Some unpublished thoughts
A reclamation of February
Dear S.
I went a month without writing, but not without thinking. Some days I had an essay in me and had to run off to work — a frustrating ordeal that left me with only fragments. Other times I was dead as a doorknob, or the ideas I wanted to share couldn’t be put into words. What I had left had no place to go, so I'll leave it here — a compendium of ideas which fit almost nowhere, but are too fun to let go into nothing.
Yours,
-J
1) Proverbs aren’t for fools, and one reason we know this is because proverbs about fools are the fool's favorite proverbs.
He passes up all the sayings about patience, and hard work, or keeping your mouth shut, and instead shares the ones making fun of idiots — the one thing he believes he isn’t. That’s what defines him as a fool in the first place: the mistaken belief in his own wisdom, and the corollary refusal to learn. He passes up the true insights about character and perspective and hangs on tight to a label. He’s the only one who doesn’t know it doesn’t fit him.
A proverb a fool can enjoy (NIV): The Lord detests the way of the wicked,
but he loves those who pursue righteousness.
A proverb a fool avoids: A gentle answer turns away wrath,
but a harsh word stirs up anger.
2) People who love women don't need a day to celebrate famous women. They can look right next to them and know that without women life wouldn't be worth living.
3) Some people say that reading anti-Christian literature will destroy your faith; but I think if you’re afraid to read it, you didn’t have much faith to begin with. It’s an implicit confession that you think somebody has an argument and you won’t be able to find an answer. You just admit it in advance, even before hearing what the argument is.
A real and robust faith would be exactly the opposite, I think: a belief that obstacles are only obstacles and not impassable barriers; that God's in control no matter what anybody says; and that He might not change, but your understanding of Him is limited and therefore has to. This effectively means wrong ideas have to die off; and in order for them to die off, you have to be hurt for a bit — at the very least content with accepting God as a mystery. Being afraid of this is somewhat excusable, I think; but it’s still cowardly.
Still, I don’t believe belief in God is usually what’s being challenged by the skeptics anyway. Abraham had faith in God. Moses and Paul had faith in God. This is because they (allegedly) met God. You? You have to have faith in Paul — and beside Paul, faith in the innumerable, faceless horde of prophets, authors, scribes, kings, councils and random Christians who passed Abraham, Moses, and Paul to you. Thus what the common apologist explains and defends today isn’t God Himself, but these people and the books they wrote. In short, the common apologist usually defends The Bible.
4) Pushing boundaries is a test of power, but also a sign of insecurity. It not only says, what can I get away with? but, will this person stick with me?
5) Nature only gives you so much spotlight on God; and a God you can’t know is a God you can’t love, follow, or count on. Like Jesus said, God sends his rain on the wicked and the just — which means He seems to lack a sense of justice. Life ends horribly for all of us, which means God seems to lack a sense of mercy. Nature is both beautiful and horrific, which seems to imply God designs both good and evil. You can call out and God won’t answer audibly, which suggests God doesn’t care about you personally. And shorn of an afterlife, in a universe which is winding down and a planet which is blowing up, it’s easy to believe God has no purpose.
Christianity as stated in the Bible says almost exactly the opposite. It says that God is all good, and that He answers everyone who really seeks Him. It says He let the planet run away from Him so that we could miss Him and He could chase us. It says He hates evil and that He’s coming to judge it. It says that we’ve all screwed up and that He can save us if we ask Him. And most importantly, I think, it says that everything we suffer here on earth is designed to help us; and that what He’s going to give us is better than anything we ever had, have, or ever hope to experience.
This is why we fight over the Bible. It's the difference between hope and despair. When we say "the whole Bible is the word of God" we're not saying we hang on to every verse in Leviticus. We're just scared to lose any aspect of God's graciousness. Our hope lies not in the world we see, but in what we’ve been told.
6) The smarter you are, the easier it is to know when people are smarter than you, or better educated on some subject — and to shut up and listen. Stupid people don't have this quality. They have a vague idea when someone is smarter, but it shows up more in jealousy and a spirit of rivalry than in deference. Their self-confidence is usually bulletproof. They don't know when to bow out.
7) Aging has the tendency to turn you into a reductio ad absurdum. Never got tired of chasing women? Now you’re a lecher. Had your way for too long? Now you’re a domineering old bat. Had a few gripes? Now you’re a shrike. Don’t like washing your feet? Now you smell like a dead animal. Don’t like stretching? Now you’re a log.
The key to aging isn’t to avoid becoming somebody else. It’s to not become too much of yourself.
8) The saints like to say that everybody is the same, so love them. But it could just as easily be said that everybody is the same, so fear them. To share the essential features with Mother Theresa is to share the essential features with Joseph Stalin, or Jeffrey Dahmer. In the end it’s all a wash.
9) Whenever meeting someone new, everybody who’s beautiful goes through a honeymoon phase — and a phase of disillusionment usually follows. The personality suffers a reconciliation with the face. Few characters can match what a good face suggests.
10) My objection to theology as a bunk science sounds complex, but in fact it’s simple. I just object to the boiling of God to a reductio ad absurdum — the idea that “the Bible says this, therefore He cannot be that.” We took Whitman seriously when he said I contain multitudes and immediately forgot to give God, the creator of sex and laughter, the possibility of mood swings. We find a verse and try to cram Him into a box. The God of the universe is vibrant, surprising, mysterious, wild. The God of the theologians is autistic.
