Kindness & Love

“…For about a hundred years we have so concentrated on one of the virtues – ‘kindness’ or mercy – that most of us do not feel anything expect kindness to be really good or anything but cruelty to be really bad.”[1]

When C.S. Lewis wrote these words in 1940, “Kindness,” ruled the day, but now over 70 years later, “Love,” rules. Starting somewhere - in the 1960’s I’d assume – love became the new pet virtue.

What we’ve seen is that our definition and understanding of love, that is what we’ve been conditioned to recognize as love, is nothing more than the obtaining of sex. And, therefore, the denial of sex is pure hatred.  We’ve been had. We have been lied to.

The lie is that sex is the true meaning of love. Whether this happened by some terrible accident of marketing, “Sex sells,” or it was some grand scheme of the devil (who needs no congratulations if it was) I don’t know. But what I do know is that the conditioning we’ve been conditioned to know as reality is truly a fiction.

A reconditioning not just of our knowledge but also of our feelings is what is required. We can know all we want about the facts of what Christian (and by that I mean true) love is, but that ought to influence our hearts – our emotions. Our conditioned understanding of love as sex must be reoriented to the true meaning of love, God.

But still more we must understand all virtues in this manner. This is the heart side of the matter of belief. In faith our emotions are impacted in a biblical way. So things that are truly unjust are seen and felt as such; things that are kind are seen as kind; and love is seen as Love.

Yet we live in – as Lewis called them – pockets and in these pockets we have convinced ourselves of our own goodness, our virtuousness. But as we look from our 21^st Century pocket to the pocket of the Middle Ages we call them cruel and mean while they would see themselves as courageous and chivalrous and us as cowardly and apathetic.

Indeed we ought to really be a horror to God and ourselves. Our pet virtue of love is really no virtue at all just a selfish desire of sexual satisfaction and our understanding of our own time’s, “goodness,” is simply because no one has yet interfered with us to the point of physical violence with them (while mental violence has already accosted them).

We must relearn what it is to be truly human and that by the blood of the cross.

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[1] C.S. Lewis. The Problem of Pain. Pg 56

20-somethings

I went on my first walk in a long time last night (I also candied pecans and cooked myself a steak dinner. Bam, domestic!). Walks are therapy.

Quite honestly when I walked out the door I didn’t know which way I’d go, where I’d walk to, or how long I’d go for; I just meandered about until I ended up back on my front porch.

But mostly I walked along the river while the trees cast eerie shadows in the light of the moon. The voices of people far away carrying in the still air, the high thin clouds making the dark darker here and there all of it bursting through the seams of my mind to whisper, “Christ is King.”

Now-a-days weeks feel like years and days feel like months. Hours aren’t enough to measure things by (‘cept college algebra) and minutes might as well not exist. Is this growing up? Continually loosing track of time until so much of it has slipped through your fingers there’s no more left to hold.

I’m still just a kid.

But that’s a lie too. Kids are intrepid little devils who are fascinated by fireflies, clouds, and summer nights (or snow fights). The life of a twenty-something is the life of a wondering dreamer, wanting more to life but facing the constant reality of loosing track.

Yet this too is pointing us back to the whisper of the eerie shadow of the trees, “Christ is King.” We, we bunch of almost-kids who dream big and act small, we bunch of semi-adults who fight hard and believe little, we are part of a story much bigger than ourselves.

The beauty of reality is equal to the wonder of our imaginations. With complications, adventures, and the boring all of it is the story of our lives. And this story is intertwined with the story of Christ is King that we, we rag-tag individuals, ought never to look for more than the wonder of Jesus, because in him is enough to see the world changed and our lives made both whole and worth while.

At least that's the hope. Yet the mind of the cynic will always see the flaws, the failures. Indeed, I rarely get far from Lewis, "We are far too easily pleased."

A Far Too Common Story

She walked into the bar. Tired, worn down and out. The bags under her eyes were obvious, the same clothes she had on yesterday cling to her skin. There’s a look of desperation in her face, of worry and torment.

Flopping into a seat near the bar she orders her drink. Huddling over it once it arrives she begins to gingerly milk it little sips here, little sips there. Tears, and possibly a scream seem to be close to bursting from her.

She’d been here last night, this bar. But then she was vibrant and happy, laughing at the stupid jokes and dancing the night away. But now she seems broken.

He’d been a nice enough guy. Seemed to genuinely care. He bought a few rounds for her and her friends and made polite small talk. After she’d denied his advances of becoming a little too physical he left. She thought nothing of it at all.

She’d parked too far away from the safety of the lights, she’d said goodbye to her friends, and she was alone.

He took her. He raped her.

Here she sits the next day weeping into a cup of coffee. Trying to find what she’d lost at the place she had it last.

It’s the story of far to many women.

It’s the fear they’ll never tell.

But it’s a travesty.

To believe the lie of being, ‘broken,’ and therefore unwanted. To remember the youth group teaching, “Who would want someone who’s not a virgin?” Yet that’s the lie.

God wants the broken. It’s the culmination of Christianity. That the destitute are redeemed, that the broken are made whole.

There’s a Redeemer who’s come to save. The righteous has no need of saving, it’s the sick that need the Doctor, and it’s the broken that need the Mender. It’s the raped that need the Healer.

So to Jesus she runs, to him, who'll treat her like the daughter she is, she clings. Away from the mire of the past and into the glory of the future. Because hope has come.

In all seriousness: If this story is you, don't let the boy who did this get away. There are many who will help. There are friends who'll listen. You, of all people, are not alone.

Political

I’ve been having quite a few ‘political thoughts’ this past weekend (scary). Usually I like to steer clear of that whole arena of thinking and talking (some who know me, know this well).

(I'm calling it as I see it.)

But here’s the deal, the thing that sent me thinking all day Saturday. There is no leader to follow, none. None which will fix the problems of the nation or help the plight to get better.

Sure, they’ll all promise it when the time is come for ballots, but will they do it, no. It’s the same great scam over and over and over…etc, a suit stands in front of crowd gets their votes and makes a career out of what should be an honor.

Working for a few days a year then taking the rest of it off, tossing around some legal jargon (which they probably don’t understand) and then campaigning to get re-elected, using the same lies they used last time.

We’re used to it, we expect politicians to lie.

That’s despicable. We expect the people who lead us to lie to us…

I’m not going to tell you who to vote for. I’m not going to give you some savvy political advice. All I want out of this is to make a few people think.

Think about the simple fact there is no leader to unite a nation unto its salvation. Sooner or later all nations fail and fall Egypt, Greece, Rome there’s not yet been an exception.

I’m an American, an (voting) American who’s tired of crappy politicians and a fractured, divided and leaderless country (leaderless in the sense of none to unite all). Men died to see a free country; something tells if the vast majority of those men saw us now they’d be sorry.

But we don’t hope in a nation do we?

We hope in God. In Jesus.