Bluegrass Theology

I've been obsessed with the song "Reasons Why" by Nickel Creek for a while now. Even before I began to recognize the meaning of the lyrics, I enjoyed the melody, the harmonies, and the talent with which the song is executed. However, I've come be struck by the truth expressed by the words of the song, and I easily identify with that truth, even though it's quite convicting.

Where am I today, I wish that I knew,

'cause looking around there's no sign of you.

I don't remember one jump or one leap,

just quiet steps away from your lead.

Do we ever recognize our drift away from the Lord? It seems that the thing that makes us realize that we've strayed is a feeling of lostness that comes only when we've already gone too far. "Quiet steps" are incredibly dangerous things.

I'm holding my heart out, but clutching it too.

Feeling this sort of the love that we once knew.

I often feel myself echoing Augustine's prayer of "Lord, make me chaste - but not yet!" I would like to say that I realize the radical depth of a commitment to Christ, a commitment that touches and radically transforms every aspect of life, but I must admit that I'm frightened of that commitment. I'm often unsure that I'm truly willing to empty myself of myself in order to be filled by Christ, but the intimation and ghost of the love that could be if I surrender myself persists in convicting me of how necessary that surrender is.

Calling this a home when it's not even close.

Playing the role with nerves left exposed.

I confess that I'm not yet sure I understand these lines, and on that about which we cannot speak, we must remain silent.

Standing on a darkened stage,

Stumbling through the lines.

Others have excuses,

I have my reasons why.

In light of the drifting and reluctance mentioned above, we cannot but be left half-heartedly muttering the lines of the Christian life, sensing that there must be truth, though the truth is not expressed with conviction. We assure ourselves, however, that we must not be in the wrong; there cannot be an empty excuse behind this void, and we rationalize it in order to take responsibility off of ourselves.

We get distracted by dreams of our own,

but nobody's happy when feeling alone.

Self-serving only results in a vacuous feeling. Egoism breeds emptiness.

Knowing how hard it hurts when we fall,

we lean another ladder against the wrong wall,

The wrong walls in my life are multifarious. Status, pleasure, and, most of all, myself; though I may recognize that pursuing these things for themselves will only result in pain and failure, I cannot but rely on them.

And climb high, to the highest rung,

to shake fists at the sky.

Others have excuses,

I have my reasons why.

Absorbed in the wrong things, it is tempting to feel anger at God for the emptiness that I feel. I realize that my self-absorption is the cause of my loneliness and pain, but I still cling to it instead of coming back down from the ladder.

With so much deception,

it's hard not to wander away.

Deception assaults us from all fronts, but I find the greatest danger to be the self-deception of seeking satisfaction and strength in anything other than Christ.

This song is a call to stop seeking things that I know will leave me angry and despairing, and to leave off attempting to rationalize a perception of my depravity. Once I do that, I cannot but turn to Christ and regain life to the fullest. Turning to myself and giving myself "Reasons Why" is a daily struggle, and seeing that struggle expressed so wonderfully through these lines reminds me to place my trust solely in the Lord.

Here's a link to the song, if you'd care to hear it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VRJrNK2pN0M

Convalescence

I'm not sure where to start with this. I'm not sure if I should be absolutely unrestrained, and give an intimate picture of what's been going on in my life, or follow my inclinations to taciturnity, and thereby give a picture no less true, but much less extensive. I'll try for the former as much as I can, but I hope that I'll be forgiven if I lapse into the latter.

I have recently come to realize how terribly sick I've been for the past year/year-and-a-half. There were so many aspects of this disease that it's difficult to express exactly what it comprised. Perhaps the first symptom was a descent into solipsistic thinking. The ideas of solipsism seemed, for some reason, quite appealing to me when I first discovered them in the summer after I finished high school. I can't quite say what sway they held over me; perhaps I've always felt a difficulty in connecting with people, and the retreat into my own mind offered by solipsism offered an explanation and consolation for this fact. Either way, I effectively lost any touch with the Other.

