Intro to the series: These posts won’t be this long every time, I promise, but this topic is important to me. I actually edited it down by like 300 words, so this is the bare bones. I am curious to see if others have this experience as well. I’m starting a “series” where I try to talk about what it’s like to have faith, day-to-day, so that non-religious people can at least understand why I'm so obsessed. I know the series title brings to mind a certain Madonna song, and I'm ok with that, haha.
According to the verse, when you haven’t fully grasped the gospel and its implications, the gospel seems silly and simplistic to people who don’t believe it and haven’t been dwelling on it. The gospel is like one of those pictures where they ask you what the picture is of, and you end up realizing pretty quickly that it’s a picture of more than one thing. In the first instant, though, it seems simple because you only see one thing. Spirituality is like that, only it has about a million pictures that you see over the course of a long time, they are cool, they are challenging, and you actually care. Dwell on it with me for a few days, and we'll see if we can pick out some of the "pictures" in the Christian life. Unfortunately, this first topic is one of those things that is really hard to explain. People who have been through this experience will get it and be nodding. People who haven't will be all, "How does this happen, exactly? What?!!"
Christianity as a crutch: I've heard some atheists say that Christianity is a crutch for people who can’t handle the fear of death or the loss of loved ones. And like heroes, walking against the wind, armed with only truth, rationality, and great personal ability, the atheist courageously traverses the world, finding meaning without hope of an afterlife, in the face of death itself. The reason I have a problem with this is isn't the inherent arrogance, because I'm plenty arrogant myself and shouldn't throw too many stones. It's that this implies that the only reason I follow Christianity is because I get the reward of heaven and don’t have to fear death. While those things are dandy, there really is more to it. I’ve heard Christians admit that they actually do fear death. Fear is related to the unknown, and there is still a lot about the actual death experience that Christians don’t know, like how much it will hurt. There is also the survival instinct that is hardwired into everyone. Sure, the intellectual and emotional assurance that it’s going to eventually be ok is helpful, but it doesn’t kill fear off completely.
As for the courageous atheist, they just do exactly what plenty of Christians also do: they don’t think about death. I’m 24 and in good health. I’m not brave in the face of death mostly because of some great, enormous faith I have. I’m unafraid of death because I’m 24 and in good health. Unless you are terminally ill or facing down the barrel of a gun, all people can find plenty of distraction from the reality that this life is but a blink. Movies, TV, friends, drink, sex (what some have called “the ultimate life-affirming action), love, exercise, makeup, buying things and storing them in your house to give you a sense of control, travel, unceasing work, and much more. If you say that I’m weaker than you and I need a crutch, I will reply that we all have crutches. But I can think about my crutch (God) and death at the same time. I don’t need God to face death nearly as much as I need him to face what I'm about to discuss.
Bah Humbug: When I was around 10 years old, December 25th rolled around and I went to my grandparents’ house where the whole family was gathered, ate my food, overturned my stocking, and ripped through all my presents. The presents were great, but something was different. It must have shown on my face, because my grandpa leaned over to me so that all the younger kids couldn’t hear him and said, “It’s not as fun now that you’re older is it? The magic is gone.” Then he nodded the nod of a man who knows what it’s like to grow up and have the world lose its wonder. The nod said that he and I were in on this secret, and the younger kids were still blissfully unaware that anything so horrible would ever happen to them. It was December 25th, but I felt the same as if it were any other day. It wasn't Christmas; I just had more stuff.
The lack of wonder in the world: Ravi Zacharias is a little too much of an apologist for me. I enjoy studying the Bible, not listening to 100 arguments on how I can prove to some atheist (who is not listening and doesn’t think I respect him as a person) that the Bible is true. But one day, Ravi said that “wonder” is one of the things people need to have in order to have meaning in life. That stuck with me. Because life can get stale, tiring, monotonous, stressful, and soul-deadening. We’ve gotten jaded. We’ve gotten numb. It’s hard to transcend. Lots of people need to drink to have fun. I went skydiving, and while it was fun, even mid-fall, I thought, “I’m actually 19% bored by this.”
