Kurt Vonnegut used to have a number of go to phrases. One of them that was particularly prominent in his book "Slaughterhouse Five" was "So it goes." Since I don't think he ever wrote a sentence that was absent irony, usually that phrase was tossed off as a response to some amazingly horrible event that had just happened to one of his characters.
Vonnegut is my favorite author on the subject of funny. He was often (mis)labeled a science fiction author, as he often included extraterrestrial beings in his stories. His favorite invented alien beings were the Tralfamadorians. Tralfamadorians were not located in time the same way we are. At any particular moment they would un-stick in time and wind up at some other particular moment. Here's how he explained it in "Slaughterhouse Five" in the words of his lead character, Billy Pilgrim:
"When a Tralfamadorian sees a corpse, all he thinks is that the dead
person is in bad condition in the particular moment, but that the same
person is just fine in plenty of other moments. Now, when I myself hear
that somebody is dead, I simply shrug and say what the Tralfamadorians
say about dead people, which is 'So it goes.'"
Interestingly, Tralfamadorians would use exactly the same language when encountering a really great condition as well. According to Kurt and the Tralfamadorians, when there's no such thing as waiting for the next thing to happen, everything starts to look vaguely similar and eternal.
I think that's true as far as it goes. However, whether you're dealing with the eternity of "So it goes" or the stuck in the place in time perspective of "Every Now and Then," you're still there...after all, wherever you go, there you are.
You're going to have a reaction to everything you encounter. If you return to the same location in space hoping to recapture a good time you might have had there once, you might be bored or disappointed with that particular location. Still, boredom is a reaction. Reactions can be good, as in our reaction to surprise party in our honor. And reactions can be bad as in a scary medical diagnosis.
Often, we don't let the word "reaction" hang around by itself. We frequently stick a word in front of reaction and create the idea of "involuntary reaction." When talking about someone getting bad news, we'll often ask out of concern, "How did he react?" That's because emotions don't have the same cause and effect that our knees do when someone taps them with a mallet. However, unlike our knees we're pretty sure there will be a reaction. We just don't know what it might be. In turn, all of us will then react to the report of the reaction if not the reaction itself.
There is both beauty and pain in the "every now and then" of passing through time. "Every now and then," we experience a sunset or a sunrise, a windfall or a look on a face or any number of other things that make us catch our breath or even tear up with joy. Of course, "Every now and then" we have very similar physiological reactions to bad things that happen as well. Since we move in a straight line through time, every now and then we experience the highs and lows that we use as building blocks to define our lives.
If we were meant for a living eternity, consider how this time spent living time in straight line time might teach us about how to live like a Tralfamadorian, or even a little beyond that. Since eternity is all they've ever known, Tralfamadorians have the reaction of "So it goes." However, if there's one thing that living at an actual place in time teaches us, it's that every now and then something beautiful happens.
And what if the beautiful part of the "every now and then" of this world, through the work of one man, could be transformed and completed into a fulfilled eternity of "so it goes"? I think we might call that heaven.
And even more, if we fully realized the value of the work of that one man (Jesus), if we really believed what he said about the Kingdom of God, maybe then we'd start to become a little un-stuck in time ourselves. Maybe we'd see past both our "here and nows" and our "every now and thens," and into a "so it goes" that is completed peace, fulfillment, transformation and joy.
We might even go beyond calling that heaven. We might call it the Kingdom of God.
People have argued for two thousand years about whether the kingdom of heaven (or "Kingdom of God" - the New Testament uses the ideas pretty much interchangeably) is in the future or starts now. I can't decide if we have these kinds of arguments because theologians want to be lawyers or lawyers want to be theologians or if both have become vocationally un-stuck. All I can think to say about that is, so it goes.
I think when we decide to follow Christ, what really happens is that we become aware of a future that's much more beautiful and full than our now; this even extends to us being more beautiful and complete than we ever imagined. This is a case where "then" is actually a lot better than "now."