This dissociation with the other resulted in a very egoistically pragmatic way of thinking, especially as regards ethics. I could only judge the value of any thing, action, or person on the basis of the benefit it would have to me. Reducing everything in life to means like this resulted in a very unsatisfying mode of existence. Friendships become abysmally contingent when then only impetus for that friendship is what it can provide to the subject, be it material benefit, reputation, or enjoyment of the Other. This last one is especially deceptive, as it is tempting to think that valuing the enjoyment that the Other provides is somehow equivalent to valuing the other as he his in himself. These two could not be more different, and looking at it now, I'm ashamed to say that I mistook the former for the latter.

The isolation from this solipsism soon resulted in a creeping and all-consuming nihilism. It's a terrifyingly short step from doubting the ontology of the outside world to doubting the significance of one's own life. After emptying outside things of validity, the only place I could look to find meaning was inside myself. Admitting this may make me a weakling, but I could not find it. I could not turn to outside things or persons for an affirmation of significance, and I could not find it within myself. The only remaining position was a rejection of everything. The ethic that flows from this rejection is an ethic of self-destruction.

It almost does not need to be mentioned that these things led to a rejection of the Christian faith that I had inherited.

It's hard to say that there was a definite moment in which I rejected the faith. In all likelihood, it was not an outright renunciation at a given point in time, but rather a slow fade of belief. At this point, it's probably easiest to name the things that led me along this path of disbelief.

It seems a trivial issue, but the insistence that I found in my inherited faith upon a literal, 7-day creation of the world that occurred around 6,000 years ago was an obstacle that I had to its continuance. Such importance was placed upon this that being a Christian seemed contingent upon a belief in this Intelligent Design creationism. However, Intelligent Design had always seemed unconvincing to me, and as I started to investigate and evaluate other models for the origin of how life looks today (not the origin of life per se, as this is a much more difficult question to address), the fact that such time was spent in the Church denouncing these other models became to me quite disturbing, if not outright odious. It's petty to let this become an obstacle to faith, but when one's pastor feels a need to talk about the "tragedy of Darwinism" from the pulpit, the extent to which Intelligent Design creationism had been wedded to the spiritual aspects of my inherited faith should be clear.

A second obstacle to the continuance of my inherited faith was a slew of logical objections that I had to the intervention of God in the world. In retrospect, I admit that I did not have a very developed notion of God; I tended to view a very powerful being, something possessed of human abilities such as thinking, loving, and acting, but to an infinite degree. In thinking about how this being could interact in the world, both in the physical world and the internal, spiritual world, I encountered many logical difficulties. In the former case, the being would always seem to run up against the laws of nature. In the latter, the idea of the radical spiritual and psychological autonomy of the individual gave rise to many difficulties. This led to skepticism as regards the effectiveness of prayer, miracles, and divine involvement in human affairs. As a consequence, it would be safe to say that I had been a deist since I was about 17. I would have tried to lay claim to some sort of "Christian Deism," but I don't see now how such an idea would be possible, if one understands and is using the full sense of both terms.

A year or so ago, I was reading Bertrand Russell's essay, "Why I Am Not a Christian." Most of it is nothing worth the time of the layman, as it does not contain any revolutionary or particularly convincing arguments. However, at the beginning of the essay Russell defines what it means to be a Christian: 1) to have some sort of (positive; my note) belief about God, the soul, and immortality, and 2) to have some sort of belief about Jesus Christ. This is not a very extensive or specific definition, and I would not say that anyone that fits these criteria would necessarily be a Christian. At that moment, though, I firmly recognized that I was not a Christian. I had never lost a positive belief in God, though my view of his nature precluded my holding to Christian tenets, especially those about the divinity and salvational work of Christ, thereby marking my exclusion from fitting criterion 2.

I had felt intimations that I was not a Christian for a while; Russell's definition firmly showed me that I was not. It was after that that I became quite verbal about my renunciation of Christianity, something that I may have been hesitant to do before.

This renunciation of Christianity served to temper all the more my rejection of validity and value in the outside world, and to rely all the more on my own strength to give meaning to my life.

