The Difference in Christ and the Difference it Makes Part I
The Problem:
A few years ago while my brother was home visiting, he happened to be sitting at the dining room table and flipping through a photo album. In it were pictures of me, looking miserable as I often did. He asked me something along the lines of why I used to look like that, presumably because I no longer do. My answer was very simple: I saw no meaning in life. I believe one of his girlfriends once referred to me as "sullen." She was correct. I wanted for nothing physically; I was well fed, lived in a good house, and did fine in school. I had gone to Sunday School, been baptized and confirmed, and it meant absolutely nothing to me.
Outward adherence to a creed is religion. I had experienced religion and found it wanting, and therefore doubted that there was a God. There was neither substance nor depth behind it, and certainly not an all-powerful and loving God. That left me being the product of blind forces adrift in a world, supposedly free to choose and find my own meaning. But here is why I remained miserable, though I would not have been able to vocalize it as such back then.
Being free to find my own meaning is slavery. Choosing to give my life meaning is a lie. Either life has meaning or it does not, and if it doesn't than anything else is just how I decide to polish the outside of my tomb. Hope, too, becomes pointless because hope, like faith, requires an object - we put our hope or faith in something.
If life has no meaning then merely imposing some reason to live, because I find myself in need of one, is self deception. I end up living a lie but the problem is I know I am lying to myself. So while I might fool everyone into thinking that I am a man with purpose and a "self-actualized destiny," or somesuch, I know that it is mere facade - until the day I eventually begin to believe my own lie. And let me tell you something, dear reader, there is nothing more pitiful than believing your own lies. That is bondage in its truest sense. Seeing that my recourse was to give myself a lie to live for, and unable to shy away from that truth, I was left with only one other option - the details of which I won't address here. Suffice it to say, if life is fundamentally meaningless, then living or dying ultimately makes no difference. To live was to live with a lie, the other option was far more final but seemed to embrace the truth of it all.
Either it ends all at once, or I endure with the living lie. But in so enduring I would die as well, just the slow death of hope and of the soul. Until, at the end, I no longer really care if I live or not because I am too numb to anything to care.
At that point I began to question and read, in order to make sure I was arriving at the correct conclusion. I read many things, and it's funny how we tend to make truth so dependent upon our perspectives. But, when we are stripped to the core, and when we relieve ourselves of any pretentious notions and academic blindfolds, we tend to know what is true when we discover it. We just don't really like the truth, but more on that later.
I read the Qur'an. I've read it twice now, once as a believer and once as someone who was seeking. The option of Islam was tempting, perhaps the most tempting. What struck me was the immense discipline it seemed to instill, in rising, praying and submitting utterly to Allah. Merely submit to his will and one would find one's place in the universe.
Allah, however, is cold and distant. Nor did he seem to have much to say about the modern day. So I read the Tao The Tchung and meditated upon Daoist truth. I found kernels of wisdom in its teachings, and many riddles that helped me expand my mind, but nothing to fill me. I knew that if there was one thing I needed, it was not more of myself. Being me had brought me to this point, and to be anyone else was again another meaningless lie.
I read Satanic scriptures from the "official" Church of Satan, founded by Anton LeVay. This proved equally fruitless, offering me only a philosophy to help me ascertain power over and in my personal life. Power for power's sake was also meaningless and offered me nothing. Mastering my inner world would leave me master of a desert, and mastering my surroundings would not change that. All it might let me do is impose that desert upon others, all to prove that misery does indeed love company.
Lastly, I read the Bible for the first time. I came across a verse in Matthew (16:24-26) where Jesus said: Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?"
This really is the crux of the matter. I had been trying to fill my life with myself, with my grasping for what would bring life meaning, whether they be skill in my interests, friendships or romantic attachments. To live for these is to live like a vampire, draining the meaning from others until they no longer satisfy before casting them aside out of necessity. It was then that I saw how I had been existing as just that, and how the weight of it had brought me to a very uncomfortable but necessary decision: live with a lie or die in truth.
However, God also told me that those desires I had were given by Him, I had been trying to fill them inappropriately even some of those things were quite good. I was longing for many things, ultimately for truth and meaning, and had found them only in the possibility of death. The irony was I had long since moved past the point where the truth and life might be one in the same, and yet that was the answer.
"I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me (John 14:6)."