However, I think we also become a little un-stuck from our now. Sometimes we get carried forward and backward and we see that the entire time we've been part of a beautiful and divine "so it goes" that's really more of a "And God said." We call our images of the past memory, and our images of the future imagination or visions, but really when you're part of "And God said," they're all now...and then. And so it goes, in peace, love, joy and completion in the creation that God long ago spoke for us. Anybody feel like un-sticking a little?
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Wednesday, May 16, 2012
Sarcasm
I read a good many news and feature stories from major media outlets. Virtually all of them are on-line. Most allow for the digital equivalent of letters to the editor. I am (too) often drawn to these comments as much or more than the original story. I think the reason is that opinions are usually more interesting than facts. Facts are usually of binary form, being either correct or incorrect. Opinions can run the gamut from compelling to stark raving insane; they cover more human geography.
Worse yet (for me at least), the comment sections often allow you respond to the commenters. Thus, when someone says something particularly egregious, and these sites are magnets for egregious, it's possible to respond. Generally, the response posts are not what one would call profound. Something along the lines of, "Your mother wears military style footwear" would be seen a both erudite and refrained in the context of response posts. I'm not sure how many words I've typed so far as either a commenter or respondent but it's probably roughly equivalent to what I wrote as formal papers during at least a year or two of college...and I was a philosophy and English major.
For those of you who don't know me well, I have what is a sometimes unfortunate talent for argumentation. The talent extends to formal logical constructs of fact and argument as well as back and forth human conversation. Within that overall talent lives a subset of the "back and forth human conversation" part. That subset is sarcasm and sometimes it might even be accurately described as biting sarcasm.
Sarcasm can be funny, illustrative and fun if used carefully. It's much easier for some people to "get" sarcasm than it is for others. Understanding which people are which is part of using sarcasm carefully. I will appeal to George Will for a fit example of sarcasm. Once in what was a bit of a hostile interview, the interviewer continually interrupted George in the middle of his sentences. Eventually Mr. Will had enough and at the end of one such interruption he paused, looked the interviewer in the eye and said, "I'm sure there are many things on which we disagree. However, I think we can both agree beyond doubt that I am the world's foremost authority on the end of my own sentences." And that ladies and gentlemen is the correct application of world class sarcasm.
There have been and still are too many times in my life when I don't use sarcasm carefully at all. Sometimes that's in response to commenters or articles. Even though these are sometimes biting, I usually receive digital validation from small numbers of people, rooting for my position and in some cases, maybe even my biting tone. (...Maybe it's really "numbers of small people.") It's usual for me to get several "thumbs ups." Occasionally, I'll get ten or twenty thumbs ups...Rah.
There's a reason I'm explaining the ad hoc digital commentary community. The other day I read an article on a book that's recently been published in Great Britain. The book is "Mum's List." It's the story of St. John (Sinjin) and Kathleen Greene and their 2 boys. The very very short version of the story is that Kathleen Greene passed away a couple years ago of cancer, leaving her husband and two small boys. She had been doing well with her disease and then suddenly relapsed. From the time of her relapse to her passing was about three weeks.
Once when she was sick at home during her last three weeks, her husband brought her in some tea. She took off her oxygen mask and looked him in the eye for a quite awhile and then she spoke. She told him that she wanted him to take their boys to Belize. The two of them had planned to retire there. She said that at least in that way, a small "bit" (her word) of her would get there. After that, a flood of other things followed, including urging her husband to fall in love again and re-marry, to kiss their boys good night twice each night, once for him and once for her and a host of similar thoughts and wishes. Eventually there were 200 items in all. Sinjin and his boys are now learning to continue to enjoy life with mum as they work through her list. Kathleen did a beautiful and sacrificial thing as she used her last days to plan with her soul mate for their family's life without her.
I was moved after reading the article and I will likely buy the book at some point. I breezed through the comments and thankfully there was nothing...egregious. Some people used their favorite, "sorry for your loss" language and others spoke Hallmark sentiments. It didn't really matter though. Everyone was looking for a place to put the tremendous, staggering beauty that existed in the telling of the story of family Greene.
