When I look back at my journal from 6 months or so ago. I can tell that because I look at what I wrote and think ‘That seems immature’. I don’t know in exactly what way though!
My bro writes some really impressive stuff on his blog. A recent post contained the line 'Living without purpose is dying without a cause'. 17- Amazing!
At the moment I'm on a journey of trying to distinguish how much we as Christians should go on principle, or self discipline, and how much we should just live life, based on our desires. It was brought up for me while I was on holiday with a friend who is far more a 'heart' person (while I am far more of a 'head' person).
Sometimes Christians (especially in this country) can be so sensible. I recently read in a children's holiday club manual on the theme of pirates: 'you should be dressed as pirates, but without any references to disability (eye patches, wooden legs etc.)'. Some might see this as a sensible precaution (agaist what?!), but it's just sooo RATIONAL, or REASONABLE, or LOGICAL or SAFE. - Who cares?!
Do you know, I don't think that there's a word for it. If anyone can find a good one, let me know. All of our words meaning 'based on thought' have positive connotations. What I really need is a word which means: 'based-on-reason-in-such-a-way-that-it-takes-away-from-fun-or-any-sense-of-enjoyment' or something like that. In some cases it can seem like our job as Christians is to be the sensibleness of the world. We can't be creative or wild or passionate or crazy - the main job of the Christian is sensibleness. Doh!
Another example is the idea that Christians should always go for the 'middle way' when making purchases (e.g. buying cars). They shouldn't get the cheapest option, because that's generally bad stewardship (it'll break down sooner, and in some cases it can mean oppression of the poor producers). They shouldn't go for the most expensive option, because that will again be poor stewardship, and will probably be based more on show than anything else. To quote John Wesley (quoted by Richard Foster) 'As... for apparel, I buy the most lasting and, in general, the plainest I can. I buy no furniture but what is neccessary and cheap'.
See, I actually agree with that. I run a scooter, rather than a car, because it's cheaper and I don't need a car; I only have two pairs of jeans that I wear (this is in the hope of inspiring, not to boast in myself) - but the thing is, if followed in every case it just leads to boring-ness! Where's the place for a person who loves guitars, and has like, 12 of 'em? Or does it suggests that a Christian should never own a ferrari? AND that ferarri as a company is a bad or a sinful thing? PLEASE, let's be real, let's escape materialism, but let's NOT be boring. I would rather be totally poor, giving everything away, or totally rich (and generous), but to be mediocre? AARGH!
love
D
6 comments:
Oh yes.
How do we move forward? I can only really change myself. I guess I want to learn to live passionately without being unnecessarily reckless, motivated more by love than by money, and seeking always to please God over myself or others (anything else is ultimately just vanity).
D
I think you're definitely right - God wants us to be creative, diverse people, not grey clones. However, I think you've assumed that people need to express themselves through their material possessions. Isn't that the great lie of our consumer society? Surely people can show that they are mad, crazy anything-but-sensible Christians without having to buy stuff to show it?
Oh and isn't the 'rational-thought-but -taking-all-the-enjoyment-away' word you're looking for 'politically correct'?
'All too often, the church has given the impression of opposing natural desires, judging them, in a word, "unspiritual". ... Whole denominations have taken refuge in legalism, labelling as sinful any expression of natural desire.
I have certainly gone through odd phases of desire-quenching, even after moving away from Southern fundamentalism and its long list of forbidden activities. After reading stories of believers in concentration camps - Alexander Solzhenitsyn in the Soviet Gulag, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Corrie ten Boom in Nazi prisons, Ernest Gordon in a Japanese work camp - I tried to adjust my lifestyle accordingly (whether in solidarity with the prisoners or in paranoid expectation, I cannot recall). Every alternate day I drank no coffee, for whoever heard of a prison serving good coffee? I stopped using Visine eye drops for dry eyes and hand lotion for dry skin. I gave away two-thirds of my income, wore the same dull clothes day after day, and tried to dispose of all unneeded possessions.
Simple lifestyle became, for me, boring lifestyle. I resigned myself to an attitude of enduring life on earth - better yet, suffering here - in anticipation of a better life to come. One day a question occured to me, or perhaps to my friends: Why should anyone look forward to a better life without experiencing at least clues of it here? I realized that natural desire was not an enemy of the supernatural, and repressing desire not the solution. Rather, to find the path of joy I needed to connect desire to its other-worldly source.'
From "Rumours of Another World"
Ok, a couple of comments here. Jonathan; I think you raise an amazing and an important point - I agree that it IS more about our lifestyle than our posessions that marks us out as being different. In terms of 'politically correct', I think you could be right, but I think what I'm thinking of would be in terms of being politically correct for its own sake, not to be 'political' in the sense of trying to appease various groups of people.
Philip Yancey (I really did think that it was him commenting for a brief second! - doh.), I think this is a very rounded perspective too. However, this line of thinking can be what leads to Christians being mediocre, too, don't you think? To escape from being unneccesarily ascetic on one hand, or excessive materialists on the other, we can just take the 'middle way' and be dull!
Having said that, I haven't met many Western Christians who are in danger of being too ascetic, in the west I think that most, myself included, are far more inclined towards materialism, to which finding 'the middle way', as I understand it, would be preferable.
Thoughts?
This is exactly what has been on my mind loads in the last few months (although I have no desire to own a ferrari!)
I certainly think, and find, that this sensibleness epidemic does iron out some of what makes us creative and individual, and maybe also it quenches the joy of sharing too?
How rewarding would it be to lend your ferrari to the 18-year-old in your youth group to drive to his school leavers ball in?
It WOULD be really rewarding to be generous with your Ferrari, I believe. However, would it also be encouraging an impressionable young person to believe that one's worth comes from what one consumes?!
And wouldn't it be more rewarding to sell your Ferrari, and use the money to buy anti-retroviral drugs, to prolong the lives of hundreds (thousands?) of people living with HIV/Aids?
Sorry, I apologise for having more questions than answers!
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