true kiss.  They enthrall because the bear out our own existential situation.  It was Jesus Christ who stands out in the midst of history to proclaim to man his situation.  In the chapter of John we read:

And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil. For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed. But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God.

It was a man not a concept that proclaimed salvation.  It was not our works, but his that would deliver us from this present evil of sin.  It is only in Christianity that one will find redemption through a man and not a strenuous enactment of ritual and sacrifice.  It was Francis Schaeffer who said that if the world is created by God then it is the height of irrationality for men to live as though He did not exist.  The Apostle Paul was right to say that  “the wages of sin is death”.  The spouse suffering guilt from having betrayed the other in exchange for a fling that promised at the time satisfaction.  The  child who is ashamed to have dishonored the parent in the name of his own sought freedom.  The pain experienced at the seperation of two life-long friends at the hands of a misplaced hatred.  These all have one root: sin.  This one term envelops all evils, and its consequences leading to a death long before the body has expired into the ground.  I am thankful that the apostle Paul in the same passage where he proclaims sin’s consequences punctuates the sentence with “but”, “but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Rom. 6:23)  The tradegy is not so much a tragedy when there is a savior.  We know this to be true in any situation we label tragic.  What is that which could have left us satisfied?  What could have turned our disappointments?  A savior.  Christianity is not a fairy tale, myth or a tragedy, but it is greater than all those.