It occurred to me that maybe I could help a couple people who were posting comments see this for what it is. Toward that end, I wrote this: "That's what love looks like." This comment was not the first by any stretch. (First comments usually get a lot of reads and responses.) In fact my comment was a thousand or so removed from being the first. Typical in this scenario might be a few thumbs ups and maybe a comment. Those five words have received well over 500 thumbs ups to date. When I last looked, there were 17 comments including one woman who accused me of being Shakespeare (note sarcastic use of "accused"), another who slightly confused the issue by offering me condolences on my loss. However, they were all beautiful and represented hearts that groan for the love that Sinjin and Kathleen had for each other and that they were kind enough to share with the rest of us.
I would have to conclude that love spoken in five words or five thousand can crush the impact of all clever, sarcastic argumentation and flood the people who read it with the overflow of the response of their own hearts. Put another way, better is one word spoken in love than all clever arguments spoken and written throughout all time. Without love, I am nothing.
Worse yet (for me at least), the comment sections often allow you respond to the commenters. Thus, when someone says something particularly egregious, and these sites are magnets for egregious, it's possible to respond. Generally, the response posts are not what one would call profound. Something along the lines of, "Your mother wears military style footwear" would be seen a both erudite and refrained in the context of response posts. I'm not sure how many words I've typed so far as either a commenter or respondent but it's probably roughly equivalent to what I wrote as formal papers during at least a year or two of college...and I was a philosophy and English major.
For those of you who don't know me well, I have what is a sometimes unfortunate talent for argumentation. The talent extends to formal logical constructs of fact and argument as well as back and forth human conversation. Within that overall talent lives a subset of the "back and forth human conversation" part. That subset is sarcasm and sometimes it might even be accurately described as biting sarcasm.
Sarcasm can be funny, illustrative and fun if used carefully. It's much easier for some people to "get" sarcasm than it is for others. Understanding which people are which is part of using sarcasm carefully. I will appeal to George Will for a fit example of sarcasm. Once in what was a bit of a hostile interview, the interviewer continually interrupted George in the middle of his sentences. Eventually Mr. Will had enough and at the end of one such interruption he paused, looked the interviewer in the eye and said, "I'm sure there are many things on which we disagree. However, I think we can both agree beyond doubt that I am the world's foremost authority on the end of my own sentences." And that ladies and gentlemen is the correct application of world class sarcasm.
There have been and still are too many times in my life when I don't use sarcasm carefully at all. Sometimes that's in response to commenters or articles. Even though these are sometimes biting, I usually receive digital validation from small numbers of people, rooting for my position and in some cases, maybe even my biting tone. (...Maybe it's really "numbers of small people.") It's usual for me to get several "thumbs ups." Occasionally, I'll get ten or twenty thumbs ups...Rah.
There's a reason I'm explaining the ad hoc digital commentary community. The other day I read an article on a book that's recently been published in Great Britain. The book is "Mum's List." It's the story of St. John (Sinjin) and Kathleen Greene and their 2 boys. The very very short version of the story is that Kathleen Greene passed away a couple years ago of cancer, leaving her husband and two small boys. She had been doing well with her disease and then suddenly relapsed. From the time of her relapse to her passing was about three weeks.
Once when she was sick at home during her last three weeks, her husband brought her in some tea. She took off her oxygen mask and looked him in the eye for a quite awhile and then she spoke. She told him that she wanted him to take their boys to Belize. The two of them had planned to retire there. She said that at least in that way, a small "bit" (her word) of her would get there. After that, a flood of other things followed, including urging her husband to fall in love again and re-marry, to kiss their boys good night twice each night, once for him and once for her and a host of similar thoughts and wishes. Eventually there were 200 items in all. Sinjin and his boys are now learning to continue to enjoy life with mum as they work through her list. Kathleen did a beautiful and sacrificial thing as she used her last days to plan with her soul mate for their family's life without her.
I was moved after reading the article and I will likely buy the book at some point. I breezed through the comments and thankfully there was nothing...egregious. Some people used their favorite, "sorry for your loss" language and others spoke Hallmark sentiments. It didn't really matter though. Everyone was looking for a place to put the tremendous, staggering beauty that existed in the telling of the story of family Greene.
