Faith & Religion

Moving the Ancient Boundaries – I

Dr Bob

Do not move the ancient boundary stone set up
    by your forefathers.
        — Proverbs 22:28 —

 
old houseAncient wisdom: a sage injunction uttered in a time when simple shepherds and farmers parsed out land for grazing and grain, speaking to the prudence of respecting contracts, negotiated agreements with those with whom we live, to abide in a measure of peace. Be honest; respect the property and possessions of those with whom you must abide; do not trade peaceful relations for parcels of land.

Yet like so much of this ancient book of Proverbs, its well runs far deeper than it appears, with ageless wisdom waiting for the discerning, those open to its application in different days and other ages. And so it seems that we, as a culture, have been hard at work for decades, if not longer, moving the boundary stones set up by our forefathers. These markers today are not simple rocks in fields or walls on hills to mark water rights or restrain wandering sheep, but are rather the cultural and moral underpinnings of that which we call Western civilization. We are busy cutting wood from the pilings to add garlands to the gables, and wondering why the house leans so far off vertical.
Continue reading “Moving the Ancient Boundaries – I” →

The Path – III:
The Triumph of Failure

Dr Bob

The Path - III: The Triumph of Failure

A journal of one fool's journey, and the faith which found him.


The day was a warm one–stifling, more precisely, as only an early summer day in D.C. can be, the thick moist air hanging heavy like velvet draperies in the close confines of our brick apartment. Shorts and tee shirt clung to clammy skin as rare breezes through casement windows proved scant relief for a sweat-drenched brow. Yet the heat went unnoticed, my eyes transfixed on words which caressed like gentle breezes through windows unseen yet freshly opened.

The words like wind whistled through fractured spirit, at once cool and soothing, yet firing embers long dormant like some blacksmith’s bellows: faith and forgiveness; peace and purpose; grace and guidance. A child rejected, adopted and treasured; a boy broken in spirit, made whole and at peace; a man worth nothing, repurchased at great price.

But now a righteousness from God, apart from law, has been made known ... This righteousness from God comes through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe ... for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God...

Rom 3:21
Could this indeed be true? Was not the path to God obedience, following the rules, striving to be good? Was there not recompense for rebellion, revenge for wrongdoing, payback for perdition — if not in this life, then surely in the next? What insanity was this, what heresy, what manifest injustice? The world did not work this way—you got what you earned, received what you deserved. What was this—righteousness? What meaning this, faith?

There it was, in black and white: no deals with God. No scales of justice. No balance sheet of assets and liabilities, good and evil, righteous acts and wrongdoing. We were—I was—by any measure, screwed—royally, thoroughly, hopelessly screwed. There must be some answer to this bleak puzzle, this hopeless quandary, this dire prognosis, lest God be cruel and heartless. To set up a law which no man could fully obey; to demand requirements no one could meet: what fiendishness was this, what toying with a creature for whom hope was life itself?

Perhaps this was but an aberration, some passage poorly understood, some quirk of translating languages long dead. But no—in steady cadence came the conviction, wherever I searched:

...God, who has saved us ... not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace...
...He saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy...
...For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith — and this not from yourselves, it is the gift of God...

Eph 2:8-9
The sentence seemed dire, and irrefutable. Here in this book, this core of Christianity, lay a death sentence — a standard too daunting for the finest of men, much less a wounded prodigal hiding under threadbare veil of self-sufficiency.

And thus it came to this: a life of failure, come full circle. A gentle but distant father, from whom no intimacy or esteem could be bought; an overprotective mother, smothering the spirit with castrating cautiousness and random rage; siblings scrambling for self-esteem by trampling mine; a career chosen randomly without foresight or purpose, mandating maximum effort for uncertain ends. Even my marriage —by far the best gift of my life —was greeted with icy detachment by a mother deeply threatened by my betrothal, her life’s meaning enmeshed in the possession of her youngest child. It seemed each step of the way was a stumble, as I careened through life from mishap to mistake, a perfectionist whose only perfect accomplishments were his shortcomings.

And finally, this: to seek for God in desperation, for some measure of hope, and direction, and strength—only to find yet more exalted requirements impossible to meet.

Yet in my desperation, my spirit grasped that which my mind could not comprehend: these words were not those of condemnation, but rather of hope. I was, unknowingly, about to grasp the divine irony: the triumph of failure.

I was seeking that which all men crave: a sense of purpose and worth; direction in a confusing world spiraling out of control; a measure of peace in being right-sized while yet partaking of something larger than myself; a salve for my shame. I saw in the Gospels someone much like that to which I aspired: a man of profound courage, yet extraordinary gentleness; a man of great wisdom; a teacher who saw past the superficial life to touch its very core. I saw therein a man of deep faith and trust, of single-minded purpose, of peace in turmoil, of joy and humor. He was a man, if it could be believed, who healed, who gave sight to those who could not see, and life to those who had lost it. In each life he touched, each leper he healed, each child he embraced, I saw some part of myself, in large or small degree: it was I who was being healed, I who was embraced, I who was beginning to see, I who sought life out of death. Surely such an extraordinary man must be esteemed by all, honored by men, held high in admiration and respect: there had never been another like him.

Then I saw him hanging, naked, on a cross.