We crave wonder and something in the world that will blow us away completely. But even when we get a great experience, it’s not satisfying in the way we want it to be. There’s still something missing and we feel that little craving like an echo. With every great experience, there’s a little sadness that it wasn’t enough to not disappoint us a little. When we get what we wanted, we are left with more wanting and we seek out the next thing. It’s a pretty crazy hamster wheel that lasts your whole life.
As for the courageous atheist, they just do exactly what plenty of Christians also do: they don’t think about death. I’m 24 and in good health. I’m not brave in the face of death mostly because of some great, enormous faith I have. I’m unafraid of death because I’m 24 and in good health. Unless you are terminally ill or facing down the barrel of a gun, all people can find plenty of distraction from the reality that this life is but a blink. Movies, TV, friends, drink, sex (what some have called “the ultimate life-affirming action), love, exercise, makeup, buying things and storing them in your house to give you a sense of control, travel, unceasing work, and much more. If you say that I’m weaker than you and I need a crutch, I will reply that we all have crutches. But I can think about my crutch (God) and death at the same time. I don’t need God to face death nearly as much as I need him to face what I'm about to discuss.
Bah Humbug: When I was around 10 years old, December 25th rolled around and I went to my grandparents’ house where the whole family was gathered, ate my food, overturned my stocking, and ripped through all my presents. The presents were great, but something was different. It must have shown on my face, because my grandpa leaned over to me so that all the younger kids couldn’t hear him and said, “It’s not as fun now that you’re older is it? The magic is gone.” Then he nodded the nod of a man who knows what it’s like to grow up and have the world lose its wonder. The nod said that he and I were in on this secret, and the younger kids were still blissfully unaware that anything so horrible would ever happen to them. It was December 25th, but I felt the same as if it were any other day. It wasn't Christmas; I just had more stuff.
The lack of wonder in the world: Ravi Zacharias is a little too much of an apologist for me. I enjoy studying the Bible, not listening to 100 arguments on how I can prove to some atheist (who is not listening and doesn’t think I respect him as a person) that the Bible is true. But one day, Ravi said that “wonder” is one of the things people need to have in order to have meaning in life. That stuck with me. Because life can get stale, tiring, monotonous, stressful, and soul-deadening. We’ve gotten jaded. We’ve gotten numb. It’s hard to transcend. Lots of people need to drink to have fun. I went skydiving, and while it was fun, even mid-fall, I thought, “I’m actually 19% bored by this.”
We crave wonder and something in the world that will blow us away completely. But even when we get a great experience, it’s not satisfying in the way we want it to be. There’s still something missing and we feel that little craving like an echo. With every great experience, there’s a little sadness that it wasn’t enough to not disappoint us a little. When we get what we wanted, we are left with more wanting and we seek out the next thing. It’s a pretty crazy hamster wheel that lasts your whole life.
C.S. Lewis talks about this really well. He says, “The longings which arise in us when we first fall in love, or first think of some foreign country, or first take up some subject that really excites us, are longings which no marriage, no travel, no learning, can really satisfy. I am not now speaking of that which would be ordinarily called unsuccessful marriages, or holidays, or learned careers. I am speaking of the best possible ones. There was something we grasped, at that first moment of longing, which just fades away in the reality.” It’s like when you have a really interesting dream, but the details are fuzzy. When you wake up, you are so disappointed not to be able to explore the dream further. Your mind grasps for the details of the dream, but they fade within seconds.
The afterlife starts now: I’ve heard it suggested that this longing is “the collective memory of Eden” that is deep within us. C.S. Lewis also said that if he feels hunger, that doesn’t prove that he will get food, but surely it proves that there is such a thing as food. A very famous quote by Lewis is, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” That seems to suggest that we will experience the wonder and excitement we seek someday, after we die. But, as pastors are recently starting to point out with more frequency, the spiritual world isn’t only some far off land that we will get to after death. We have access to it right now.
You just have to dwell on it and seek it out. Quantity time breeds quality time. You can’t come to a person once every year, spend an hour with them, and expect to have a deep, fulfilling conversation where you both really connect. You have to invest in the person and the best moments come up sometimes when you least expect them. It’s the same with a relationship with God. I’m not one of those who wants to guilt people into not having a scheduled quiet time every morning at 5 a.m., but I do know the importance of finding a way to make God a part of your everyday life. People today compartmentalize too much, but you can’t compartmentalize this and have it open up the world beneath the physical world in a way that you interact with both worlds on a daily basis. Spirituality isn’t just for church on Sunday. It’s for work, school, family time, friend time, thought time, entertainment time, exercise time, hard times, good times, driving time, and every time in between. You have to practice seeing God everywhere, in everything you do, and in everyone you meet until you do it unconsciously. You have to listen to other people point out where and how they see God. You have to seek to find. You really do have to believe to see.