It occurred to me that maybe I could help a couple people who were posting comments see this for what it is. Toward that end, I wrote this: "That's what love looks like." This comment was not the first by any stretch. (First comments usually get a lot of reads and responses.) In fact my comment was a thousand or so removed from being the first. Typical in this scenario might be a few thumbs ups and maybe a comment. Those five words have received well over 500 thumbs ups to date. When I last looked, there were 17 comments including one woman who accused me of being Shakespeare (note sarcastic use of "accused"), another who slightly confused the issue by offering me condolences on my loss. However, they were all beautiful and represented hearts that groan for the love that Sinjin and Kathleen had for each other and that they were kind enough to share with the rest of us.
I would have to conclude that love spoken in five words or five thousand can crush the impact of all clever, sarcastic argumentation and flood the people who read it with the overflow of the response of their own hearts. Put another way, better is one word spoken in love than all clever arguments spoken and written throughout all time. Without love, I am nothing.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
The Very Last Thing I Learned
I read a Wayne Dyer book once a long time ago. It was the original book that put him on the map, "Your Erroneous Zones." I was taking a college psychology course and for an assignment I had to select a pop psychology book to read, present and review. The short version of my review went along the lines of, "He has some very nice thoughts if you happen to be living by alone by yourself in the universe." I'm very happy that his book wasn't the last thing I ever learned.
In fairness to Dr. Dyer, the sum of that particular book probably isn't the last thing he learned. He's been through three divorces and a couple of serious health episodes over the years. Adversity, whether it's of your own making or happens to fall on you out of the sky has a way of teaching you unexpected new things.
Dr. Dyer talks some about Christ. Here's a quote of his, "I don't think that Jesus was teaching Christianity, Jesus was teaching kindness, love, concern, and peace." Certainly Jesus was teaching those things. He taught a few other things as well. He was for example teaching the Pharisees that they were white washed tombs. I don't think that fits with Dr. Dyers listing of Christ's curriculum. What Dr. Dyer says isn't a problem. The problem is that he stops. It seems like his list is the very last thing he learned about Christ.
I am blessed with a number of quality relationships. I love all my children. I love my wife. I love my extended family. I have very good friends. I haven't yet learned the last thing about any of those relationships. They keep teaching me new things, both about others and about myself.
It's interesting to me is that I'm still learning things about my mother who's been gone for ten years this year. I don't have any new facts. However I have started to reexamine some things about her that I'd glossed over or even ignored completely. She climbed Mt. Whitney in the early 1950's. There weren't a lot of women running around at that time who could say that. In turn, she let me go up the Western slope of the mountain, after having crossed the Sierra from Sequoia when I was 13. I was with a group and she wasn't along and I know she worried a bit. She was a member of a folk dance troop that performed in Southern California. There are a number of other things as well. I can be a bit slow and it's only recently that I've come to realized that these weren't the kinds of things everyone did.
I think I've been able to keep learning about my mother because some deep part of me recognizes that I haven't learned the last thing about her yet. The reason that's true now and will always be true as long as I'm alive is because she was (and is) a real human being and I'm still be completed. I'm starting to believe that real people can never be summed completely. It makes sense if you believe that humanity was intended for eternity. It's a bit like the bumper sticker that says "Be patient with me, God isn't finished with me yet." If God can wait the span of our life times to complete in us what he has for us, I think it makes sense that we should strive to be at least that patient.
I can no longer imagine myself being able to make a statement about Christ of the kind that Dr. Dyer makes above. How could I? I can't say I know what Christ taught in totality any more than I completely know and understand my mother. Both are real and Christ is more present with me just now than my mother is. How could I have any idea of the totality of Christ's teaching? I haven't learned it all yet.
We will always argue about what Christ meant when he said this or that. Some of us will even lie about what Christ said, misrepresent it or turn it into what we feel like he should have said. It's real easy to understand why people do that sort of thing. It's because they don't think Christ is real or at least they don't really believe he still lives in the present reality. If they did believe he was present and real, why would they try to tell him what he thinks? Christ is fully capable of speaking for himself. For my part, I find it a lot harder to be patient with that sort of projection than I do to understand it.