You see, I was not looking for any reason to live. I needed the reason, for anything else was mere fantasy and delusion. Christ had met me where I was, seeing life without hope for what it was and no longer being able to hide from it. In seeing that truth I came to know another, that I myself was a morally unlovable person. The tendency, of course, is to dismiss all that happened to me as the response of a desperate person at the end of his rope. May I submit to you that it was only upon coming to that brink of dawning desperation that I saw things the most clearly, without the easy conceits and rationalizations to hide behind. I saw that there was only darkness, a darkness necessary before I could see the light that is Christ. For by Him not only do I see, but by Him I see everything else - including myself.
I had seen the truth of my condition, and the truth of myself. It is a terrifying thing and yet it is a liberating thing. We all crave and desire love, yet sadly most of us project images of ourselves we know to be false because we think we really are unlovable. There is no love without truth, because true love is knowing someone truly and deeply, and still enduring and abiding in love.
To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free (John 8:31-32).
A few years ago while my brother was home visiting, he happened to be sitting at the dining room table and flipping through a photo album. In it were pictures of me, looking miserable as I often did. He asked me something along the lines of why I used to look like that, presumably because I no longer do. My answer was very simple: I saw no meaning in life. I believe one of his girlfriends once referred to me as "sullen." She was correct. I wanted for nothing physically; I was well fed, lived in a good house, and did fine in school. I had gone to Sunday School, been baptized and confirmed, and it meant absolutely nothing to me.
Outward adherence to a creed is religion. I had experienced religion and found it wanting, and therefore doubted that there was a God. There was neither substance nor depth behind it, and certainly not an all-powerful and loving God. That left me being the product of blind forces adrift in a world, supposedly free to choose and find my own meaning. But here is why I remained miserable, though I would not have been able to vocalize it as such back then.
Being free to find my own meaning is slavery. Choosing to give my life meaning is a lie. Either life has meaning or it does not, and if it doesn't than anything else is just how I decide to polish the outside of my tomb. Hope, too, becomes pointless because hope, like faith, requires an object - we put our hope or faith in something.
If life has no meaning then merely imposing some reason to live, because I find myself in need of one, is self deception. I end up living a lie but the problem is I know I am lying to myself. So while I might fool everyone into thinking that I am a man with purpose and a "self-actualized destiny," or somesuch, I know that it is mere facade - until the day I eventually begin to believe my own lie. And let me tell you something, dear reader, there is nothing more pitiful than believing your own lies. That is bondage in its truest sense. Seeing that my recourse was to give myself a lie to live for, and unable to shy away from that truth, I was left with only one other option - the details of which I won't address here. Suffice it to say, if life is fundamentally meaningless, then living or dying ultimately makes no difference. To live was to live with a lie, the other option was far more final but seemed to embrace the truth of it all.
Either it ends all at once, or I endure with the living lie. But in so enduring I would die as well, just the slow death of hope and of the soul. Until, at the end, I no longer really care if I live or not because I am too numb to anything to care.
At that point I began to question and read, in order to make sure I was arriving at the correct conclusion. I read many things, and it's funny how we tend to make truth so dependent upon our perspectives. But, when we are stripped to the core, and when we relieve ourselves of any pretentious notions and academic blindfolds, we tend to know what is true when we discover it. We just don't really like the truth, but more on that later.
I read the Qur'an. I've read it twice now, once as a believer and once as someone who was seeking. The option of Islam was tempting, perhaps the most tempting. What struck me was the immense discipline it seemed to instill, in rising, praying and submitting utterly to Allah. Merely submit to his will and one would find one's place in the universe.
Allah, however, is cold and distant. Nor did he seem to have much to say about the modern day. So I read the Tao The Tchung and meditated upon Daoist truth. I found kernels of wisdom in its teachings, and many riddles that helped me expand my mind, but nothing to fill me. I knew that if there was one thing I needed, it was not more of myself. Being me had brought me to this point, and to be anyone else was again another meaningless lie.
I read Satanic scriptures from the "official" Church of Satan, founded by Anton LeVay. This proved equally fruitless, offering me only a philosophy to help me ascertain power over and in my personal life. Power for power's sake was also meaningless and offered me nothing. Mastering my inner world would leave me master of a desert, and mastering my surroundings would not change that. All it might let me do is impose that desert upon others, all to prove that misery does indeed love company.
Lastly, I read the Bible for the first time. I came across a verse in Matthew (16:24-26) where Jesus said: Then Jesus said to his disciples, "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it. What good will it be for a man if he gains the whole world, yet forfeits his soul? Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?"