Living in two worlds at one time: In his amazing new song “Afterlife,” Switchfoot lead singer Jon Foreman says, “I’ve tasted fire. I’m ready to come alive…I’m ready now. I’m not waiting for the afterlife…Why would I wait ‘til I die…?... I still believe we can live forever. You and I, we begin forever now.” The breath of life is in everyone you meet, every day. Creation proclaims God. People love deeply. Christians have the Holy Spirit with them. The world we long for is here if you look for it, and it’s going to come in full force someday. In the day-to-day, the Christian life adds another layer to everything. Everything you do affects two worlds, the spiritual realm and the physical. If you do someone a favor, you affect their spiritual health as well as their physical lives. When you go to work and do a good job, there’s a spiritual satisfaction in that as well as physical gain. Everything is doubly important.
Also, everything you do matters forever. When parents invest love and effort into bringing up a child, if those parents believe that their child is forever, I think that’s going to affect their parenting. Lots of people in high school would tell me, “I don’t care about these people. I’m going to be gone to college in a year, so why would I put effort into befriending people I’ll never see again?” Because they are permanent and the way you treat them affects whether you are going to bring heaven to earth today, point it out, pull it here, and make the spiritual world as it should be start now. This is a concept Rob Bell, a Jewish teacher I know, and Tim Keller talk about. They say that you choose whether to be part of bringing heaven or hell to earth with your actions. Are you helping heaven get a head start? Because it's coming eventually, and you will be continuing that work in the next world. That waitress you were rude or good to? She could remember that moment for the rest of her life in the physical world. And it makes a mark elsewhere as well.
The two world thing provides wonder too. The spiritual world is one that starts now, that is here with us now, that we don’t fully get to see. There is infinite mystery there. The other world probably has different rules (will there be gravity and time?), different beings, and…colors we’ve never seen, even. Most importantly, we will get to see God, and he’s one remarkable dude. When you have the spiritual world in mind and you notice the things in this world that will still exist in that one, everything in this world becomes more interesting. Your priorities change. Every experience is heightened because it’s connected with your spirituality. Boredom is rare. The more you see it, the more you understand it, and the more you fall in love with the world and everything in it.
While you are experiencing and fully noticing the little tastes of the world that is to come, you realize that it’s there that you will find that wonder that will blow you away. The thing that will take you to your knees and overwhelm every sense you have is coming. It’s like going from the Dursley’s to Hogwarts. You live hearing these rumors of that place, and you get glimpses of it that are so powerful that it is literally more satisfying than food or a long vacation to just have that 30-second glimpse. I’ve experienced this, and it’s hard to talk about it without sounding crazy, but they are exactly the best moments of my life. These experiences are possible every day and they come at exactly no cost. You just have to take yourself there by constantly opening your eyes to it until it is so natural that you can’t NOT think about God about every ten minutes. People urge me to give up my crutch.
But try giving THAT up.
In the gap between two worlds, "dying": I believe that the glimpses will eventually become constant, permanently visible reality in the next world, where everything that is just wrong and disappointing and shouldn’t be here will be wiped out. I briefly volunteered at Hospice, where terminally ill patients go to die. I only did it for around six months, because watching dying people sleep isn’t as thrilling as it sounds, and I realized my talents lie elsewhere. I’m better at being aggressive/fighting for things like justice than giving hugs/being warm and fuzzy. But while I was there, I saw people who were hours from death and I talked to workers who had seen it hundreds of times. Even if the brain was unaffected by disease, there is a period where the body of the person is still there, but the mind starts to go.
This period occurs mere hours or minutes before death, and some people say it’s just the mind shutting down or something and making people see crazy things. The people start to experience a different reality, and if they can talk, they talk about what they see (sometimes less coherently than you would hope). One woman pointed out to a worker that she saw her loved one standing in the room. The dying exclaim in excitement as they are being extracted from their dying bodies. Steve Jobs’ last words as revealed by his sister were, “Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow, oh wow….” Don’t fear death. Fear a life that doesn't make you feel that level of "wow" every once-in-a-while.