I'm deriving great value from dropping my idea that I knew my mother completely. I don't think I ever did. I knew she was very good and that she loved me very much. As I embrace what some of this new revelation might mean about her, I'm learning more about her all the time. And really, it all just makes me love and appreciate her more.
With Jesus it is even more so. He's a lot bigger than our ideas of love and peace. He's bigger than any of our formulas for relating to him. He will tolerate our lack of love, faith and patience even to the point of delivering things to us that we don't deserve. You know, I'll bet he'd even climb Mt. Whitney if I asked him.
In fairness to Dr. Dyer, the sum of that particular book probably isn't the last thing he learned. He's been through three divorces and a couple of serious health episodes over the years. Adversity, whether it's of your own making or happens to fall on you out of the sky has a way of teaching you unexpected new things.
Dr. Dyer talks some about Christ. Here's a quote of his, "I don't think that Jesus was teaching Christianity, Jesus was teaching kindness, love, concern, and peace." Certainly Jesus was teaching those things. He taught a few other things as well. He was for example teaching the Pharisees that they were white washed tombs. I don't think that fits with Dr. Dyers listing of Christ's curriculum. What Dr. Dyer says isn't a problem. The problem is that he stops. It seems like his list is the very last thing he learned about Christ.
I am blessed with a number of quality relationships. I love all my children. I love my wife. I love my extended family. I have very good friends. I haven't yet learned the last thing about any of those relationships. They keep teaching me new things, both about others and about myself.
It's interesting to me is that I'm still learning things about my mother who's been gone for ten years this year. I don't have any new facts. However I have started to reexamine some things about her that I'd glossed over or even ignored completely. She climbed Mt. Whitney in the early 1950's. There weren't a lot of women running around at that time who could say that. In turn, she let me go up the Western slope of the mountain, after having crossed the Sierra from Sequoia when I was 13. I was with a group and she wasn't along and I know she worried a bit. She was a member of a folk dance troop that performed in Southern California. There are a number of other things as well. I can be a bit slow and it's only recently that I've come to realized that these weren't the kinds of things everyone did.
I think I've been able to keep learning about my mother because some deep part of me recognizes that I haven't learned the last thing about her yet. The reason that's true now and will always be true as long as I'm alive is because she was (and is) a real human being and I'm still be completed. I'm starting to believe that real people can never be summed completely. It makes sense if you believe that humanity was intended for eternity. It's a bit like the bumper sticker that says "Be patient with me, God isn't finished with me yet." If God can wait the span of our life times to complete in us what he has for us, I think it makes sense that we should strive to be at least that patient.
I can no longer imagine myself being able to make a statement about Christ of the kind that Dr. Dyer makes above. How could I? I can't say I know what Christ taught in totality any more than I completely know and understand my mother. Both are real and Christ is more present with me just now than my mother is. How could I have any idea of the totality of Christ's teaching? I haven't learned it all yet.
We will always argue about what Christ meant when he said this or that. Some of us will even lie about what Christ said, misrepresent it or turn it into what we feel like he should have said. It's real easy to understand why people do that sort of thing. It's because they don't think Christ is real or at least they don't really believe he still lives in the present reality. If they did believe he was present and real, why would they try to tell him what he thinks? Christ is fully capable of speaking for himself. For my part, I find it a lot harder to be patient with that sort of projection than I do to understand it.
I'm deriving great value from dropping my idea that I knew my mother completely. I don't think I ever did. I knew she was very good and that she loved me very much. As I embrace what some of this new revelation might mean about her, I'm learning more about her all the time. And really, it all just makes me love and appreciate her more.
With Jesus it is even more so. He's a lot bigger than our ideas of love and peace. He's bigger than any of our formulas for relating to him. He will tolerate our lack of love, faith and patience even to the point of delivering things to us that we don't deserve. You know, I'll bet he'd even climb Mt. Whitney if I asked him.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)