much ado about not much at all

And so I find myself working a full time job. It's one of the last things (apart from joining a convent or the military) that I would have predicted or desired for myself, and even now I often find myself wishing I was on a different path, and wondering why I'm not. (I suppose this seems weird, in a world where the norm is for girls to pursue a career of some form or another; but that is a topic for another day.) However, I can begin to see how, if I were to spend all my time keeping house, reading, writing, and doing the other things I used to think I was going to do with myself, I would probably become too comfortable, and lose sight of the need for continued growth. Stagnation never does much toward saving the world.

Sometimes I am mildly perturbed, for reasons varying widely in their degree of selfishness, by the sadly deficient nature of my appearance. But then I think to myself, you know, if I were beautiful at all, I would run a high risk of becoming intolerably vain about it. Not to say that I'm not vain enough as it is. I am, to be sure, but my current vanity is tempered by the constant reminder that it has no basis in reality. So in the end, it's probably more of a blessing than a curse, even though it's easier to see it the other way around.

Often, what looks like a disaster, or at least a disappointment, is actually the best possible thing that could have happened. Actually, scratch that part about "often". Make it always. Several well-known and oft-quoted verses come to mind:
"And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose." (Romans 8:28)
"For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the LORD, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope." (Jeremiah 29:11)
"Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you; but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ's sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy." (1 Peter 4:12-13)
"And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; and perseverance, character; and character, hope." (Romans 5:3-4)
And there are more...but you get the idea.

Now, perhaps you are thinking to yourself, "This is all true, and certainly it is glorious and wonderful and well worth reminding ourselves of; but it's not a very original thing to devote a blog post to." (Not that blog posts have to be original--mine are living (or dead) proof of that.) Well, the abnormal part of this train of thought is still coming, so keep your shirt on.

It's entirely possible that I am the only person in the history of mankind to have felt this particular way; at least, I don't recall ever hearing anyone else speak of it in my presence. So perhaps I am sticking my neck out here; perhaps this is the testing point, the point at which clinical insanity is diagnosed, the point of no return. Maybe they'll name a whole new species of mental instability after me. That would be one way to go down in history, though I can think of a few better. Curing the common cold, for example, or inventing disposable clothing. But I digress.

The thing is that, though knowing and believing that God really does work all things (including unpleasantnesses, if that's a word) for good is a tremendous comfort, my appallingly sinful nature has found a way to shade even this truth with grey, and twist it into something it's not. Observe:

-My primary "goal" (if you want to call it that) in life is to be a wife and mother, a keeper at home; and that's what I think it should be. But sometimes I think I want it too much, and then it begins to seem likely that God will see fit to re-organize my priorities by causing me to live out my days as an old maid.

-I think it would be rather disappointing and difficult, not to mention boring, to be rich. So sometimes I think that I will probably inherit a prosperous diamond mine, or marry a multi-millionaire, in order to learn patience, temperance, wise generosity, and...who knows what else.

-I hate city driving, and I would miss the sunset and the stars dreadfully; so in order to remove distractions and fix my mind more firmly on things that actually matter, perhaps God has a long-term city dwelling in my future. Probably a high-rise apartment in downtown Chicago, with one window, no yard, and noisy traffic 24/7. Ouch.

-I think it would be fun to have twins, so I probably won't.

-I would rather not be burnt at the stake, so I probably will.

-In the unlikely event that there is someone out there who is simultaneously godly enough for me to want to marry him, and crazy enough to want to marry me, I suppose he will have a bent towards know-it-all-ism, will hate reading and love rap, will have an annoying Boston accent, and will have a last name starting with G. (Cursive G's are such a plague.) All of those things would be somewhat difficult to live with, but I'm sure I would learn all kinds of valuable things through the experience (and I mean that).

Do you see the pattern? In all these things, I keep in mind (quite sincerely) that God can and will use everything He does in my life for my good. I acknowledge, pretty readily, that the things I think I want are often inferior to the things I actually need, and that God knows the difference between the two infinitely better than I do. My problem is that I start to assume that He will pretty much always use the most unpleasant means available to teach me the things I need to learn. I begin to subconsciously feel that, although the end result will be good, God would like me to suffer as much as possible between now and then...just because.

It's a subtle perversion of the truth, because God's ways aren't our ways, and often they really are painful and unpleasant to endure. And really, if God does see fit for me to be a rich, apartment-dwelling old maid until I am finally burnt at the stake in my old age, He will have done me no wrong. The problem isn't with the hypothetical situation, but with my arrogance and lack of trust in attempting to predict God's plan, and in assuming it will be everything I hope it's not.

I suppose I make myself sound like a confirmed and irrevocable pessimist. The redeeming quality all this absurdity has to it, is that it is almost always subconscious, half-hearted, and semi-jocular. So why do I write about it at such length? Good question.

So. How about it? Am I off my onion? Well, duh...

