Who deserves to be unhappy?
And other random thoughts
Dear T,
A few thoughts on…
The Imago Dei.
When do people call us "the image of God”? They say it when they don’t want us to hang someone, or they want you to feed him, or to clothe him. But they never say it when they want you to honor him.
Maybe someone bearing the image of God should be carried around on a litter, or bowed at when he enters the room, or sang to, or paid gifts. The Japanese (so far as I can tell) come closest to this ideal and so far they’re the most resistant to the Gospel. They are also the most likely to kill themselves when they fail to personify dignity. Our policy of dignity and honor covers only the extremes and not the vast majority of life. It’s a political program masquerading half-heartedly as a religious policy.
We stop short and suffer being called hypocrites because we have to. We catch glimpses of God sometimes in the speech, in the gait, in the doings of a man. The sheer abundance of men in turn negates the image of God. We say, he’s like God, so treat him well. But we can’t give the best to everyone, and this poverty in affection is the very thing that makes us like the devil.
We are less an image of God and more of a caricature. We are the desire of godhood, a dream of it — a cartoon of God placed in the body of a monkey. The closest we can come to Christianity is believing a stranger is somebody’s kid.
Winning on the first try.
I was told this week that in some studies, one person was told to make the most perfect clay jars, time be damned, and the other to make as many clay jars as fast as possible. In the end, what they found was that the guy who spat out the most jars willy-nilly had the best jars.
The truth here is bigger than “practice makes perfect,” or “if you want to be good at something, be willing at first to suck at it.” When we look at creators outside the lab, what we find is that most people who suck at first don’t really care. The toddler says “look mom!” because his painting is his baby. He's in love not with the thing in itself, but in the fact that he made it. The same can be said for almost anyone who first dresses himself, or sings, or writes a story.
A man who’s in love with his own power will keep creating until he makes something worth loving. We suck not because we're brave, but because we’re enamored. We practice not because we have to be the best. Our work (to us) is already the best. We practice because we have to be.
The best artists are all in love.
An implicit insult.
The reason men get upset about other religions isn't because the other religions are false. It’s because the others imply their own religion isn’t true. Another worldview, another doctrine, another claimed miracle, is an affront to one’s own. It means, on its face, that your prophet is a liar, and you’re probably a sucker.
A truly religious point can’t be reasoned out. You either trust the source or you don’t. Thus apologetics isn't about proving a particular fact. It’s about removing obstacles to credit.
Deserving unhappiness.
The three most consistently unhappy people are the ungrateful, the unmerciful, and the anxious. The ungrateful person ignores what’s in front of him. The unmerciful person hangs on to what’s behind him. The anxious man dwells in a future that’s unlikely to happen to him.
The sovereignty of man.
We’re told there’s a divine will, and that “nothing falls to the ground without our Father’s permission.” And then we’re told to choose right, to right wrongs, to plan ahead, to hold back when it’s more fun to spend — to refuse, as it were, the situation God has given us.
A man can be a Calvinist in theory, but never in practice. The sovereignty of God is a phrase and a theory: the agency of man is our religion — a policy.
We say “God is in charge” when we can’t do anything about something, or we’re not sure whether a plan will work. When we can do something and we refuse to do something, we call each other godless (James 1:27; 2:14-19; 4:17).
Hot and cool.
A hot person is somebody people want to have sex with. A cool person is somebody on the cutting edge of style. A hot person never has to be cool to attract partners, but all coolness is an attempt to be hot — to paint yourself, artificially, with colors Mother Nature refused to. It’s the intellect making up for the defects of the body: a fat girl with a personality. In a competition between hot and cool, hot usually wins.
Coolness is also bound by time — a blip in history. Hotness is eternal. The nude Italian statues will always turn people on. Despite his past reputation as a ladies’ man, nobody could say the same for a statue of Mick Jagger.