The privation of significance and meaning in one's life is felt acutely, even if one does not wish to admit it. I constantly tried to assert my own strength and autonomy, but it was as if I was asserting them in a vacuum; it didn't matter if I was strong, as there was no direction for that strength, and autonomy became meaningless without some purpose. Rather than glorying in the independence that I had found in the liberation from faith, the world, and others, I found myself wallowing in the depths of despair and nihilism.

I perceived my loneliness so deeply. Many times a day the thought crossed my mind that "I have no Love in my life." The world seemed as if grey, and cross-campus walks became the most difficult thing imaginable, as I felt anger at the look of the Other and the fact that it carried no meaning for me. I became almost completely a-pathetic (I'm trying to communicate that it was not merely indifference, but total lack of feeling and emotion). The only emotions left were anger and despair, and they fed into each other.

I am truly afraid of what might have happened to me had I continued in that mode of existence, and I thank God that such was not the case.

Several things worked to change things for me. As regards my problem with Intelligent Design creationism, I realized the obvious - such a position is not intimately tied to faith in Christ. There are questions that one has to answer if one does not hold to such a position, for example those on the nature of man and the infusion of the soul, but one does not have to face the glaring question: "Why does the word of God so blatantly contradict his creation?"

Strangely, one of the most influential factors in the intellectual rectification of faith was taking a course in Ancient Philosophy. On the professor's recommendation, I read In The Dark Places of Wisdom by Peter Kingsley. While not a Christian work, it effectively destroyed any ideas that I might have had that the logical is the antithesis of the mystical. The course itself comprised much study of Plato and Aristotle, and studying these philosophers led me to several conclusions (albeit these conclusions were spurred on by the philosophers, though not explicated by them): there is something beyond and greater than this world; the human soul is not naturally in a good condition; the human soul is only in a good condition by some sort of unification with that which is beyond this world, which is some sort of Divine Mind or Intellect.

As I traveled home for Christmas break last December, these axioms shaped my understanding of the world. The problem which I could not overcome was that of how the human soul is to access the Divine Intellect. For, while the soul is that in a human which most resembles the Divine, it is so poor a reflection of it that it seems impossible to achieve that unification with the Divine that is the sole possibility for a proper state of existence of the soul.

The solution to this intellectual problem came in the person and work of Jesus Christ. I realized that Christ, a full manifestation both of humanity and divinity, is the only thing that can bridge the divide between the twisted human soul and the perfect Divine. This also served to overcome another objection that I had to my inherited faith in that I found it to place all the value of salvation in its afterlife effects. Afterlife implications notwithstanding, I had come to realize that the true redeeming work of Christ takes effect not after one's death, but at the moment of one's trust in Christ. Christ puts the imperfect human soul in contact with the Divine, thereby allowing one to live in a proper state at the present moment.

At that point, over a year after my faith had begun to fade beyond recognition, I affirmed that I was a Christian. Rather than a reassuming of my inherited faith, this was an inauguration into a new faith, in which the Christian truths were not something that I affirmed as true because I had been told that they are so, but because I had discovered their truth in all their brilliance and glory.

Since then, I have been coming out of my disease of solipsistic, nihilistic egoism. It has been a slow and oft-painful process, but I have been blessed with some incredibly godly friends and mentors that have been faithful attendants and aids to the Great Physician. This newfound faith has shifted from purely intellectual tenets to a realization of the immediacy of God's unconditional and all-consuming Love that is manifested through Christ. In stark contrast to my complaint that my life is devoid of love, I am struck by the truth that God extends his love towards me through Christ. My previous understanding of love entailed that one loved something else only when it could bring some sort of benefit. I understood a benefit to be something that filled a lack. As God is perfectly complete, he could not be benefited by any person or thing, and thereby I could not understand how he could love anything or anyone. Now, I understand that the Love of God is not at all contingent. I cannot benefit him in any way, but he still values me infinitely and unconditionally, and did so even while I rejected that love in preference to my own strength. Thinking on that truth brings tears to my eyes (something that I would not have believed while caught up in my previous a-pathy!). My despair was not the result of no Love being extended to me, but my choice to ignore that Love that was always pressing itself upon me. Thankfully, it seems that the Love of God cannot be resisted forever. As I see that Love of God reflected through some of my most influential and respected friends and extended to others, I deeply desire to be able to do the same myself. This Love is overwhelming and cannot but overflow the one living in it and touch those in his or her life.