Why

Black. White.
Stop. Go.
Right. Wrong.
Why is it seldom so easy?

Light and dark.
Good and evil.
Life and death.
They cannot coexist. The division is clear and unyielding.
Why do we have such a hard time seeing it?

Smudged lines and vague instructions aren't the problem. God didn't create a muddled universe. He didn't make the rule book a cryptic and complicated mess, in hopes that we'd mess up in our efforts to figure out how to play the game. He didn't set us up to fail.
The problem isn't the way the lines are drawn. The problem is with our eyes.

Given the clearest possible instructions--"of this tree you shall not eat"--we still managed to rebel, and now we see all as through a glass, darkly. Truth is still truth, and it's written on our hearts, whether we want to see it or not. Good is good, and evil is evil. There is no grey area; no middle ground.

I think what messes us up--even when, by the Spirit's power, our eyes start to open--is that in our quest for righteousness, we're usually looking for the wrong thing. What we'd really like to find is a step-by-step guide to holiness through external obedience. This action always takes precedence over that action. The less you talk, the less trouble you'll be in. Work always comes before play. Mercy always trumps justice. We may not like them much, but regulations are relatively easy to obey. Hard-and-fast laws of good behavior make life simple, comfortable...and hollow.

In the grand scheme of things, it's pretty easy for me to lift the corners of my mouth into a smile, wrap my fingers around a doorknob, and hold the door open for the lady behind me at the store. It's even possible, without exerting an enormous amount of energy (most days), to do so while feeling quite pleasant about it inside. I feel I have done well. It was the right thing to do, and I did it. Do I really think that's all it takes to please God? I'd like to think that, but I know I'm wrong.

I ask myself, then...Why do I do what I do? Why do I do even a simple "good deed" like opening the door for a stranger? I can think of about a million wrong answers.
Maybe I want the lady I'm helping to admire me and think what a nice person I am.
Maybe I want the young couple in the checkout aisle (who I hope are watching) to notice what I'm doing and think what a nice person I am.
Maybe someone in the general vicinity knows someone else that I know and want to impress, and I'm hoping news of my good deed will eventually get around to the that person.
Maybe I am pleased at the level of sanctification I have evidently now reached.
Maybe it just makes me feel good to remind myself what a nice person I'm capable of being.
Maybe I'm imagining the lady is a queen of some distant land, and obviously you open doors for queens of distant lands.
Maybe I feel guilty for snapping at my brother this morning, and now I've redeemed myself.
Maybe I was rigorously trained as a small child to always open doors for people behind me at stores, and I'm still afraid of being spanked if I don't.
Maybe I'm paranoid about bad karma catching up with me.
Maybe someone told me last week what a courteous young lady I am, and I feel I must keep up that reputation.
Maybe I'm upset with myself for being so discourteous in the past, and I'm doing penance by opening as many doors for people as I can find in an hour.
Maybe I missed lunch, and I'm hoping the lady has a granola bar or two in her purse that she'll feel like sharing if I'm nice.
Maybe...a thousand other things.

But there's only one right answer.
The lady behind me at the store was made in the image of God, and He has commanded me to honor His image by loving her as I love myself. God sent His only son to live and die in my place, to ransom me from the pit of hell and bring me instead to eternal life in His presence. Out of thankfulness for what He has done, how can I not offer myself as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God? My chief end in life is to glorify and serve my God forever. If I love Him, I will keep His commandments.

How often I do what looks like the right thing. How seldom I do it for the right reason.

1 Samuel 16 : 7b
For the Lord does not see as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.

Colossians 3 : 23
And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men.

1 Corinthians 10 : 31
Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

Edit

to the post-before-last:

I might have decided that I actually like Batman better than Spidey. It may never be official, but we have watched both recently, and that is my inclination at the moment.

The sky is falling! The sky is falling!

The Song of the Salesman

I was going through some old papers yesterday, and found this little song I made up years ago. Probably the only truly great thing I've ever written. If you feel so disposed, you can sing it to the tune of "If you're happy and you know it".

This is all you need to make your life complete!
Even though it doesn't work it's really neat!
See, it's packaged so inviting,
Don't those colors look exciting?
And that price you thought so fright'ning
Can't be beat!

batman-inspired bunny trails

It's too bad Batman is a fictional character, because if he was real, I think I could tell him why he has such a hard time keeping Gotham City clean. Actually, it would be sort of nice if Batman were real even if I didn't have anything especially relevant to say to him. If there's one thing this world needs more of, it would have to be young multimillionaires who dress up as large, black bats at night and chase criminals in and out of dark alleys and parking lots. There's always room on the streets for another batmobile or two.