Montaigne says on the subject,
It is not reasonable that art should win the place of honor over our great and powerful mother Nature. We have so overloaded the beauty and richness of her works by our inventions that we have quite smothered her. Yet wherever her purity shines forth, she wonderfully puts to shame our vain and frivolous attempts: […]
All things, says Plato, are produced by nature, by fortune, or by art; the greatest and most beautiful by one or the other of the first two, the least and most imperfect by the last.
Religious mandates.
The tendency is for people to read Christ’s commandments and take them literally, but most uniquely Christian teachings are balanced out, if not canceled, by others — oftentimes by the same person. Taken together, there is no religious mandate to turn into a monk.
Christ says to turn the other cheek, and then to take a brother to court. He says to give to everyone who asks of you, and Paul says you’d better give to your own family first. Christ says to preach the Gospel to the whole world — but shut up for the swine. John says God loves the whole world, and Paul curses everyone who doesn’t love Christ. Christ says God will clothe you like the lilies of the field, who neither toil nor spin, so don’t worry. Paul says He who does not work shall not eat. Christ says to be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect — and He who loves His life must lose it; but Solomon says don’t be overly righteous; why should you kill yourself?
What we find in the end is that Christianity is just common sense with a strong touch of faith and generosity: it says be brave, but don’t be reckless; be generous, but be orderly; be honest, but temper it with grace — and don’t waste it on the unworthy. Go to law, but speak to an enemy about it first. Work like God is your boss, but don’t be in love with the money. Don’t judge others, for you’re guilty of the same things — but maybe watch who you keep company with. A slew of commands so balanced that any pagan could love them.
A footnote on the last section.
Christ says the way is hard and narrow, and there are few who find it. He then says my way is easy and my burden is light.
What does this mean? That if you’re supposed to earn it, you’re a goner. If God gives it freely to you and you accept it, you’re gonna make it. Christianity is the only religion in the world where if you try to be the hero, you end up being the villain.
A Christian doesn’t shine like the sun. He reflects The Light like a mirror.
A question of fertility or virility.
A man’s nature limits what he can write about and what he can’t. We are more prolific, more profound, more eloquent when we feel things about something — not when we think things about something. The smarter a man is, the more he knows when he’s got things to write and when he needs to shut up.
Nora Ephron writes, in her preface to Crazy Salad — a short, fun and insightful book on the feminists of the 1970’s,
I began writing a column about women in Esquire magazine in 1972. The column was my idea, and I wanted to do it for a couple of specific, self-indulgent reasons and one general reason. Self-indulgent specifics first: I needed an excuse to go to my tenth reunion at Wellesley College, and I was looking for someone to pay my way to the Pillsbury Bake-Off. Beyond that, and in general, it seemed clear that American women were going through some changes; I wanted to write about them and about myself. When I began the column, the women’s movement was in a period of great activity, growth, and anger; it is now in a period of consolidation. The same is true for me, and it has something to do with why it has become more and more difficult for me to write about women. Also, I’m afraid, I have run out of things to say.
By “consolidation” she meant cooling — infertility. She and the movement were just past the age of bearing. And she knew when she had something beautiful to say and when to shut up. One of the hallmarks of wisdom, I think.
Dirty hands and lying mouths.
There is a deal-making nature: a closer, a builder. Not a brick-layer, but a seer of the need for men who make mortar, and trowels, and clay, and kilns — something much more than a laborer. A dreamer of labor and projects. What Marx slanders and belittles as “the bourgeoisie.” What Christians realize as a dreamer of good things — a child of god. In six days he creates a universe without lifting a finger.
“Dirty hands, clean money” is a lie. There are mechanics who screw around, and cheat. There are dreamers who deserve to be rich.
The odds are good and the goods are odd.
Much gets said about women chasing rich men. Little is said about how women who make money their first priority are some of the worst women to marry. There are many rich men with horrible marriages. It’s better to be poor and have a woman love you for yourself. You gain money and the money puts love in question.
A rich man knows he can always get another woman. But a rich man never knows whether he actually owns his own.
Yours,
-J