There is still much more convalescence and growth ahead of me. I cannot express how immediately and deeply I feel the truth of the fact that life, abundant life, is only to be found in and through Christ, and the death of the self and self-love. This is the only proper state for my soul, and it is truly beautiful.

Swingset Philosophy: An Allegory

Phil and Josh were friends. Phil was older than Josh, but they were introduced by their mutual friend Tommy. After that, they became really good friends and did a lot of things together. Josh liked Phil because he said a lot of smart things, and Phil liked Josh because he sometimes answered his really hard questions.

Like any friendship, Phil and Josh's had had some rough spots. One time Josh started hanging out with some kids named Marty and Johnny. Marty and Johnny said some really smart things, just like Phil, but some of the things they said sounded really strange to Phil, and Josh didn't like it when Phil said this to him.

Another time, a new kid named Freddy moved to town. Freddy became friends with Phil, but he would always tell other people that he wasn't Phil's friend. To make things worse, Freddy said some really mean things about Josh and told people that Phil said them. Even though Freddy moved away, Josh was still kind of mad at Phil because of the things Freddy said.

One day, Phil and Josh were at a playground. Josh was talking to Phil about all the cool things he could do. Phil liked to listen to Josh talk about these things, but he still had to ask him questions about them. That's just the way Phil was. He asked questions all the time; he asked his parents questions, his teachers questions, and all of his friends questions.

At the playground, Josh and Phil were playing on the swingset. They kept swinging higher and higher. Finally, Josh told Phil that he could swing so high, that he could touch a branch on a nearby tree with his foot. Phil, just being himself, asked Josh if he could really do it, and said that he thought it would be really hard. As soon as Phil said this, Josh got really mad and ran to his mom. He told her that Phil was being really mean to him and called him stupid. Josh's mom usually believed everything he said, so she got really mad at Phil too.

Josh's mom doesn't let him play with Phil anymore.

The Ideal Internationalist

The other night, my roommate and I got to talking about a universal government. He made some excellent points to the detriment of the idea, namely, that it would spell the end of cultural diversity and lead to a genetic equilibrium. Nevertheless, if the only options are between cultural assimilation and cultural isolation (though I certainly don't think that these are the only choices), which would be the more preferable of the two?

It seems to me that cultural assimilation would be of more desirability, but if this assimilation is imposed upon humanity by a universal form of government, and thereby leads to the aforementioned results, how should we approach this?

First of all, allow me to paint a picture of the forced assimilation that would come from universal government. With the multiplicity of culture that exists in the world, a combination of these cultures seems impracticable. Therefore, one culture would have to be imposed upon the world's population. This culture may be taken from the existing multiplicity, or be a "synthetic culture" that is devised by anthropologists with the intention of creating a culture that contains the "best of all worlds." It follows, though, that no matter what, this would lead to the exclusion of some cultures, and thereby their demise.

It should be added that it seems fair to say that some, if not most, would simply not want to have a "universal culture" imposed upon them.

This said, I think it logical to say that my roommate was dead-on. A universal government would necessitate the abolition of a multiplicity of cultures.

What, then, should be done in order to avoid a state of cultural isolation? Rather than try to impose a synthetic culture upon many that do not want it, I view the best path of action to be one taken up by individuals. These individuals would do all they could to assimilate the multiplicity of culture into themselves. Much like Nietzsche's Overman, these individuals would not be bound by convention, although in this case, they would transcend cultural norms, rather than moral ones. (This, of course, opens up an investigation into the ways in which culture influences morality, but that discussion must be saved for later.)

The development of this "Cultural Overman" is a task which I've taken upon myself. To discover the world, to experience new things, to constantly expand my lexicon of knowledge as regards culture, language, and societies - this is my goal. I wish to become "The Ideal Internationalist."