This really is the crux of the matter. I had been trying to fill my life with myself, with my grasping for what would bring life meaning, whether they be skill in my interests, friendships or romantic attachments. To live for these is to live like a vampire, draining the meaning from others until they no longer satisfy before casting them aside out of necessity. It was then that I saw how I had been existing as just that, and how the weight of it had brought me to a very uncomfortable but necessary decision: live with a lie or die in truth.
However, God also told me that those desires I had were given by Him, I had been trying to fill them inappropriately even some of those things were quite good. I was longing for many things, ultimately for truth and meaning, and had found them only in the possibility of death. The irony was I had long since moved past the point where the truth and life might be one in the same, and yet that was the answer.
"I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the father except through me (John 14:6)."
You see, I was not looking for any reason to live. I needed the reason, for anything else was mere fantasy and delusion. Christ had met me where I was, seeing life without hope for what it was and no longer being able to hide from it. In seeing that truth I came to know another, that I myself was a morally unlovable person. The tendency, of course, is to dismiss all that happened to me as the response of a desperate person at the end of his rope. May I submit to you that it was only upon coming to that brink of dawning desperation that I saw things the most clearly, without the easy conceits and rationalizations to hide behind. I saw that there was only darkness, a darkness necessary before I could see the light that is Christ. For by Him not only do I see, but by Him I see everything else - including myself.
I had seen the truth of my condition, and the truth of myself. It is a terrifying thing and yet it is a liberating thing. We all crave and desire love, yet sadly most of us project images of ourselves we know to be false because we think we really are unlovable. There is no love without truth, because true love is knowing someone truly and deeply, and still enduring and abiding in love.
To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, "If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free (John 8:31-32).
posted by Brian at 1:04 PM
2 Comments:
hey brian. i guess i'm the first one to comment on your 215 part series "the difference...". this is real personal stuff so it's hard to be critical without offending, but here goes.
my main beef is with the second and third paragraphs of the first post because the rest of your ideas follow from them.
both outward and inward adherence to supernatural beliefs is religion. as much as christians say their belief is a relationship and not a religion, and that it is grace-based and not rule-based, it is a religion nonetheless and it does have rules that god sets out which people can choose to follow or not. and there is punishment for not playing by the rules.
further, saying that those who don't follow christ are adrift in the world, slaves to their choices and incapable of finding meaning, creates a false choice. saying this deity is the only thing that will give you meaning and anything else is just lies is a false choice. this is the formula christianity imposes on the world to back people into a corner, making it appear as if there is no alternative. but life is not that cut and dry.
maybe there is no one reason to live, but many reasons, all of which each person discovers on his or her own. if one person feels like they are living lies unless they follow the demands of a deity, why should the next person be forced to feel the same way?
We call CHrisitanity, Islam and Hinduism religions because they have things in common and all fit into a similar category. Absolutely. However, what I'm getting at is the difference. The graciousness found in Christ is not found in any other religion. Every other religion is based on rules, and one follows it like a recipe or mapquest instructions. We all know this is true because about people doing things like exercising and we use the adjective "religiously!"
But where these religions fail is that they do not recognize our inherent brokeness - what Christian Theology identifies as the doctrine of original sin - nor do they deal with it.
No one should be forced to feel anything. That is dangerous psychological manipulation and does not help any person nor does it glorify God. I never said, and the Bible never teaches, compelling people to believe through coercion.
By the same token, we are very often caught up in whether or not something feels right. You never see anyone asking, however, what is right to feel.
Whether I choose one reason to live or many reasons, it makes no ultimate difference. The problem is still that I have chosen the meaning to my life, rather than sought after the meaning of all life - that is the facade, the lie, that I was speaking about.
It is not a false facade presented by Chrisitanity to back people into a corner. It is the removal of all conceits and the realization of the truth - if there really is no objective meaning to life than choosing one, or several, is the lie. And if the decision leaves someone feeling backed into a corner, maybe that is because there really is a corner and we just don't like dealing with it.
Many of Buddha's followers added beings to worship into his religion, which tells me that the drive for worship is fundamental to all people. Similarly, many people who claim there is no such thing as meaning attempt to still find it in other things, which tells me that we have a fundamental drive for meaning as well.
Meaning and worship are essential parts of human nature, no matter how much we deny them because we may be uncomfortable with where that leads - to God.
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