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Journal of an Awakening
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A month or two ago in church, I was thinking about Robert A. Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, which has as a premise a person of totally alien culture entering our world (roughly). As well as experiencing culture shock, he causes a great deal of culture shock. He violates expectations people didn't know they had.
I was wanting to find some other piece of literature like that, something else like that to read. Such a theme would be hard to find -- it's not the sort of thing people generally write about. And then it suddenly dawned on me what other book would fit that description: the Bible, with God in it as the stranger. "My thoughts are not like your thoughts, nor are my ways like your ways." God is a totally alien intelligence, one not like a man. He does not have any culture, but uses people's cultures to speak and work with them. He speaks all languages, and knows all cultures' ways of thinking. He works with these things and meets people where they are, but is always more than they are, and beyond comprehension. He is not now an organism walking on earth, but is immaterial, in all places at all times. He is not bound even by time. He is par excellence the stranger in a strange land.
I remembered this in connection with my present experience because, for my years of faith and study of spiritual things, what is happening is very different from what I would have expected an awakening to be like. The first thing (the experience at the railroad tracks) is about the only thing that happened the way I could have expected. My unspoken attitude towards the blessings on Sunday was, "Thanks, God, these Christmas presents are nice, but would you please draw me close to you?" Whoops.
I'm so glad that God doesn't give us what we want.
Oh, and I've gotten almost nothing out of what I've read of Thérèse de Lisieux's autobiography. I was expecting to learn a lot from that.
After reading Less-Wild Lovers: Standing at the Crossroads of Desire, I began to think, "That article should be a book," or more properly was wishing that I could find a book to read that would be like it, hold the same charm. The haunting beauty it tells of manifests itself in the article. There are a lot of books a little like that, but I only know of one that's really like it: Peter Kreeft's Heaven: The Heart's Deepest Longing, which I hope to reread. Then I realized something heartening: I may be writing a book like Less-Wild Lovers: Standing at the Crossroads of Desire. I might not be, of course, and I cannot tell if this writing will haunt others as Less-Wild Lovers: Standing at the Crossroads of Desire haunted me. If it does, though, that will be a beautiful thing.
Tuesday 11/23/99
It took me a while to get to sleep last night, and I am feeling rather tired. I would say "tired but happy," but that has a bit different of a meaning than I intend. It is good to feel tired from running once in a while (and I have a feeling of having miles to go before I sleep -- but I don't know if I actually do), especially after not having enough to do.
Free time is a blessing in moderation. Having eight hours of free time a day is not eight times as good as having one hour of free time a day. I was very frustrated to have hours and hours of free time on my hands and have lost my creativity. Now it feels good, once in a while, to have been a bit busy.
At lunch today, I said something that I realized had broader application than its original context, and application to blessings from God.
It has to do with a difference between European and American attitudes towards alcohol and parties. In America, alcohol is the reason for the party. In Europe, alcohol is present and it is enjoyed, but it is not the reason for the party. It is given a subordinate role, a part of the enjoyment of the other people -- and therefore probably enjoyed more.
A good party doesn't need alcohol, but alcohol can add something to a party. C.S. Lewis said that nobody puts a bow on a baby's head to hide how ugly she is. In the same spirit, alcohol is not what makes a party good, but neither is it something that has nothing to add. It adorns the goodness of a good party, just as a bow adorns a baby's head.
Many things are like that -- not needed, but they have something to add. Christmas gifts are like that to friendship and family -- gifts cannot be the substance of the relationships (and it is perverse to try to buy love by giving gifts), and a good friendship needs no exchange of gifts -- but they are none the less a beautiful adornment. The principle also applies to some of my attitude towards how God was working with me -- I was thinking "Either I have community with God, or I have lesser things that are easier to want and harder to be satisfied with." No -- I can have both, with the lesser adorning the greater. A lesser good is still a good.
Up until recently, I was somewhat ashamed of my singing voice. Now, I have been able to listen and hear its beauty.
Relatedly... I am afraid of driving. I am slightly nervous when I drive, and more nervous when I'm not driving but thinking about it. My fear has been soothed a great deal by singing in the car.
Tuesday nights are Pooh's Corner nights, meeting at 9:58 -- one of the highlights of the week. Tonight I was waiting for it to start, and around 8:30 or 9:00 felt what seemed like a prompting to leave my house for Pooh's Corner. Leave and do what? I wondered, as the only thing I could think of was to go to a little chapel on campus, and I expected half an hour or an hour of prayer to be too much, too boring. After some dallying, I went. The chapel was dark, with a little light filtering in through a stained glass window. I love darkness and semidarkness; I love starlight and moonlight. (My eyes are fairly sensitive in dim light.) And in there I sang; that is, I prayed twice. After a time of singing prayers and sitting in peaceful silence, I felt a prompting to leave. I looked at my watch; it was a bit early. So I dallied a bit, and then left, and on my way out found a Palestinian high school student with little brother, who was looking to see if the Stupe (Wheaton's snack shop) was open. It was closed. We walked and talked for a little while; I started to take him to a nearby Starbucks, but found out that he was on a tight time schedule, and we parted ways.