The afterlife starts now: I’ve heard it suggested that this longing is “the collective memory of Eden” that is deep within us. C.S. Lewis also said that if he feels hunger, that doesn’t prove that he will get food, but surely it proves that there is such a thing as food. A very famous quote by Lewis is, “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” That seems to suggest that we will experience the wonder and excitement we seek someday, after we die. But, as pastors are recently starting to point out with more frequency, the spiritual world isn’t only some far off land that we will get to after death. We have access to it right now.
You just have to dwell on it and seek it out. Quantity time breeds quality time. You can’t come to a person once every year, spend an hour with them, and expect to have a deep, fulfilling conversation where you both really connect. You have to invest in the person and the best moments come up sometimes when you least expect them. It’s the same with a relationship with God. I’m not one of those who wants to guilt people into not having a scheduled quiet time every morning at 5 a.m., but I do know the importance of finding a way to make God a part of your everyday life. People today compartmentalize too much, but you can’t compartmentalize this and have it open up the world beneath the physical world in a way that you interact with both worlds on a daily basis. Spirituality isn’t just for church on Sunday. It’s for work, school, family time, friend time, thought time, entertainment time, exercise time, hard times, good times, driving time, and every time in between. You have to practice seeing God everywhere, in everything you do, and in everyone you meet until you do it unconsciously. You have to listen to other people point out where and how they see God. You have to seek to find. You really do have to believe to see.
Living in two worlds at one time: In his amazing new song “Afterlife,” Switchfoot lead singer Jon Foreman says, “I’ve tasted fire. I’m ready to come alive…I’m ready now. I’m not waiting for the afterlife…Why would I wait ‘til I die…?... I still believe we can live forever. You and I, we begin forever now.” The breath of life is in everyone you meet, every day. Creation proclaims God. People love deeply. Christians have the Holy Spirit with them. The world we long for is here if you look for it, and it’s going to come in full force someday. In the day-to-day, the Christian life adds another layer to everything. Everything you do affects two worlds, the spiritual realm and the physical. If you do someone a favor, you affect their spiritual health as well as their physical lives. When you go to work and do a good job, there’s a spiritual satisfaction in that as well as physical gain. Everything is doubly important.
Also, everything you do matters forever. When parents invest love and effort into bringing up a child, if those parents believe that their child is forever, I think that’s going to affect their parenting. Lots of people in high school would tell me, “I don’t care about these people. I’m going to be gone to college in a year, so why would I put effort into befriending people I’ll never see again?” Because they are permanent and the way you treat them affects whether you are going to bring heaven to earth today, point it out, pull it here, and make the spiritual world as it should be start now. This is a concept Rob Bell, a Jewish teacher I know, and Tim Keller talk about. They say that you choose whether to be part of bringing heaven or hell to earth with your actions. Are you helping heaven get a head start? Because it's coming eventually, and you will be continuing that work in the next world. That waitress you were rude or good to? She could remember that moment for the rest of her life in the physical world. And it makes a mark elsewhere as well.
The two world thing provides wonder too. The spiritual world is one that starts now, that is here with us now, that we don’t fully get to see. There is infinite mystery there. The other world probably has different rules (will there be gravity and time?), different beings, and…colors we’ve never seen, even. Most importantly, we will get to see God, and he’s one remarkable dude. When you have the spiritual world in mind and you notice the things in this world that will still exist in that one, everything in this world becomes more interesting. Your priorities change. Every experience is heightened because it’s connected with your spirituality. Boredom is rare. The more you see it, the more you understand it, and the more you fall in love with the world and everything in it.
While you are experiencing and fully noticing the little tastes of the world that is to come, you realize that it’s there that you will find that wonder that will blow you away. The thing that will take you to your knees and overwhelm every sense you have is coming. It’s like going from the Dursley’s to Hogwarts. You live hearing these rumors of that place, and you get glimpses of it that are so powerful that it is literally more satisfying than food or a long vacation to just have that 30-second glimpse. I’ve experienced this, and it’s hard to talk about it without sounding crazy, but they are exactly the best moments of my life. These experiences are possible every day and they come at exactly no cost. You just have to take yourself there by constantly opening your eyes to it until it is so natural that you can’t NOT think about God about every ten minutes. People urge me to give up my crutch.