I have singled out Batman in spite of the fact that I would tend to like Spiderman better. This is because, while other superheroes (like Superman and Spidey) exist primarily to protect the largely innocent population from outlandishly ugly and outrageously evil supervillains who periodically crawl out of the woodwork, Batman tends to fight general corruption (along with the inevitable supervillain). He finds himself very much alone and, like Athanasius, "against the world". (I think the parallel with Athanasius ends there, though.) The city is so thoroughly riddled with crime, apathy, and despair that it often seems that Batman and one or two minimally influential cohorts are the only "good guys" in the whole place. Gotham City's problems are such that the death of the villain alone is always an insufficient remedy. Of course it helps, if only because there will be fewer exploding skyscrapers and chaotic car chases for awhile; but it does little to actually cure anything. The poison reaches too deep.

Batman's problem, as I see it, is that he fights an internal disease with external antidotes. Certainly it is noble to rid the community, whenever possible, of otherwise unchallenged drug lords and other deranged criminal masterminds. I'm not saying that doesn't need to be done; it does. But that's only the beginning of the cure. Batman fails because he assumes that, once there are no more slavering, clown-faced maniacs wandering the streets, the general population will be free to unleash its dormant goodness, and the inherent virtue of mankind will win the day.

Unfortunately for Batman (and the rest of us), that's not how it works. After all the stray supervillains have been rounded up and disposed of (though there seems to be an endless supply of them in most superhero-inhabited realms), the deep-rooted corruption of every man, woman, and child alive still remains; and it won't heal itself. People need more than slightly-less-dark; they need light. By itself, the eradication of lies isn't enough; it has to be replaced with the truth. Crime is only a symptom; the real disease is in our hearts. The people of Gotham City need the gospel.

As it happens, the real world needs the gospel, too. I think we make a mistake when we start to think some kind of salvation can be found if we just reform our national and global political systems. This isn't to say that the government doesn't need reforming--it does, rather desperately, and working toward such reform is a worthy and honorable endeavor (when pursued for the right reasons, of course). But the government got into its current quagmire because of a deeper, darker problem in the hearts of the people who voted it into existence. And unless we pull out the weed by its roots, it will only come back, stronger than ever.

The other side of the same coin is that only the Holy Spirit can breathe life into the dead souls of men. Without His power, no amount of begging, pleading, lecturing, preaching, reasoning, or discussing will do any good at all. At the same time, when God wills that one of His elect be saved, He can use the strangest (and often even the weakest) means to bring it to pass. In short, whichever direction you go, it's beyond our control. Perhaps this seems rather discouraging and hopeless. Actually, though, it is the height of glory, and a hope beyond imagination. God is in absolute control, and He works all things for the glory of His name and the good of His people. It is not our burden to determine the path of history; we have only to give our best effort to the tasks laid out before us, whatever and wherever they may be, and God will take care of the rest.

So whether America rises again or falls at last into darkness, whether Batman ever finally succeeds in securing tranquility for Gotham City, we can rest with perfect confidence in the providence and omnipotence of God. Someday we'll see the whole story, and our small part in it will finally make sense.

In the meantime, we have work to do.

If I Knew

If I knew that today was my last day on earth,
Would I do what I’m doing right now?
Would I say what I’m saying, though I know it might hurt,
If it was the last thing you'd hear from my mouth?

Would I spend so much time on such trivial things,
If I thought that was all I would do?
Would the things I’ve not done still be put off, you think,
If I knew I’d be leaving so soon?

Would the things that annoy me and get on my nerves
Maybe not seem like such a big deal?
Would I feel so offended at that one thoughtless word,
If I knew it was the last thing I’d feel?

Could I let some things go, and give others more care?
Would my speed to forgive be the same?
If I knew time was short, could I choose to forbear,
And quietly shoulder the blame?

Might my thoughts have more depth, and my words greater weight,
Would my deeds have more purpose and drive?
Would I hesitate so before doing what’s right?
Would I be so reluctant to try?

Yesterday’s gone, and it will not return;
Tomorrow may not come at all.
If you knew that today was your last day on earth,
Would you be ready to answer the call?

Lunchtime at the Nursing Home

I used to work in the kitchen at the local nursing home. This was (and remains) my opinion of the food there--and of almost all institutionally prepared "food" as well. (I'm cheating on this blog thing so far...by posting things I wrote months or even years ago. Eventually, however, I will write something new.)

"Bring the poison for the inmates!"
Calls the Captain to the guard.
"Cook them all the food that we hate:
Make it soggy, dry, or hard;
But if it's pleasant to the palate,
We will feather you with tar!"
"Might as well just feed them fishbait,"
Someone mumbles to the chard.

"What they like the best is plastic,"
Says the Captain with a smile.
"Soaked in chemicals and gases,
And the waters of the Nile.
Call it food (don't sound sarcastic),
And hum gaily all the while!"
Grumbles someone, "In the Arctic
There are things to eat less vile."

"Forward, march!" now cries the Captain.
"Down the hall we go to feed!
They are waiting in the dungeon:
Thence we go to quench their greed!
With a pile of Slime and Onions
We supply their every need."
"Nearer death with every luncheon,"
Mutters someone. "That's our creed."