I walked to Fischer, where Pooh's corner meets, and found out that it's not meeting -- Thanksgiving weekend. I was not too disappointed, not as much as I would have been other times. I was then glad for the time in the chapel (which I approached with an attitude of rushing, as something to do while impatiently waiting for Pooh's corner) and with the high schooler (who I enjoyed the opportunity to try to serve, looking with pleasure on an opportunity to serve Christ, thinking, "Pooh's corner can wait," and for that matter contemplating staying with them for coffee). I was able to watch and listen to a whole freight train crossing the tracks (something I enjoy). And I was able to get back in time to be able to get some sleep tonight -- I would have been up even later if there had been Pooh's corner, and I would have been tired for work (I was pleasantly surprised at how well rested I felt today).
I just, as I was writing, pieced together something that had been on my mind. I was at the church office today, and an acquaintance by the name of Andy brought in someone named David (I think; my memory's hazy) who walked like someone with a bad case of cerebral palsy, made annoying noises when he breathed, was immature and mentally retarded, and couldn't talk. I was annoyed, and I think I did a pretty good job of containing my annoyance and trying to think lovingly (which is not something that is stopped by feeling annoyed), but I couldn't concentrate. Andy was talking with him, gently and patiently, and there was something in the manner in which he was talking that said that he very much enjoyed David's company. "How can he do that?" I wondered. I was right in how I acted -- there is nothing wrong with controlling yourself, nor with seeking to love when you don't feel like it (indeed, loving when you don't feel like it is valuable spiritual exercise). I was still in wonder at Andy, though.
Then when I was writing about the Palestinian student, I realized what it was.
Jesus, in one of his more chilling parables, tells us (Matt. 25:31-46, NJB):
When the Son of man comes in his glory, escorted by all the angels, then he will take his seat on his throne of glory. All nations will be assembled before him and he will separate people one from another as the shepherd separates sheep from goats. He will place the sheep on his right hand and the goats on his left. Then the King will say to those on his right hand, "Come, you whom my Father has blessed, take as your heritage the kingdom prepared for you since the foundation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you made me welcome, lacking clothes and you clothed me, sick and you visited me, in prison and you came to see me." Then the upright will say to him in reply, "Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? When did we see you a stranger and make you welcome, lacking clothes and clothe you? When did we find you sick or in prison and go to see you?" And the King will answer, "In truth I tell you, in so far as you did this to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did it to me." Then he will say to those on his left hand, "Go away from me, with your curse upon you, to the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry and you never gave me food, I was thirsty and you never gave me anything to drink, I was a stranger and you never made me welcome, lacking clothes and you never clothed me, sick and in prison and you never visited me." Then it will be their turn to ask, "Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty, a stranger or lacking clothes, sick or in prison, and did not come to your help?" Then he will answer, "In truth I tell you, in so far as you neglected to do this to one of the least of these, you neglected to do it for me." And they will go away to eternal punishment, and the upright to eternal life.
This parable is foundational in importance, and it needs to be digested. It affects your whole attitude towards people. It was the semiconscious backdrop to my attitude towards that Palestinian student -- and the fact that I did not see him as an inconvenience or an interruption (interruptions can be the some of the most beautiful things; certain interruptions are to be seized), that I was happy to spend a few minutes with him and would have been happy to spend an hour over a cup of coffee and miss Pooh's corner, that I had difficulty understanding his accent and had to ask him to repeat things, that I offered to lend him my coat when it was cold out and he did not have a coat... None of those things were done with gritting-my-teeth willpower, or offered as noble sacrifices. (The thought that they could be viewed as sacrifices didn't even occur to me until I started writing.) They came out of a gift -- the ability to do those things is a gift from God. That gift's name is 'love', or 'caritas', or 'agape'. Like some other gifts from God, it is a gift that grows with use -- and Andy is a bit further along in that gift than I am. There is something special about that virtue that it hides itself, so that its presence may not even be recognized. When I asked myself, "How can he do that?", I was really asking the question of "How can he summon the willpower to behave kindly when he is experiencing the same annoyance I feel?" That is a wrong question. The answer to the right question is, "It flows from God's grace."
The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
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