But try giving THAT up.
In the gap between two worlds, "dying": I believe that the glimpses will eventually become constant, permanently visible reality in the next world, where everything that is just wrong and disappointing and shouldn’t be here will be wiped out. I briefly volunteered at Hospice, where terminally ill patients go to die. I only did it for around six months, because watching dying people sleep isn’t as thrilling as it sounds, and I realized my talents lie elsewhere. I’m better at being aggressive/fighting for things like justice than giving hugs/being warm and fuzzy. But while I was there, I saw people who were hours from death and I talked to workers who had seen it hundreds of times. Even if the brain was unaffected by disease, there is a period where the body of the person is still there, but the mind starts to go.
This period occurs mere hours or minutes before death, and some people say it’s just the mind shutting down or something and making people see crazy things. The people start to experience a different reality, and if they can talk, they talk about what they see (sometimes less coherently than you would hope). One woman pointed out to a worker that she saw her loved one standing in the room. The dying exclaim in excitement as they are being extracted from their dying bodies. Steve Jobs’ last words as revealed by his sister were, “Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow, oh wow….” Don’t fear death. Fear a life that doesn't make you feel that level of "wow" every once-in-a-while.
Deep. Amazing first post! Here are some random thoughts...
ReplyDeleteI have been in one of the worst places in the state of Florida; the death room at Florida State Prison where, literally, hundreds of men and women have been electrocuted or given a lethal injection.
I have stood in a position of power over thousands of murderers, rapists, child molesters, and just plain evil people. The utter barbarity that humanity is capable of is almost behind belief.
And yet I take comfort in the fact that He is greater than all of it. The evil that we do cannot exist in front of Him for even a nanosecond. I have found my greatest affirmation of my Christian faith not in church, but in those terrible moments when one must find inner strength to be greater than our sinful nature. It's easy to give into hate; evil for evil, if you will. That's exactly what we must not do.
It was said that Ted Bundy, one of the worst serial killers in modern times, was saved in his last meeting with Chuck Colson (of Watergate fame). Am I to be believe that a God would forgive such an awful person? Yes. If we are to have any faith at all in salvation it must come from a foundation that He will forgive the worst of us. After all, it was the thief on the cross who would be with Jesus in paradise, not the Pharisees who condemned Him.
When I get frustrated with God, and grumble about this or that I take comfort in the fact that I am exactly where He wants me to be at any given time. To be a Christian, in my opinion and affirmed by personal experience, you must surrender your ego to something greater than yourself, and look within to find your place in this world; to carry the cross He wants you to carry, not acting out of selfish self-interest, but instead seeing yourself as a humble servant of something far greater than the mind can know.
As for my own death, well, it's not something I think about too often. I entered a place I never knew I was leaving too many times to count so I view death in this way, as stated by the great Civil War general Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson:
“Captain, my religious belief teaches me to feel as safe in battle as in bed. God has fixed the time for my death. I do not concern myself about that, but to be always ready, no matter when it may overtake me. That is the way all men should live, and then all would be equally brave”.
Wow, thanks for sharing. Yes, the sight of extreme evil would certainly provide a contrast and strengthen your view of what you need to be focusing on in life. That death room must have felt so wrong. *shivers*
ReplyDeleteI never thought of it that way, but the sight of such evil must really emphasize how much more powerful and vast God's goodness is, that he could defeat it.
I know this is the wrong blog to make this comment on, but while you are here: Millennium is everything I wish Fringe was. Soooooo good.
I knew you would appreciate Millennium. Let me know when you are ready for the second season.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great explanation of what it's like to be a Christian! I agree that there is so much more to the gospel than just saving you from death/hell. The more you delve into the Word, the more you see the gospel come alive in your everyday living. Thanks for spending the time writing this, Erin!
ReplyDeleteHaha, thanks! I'm glad you can relate. And I would write about this even if no one read it. I used to do it in my journal, which I lost, sadly. It is fun for me and helps me think it through.
ReplyDelete