An extraordinary ministry, in ruins. A mission, failed. A vision, destroyed. His friends, betrayers. His teachings, foolishness. His prayers, unanswered. His enemies, triumphant. Lofty teachings, miraculous works, infinite selflessness: all lost in that dark moment, when earth cried out and heaven turned its back. It was, in all dimensions, by any standard, an extraordinary failure, a disgraceful demise.

I saw myself there; I knew something of the dark void, if only in smallest measure. But I saw something else, an evolving dawn, faint rays straining at the darkness, imperceptibly brighter in timeless metamorphosis: his failure was gifted, that I might not fail. His pain was intense, that mine might be lifted; his brokenness extreme, that mine might be remedied; his humiliation complete, that my shame be covered.

Herein lay the alternative to a life but squandered, to the roulette wheel of wrong decisions blindly made and blithely followed. Herein lay the solution to the endless slavery of shifting standards, hoping to placate an enigmatic deity. This was a God who had done for me, in one extraordinary embrace, with arms flung wide between heaven and earth, what I myself was helpless to accomplish: he had transformed failure into triumph. The cross says failure is not a graveyard, but a gateway. The cross says pain has purpose, though its meaning be not evident. The cross says he was abandoned, that I be not alone. Because he was rejected, I am accepted; because he was hated, I am cherished.

There was, in that revelation, a moment less of understanding than of trust, a conviction not of the mind but rather an embrace of a wounded yet cherished heart. Such knowledge changes a man—not the frivolous acquisition of powerless facts, but a resurrection of the soul, that One so lifted up would never let me fall. This was no begrudged allegiance, no surly submission to joyless rules or imprisoning principles; it was no less than a full surrender—and with that surrender, full reprieve for a life of failures, past and future, and the power to transform those failures into life-giving freedom:

God made you alive with Christ. He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the written code, with its regulations, that was against us and that stood opposed to us; he took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, he made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross ...

Eph 2:5
Those demons, so demonstrably humiliated on that day beyond time, were not yet done with me —for I was not yet done with them. Many bad choices and failures lay ahead, much wreckage left to create. But the path I set out upon that day—the path rather which drew me onward—was the first solid ground I had ever encountered.

That ground has not shifted to this day.

The Path – II:
Exodus

Dr Bob

The Path - Part 2: Exodus

A journal of one fool’s journey, and the faith which found him.
 
It happened by accident.

Really.

Just off the lot, spanking new, a canary yellow convertible Beetle with black convertible top: her first car. She never saw the woman as she backed out of the parking stall. Fender-bender, to be sure–but deeply distressing, as only the first wound on new wheels can be. “Why?!” her muttered prayer, angry yet submissive by will, seeking to understand what could have no meaning beyond divine capriciousness. Her unintended target, an older women, gracious and composed, proved more merciful than mad–and by twists quite serpentine, two women met by accident that day, mangled fenders forging new friendship.

The older woman’s daughter–a remarkable young lady who lost her sight in early adulthood–soon became Cynthia’s close friend as well. And before long she was introduced by this new friendship to another woman–who was a medical student.

Linda the future physician, was funny, smart, sassy, and tough as nails. One of only ten women in a medical school class of 200, she could throw a punch as well as take one–a highly useful skill in the days before robust friendships between men and women were castrated by PC speech codes and university thought police. She excelled in the dark, sarcastic humor of the urban Northeast–a skill I too had learned in home and high school, a drop-forged survival shield guarding wounded spirit with sarcastic put-down humor.

The blind date with a mutual friend–Linda and Bill, Cynthia and I–was a disaster, although I failed to recognize it at the time. Sharp, sarcastic barbs soared through the room like barroom darts: Linda, Bill and I trading mutual put-downs passing for party talk. I barely spoke with Cynthia, my social dis-ease uncomfortable with anything approaching normal verbal intercourse.

But she was one of the most beautiful women I had ever met: long auburn hair cascading down her slender back; rich russet eyes behind tortoise-shell rims, penetrating the soul; a quiet, demur presence and graciousness I had never before encountered. Had I known, that night, her reaction to our first encounter, I would never have phoned her: she drove away, politely waving, while thanking what gods there were that she would never have to see that jerk again. A lady-killer I may have been–but surely not in any sense which one might hope.

She does not know to this day why she accepted my invitation, one week later–nor do I comprehend my willingness to face the certain rejection engendered by such a cold call: an act normally associated with abject terror. Our reunion proved vastly different from that horrid night of two weeks prior; she tells me now she knew, after that first date, that we would be married.

Less than a year later, her foresight became fact–two strangers, wounded warriors, boarded a train together on a journey to an uncertain destination. By odds, it might not have worked; by grace, it was destined to.

Hers was a decidedly patriarchal family, where religion was a topical no-man’s-land: Father Episcopal, Mom a Catholic, raising the kids by the rules of Rome–but the brokered deal permitted no broaching of this potentially contentious subject. Religion was something you just did, a family routine without much substance–for her, at least. By college she was “liberated” from its clutches–much as I had been. But for a nettlesome brother, who “got religion” and hammered her with it, she might well have stayed that way. The anvil of God shattered the hammer of hardened self-will, and she finally broke, acknowledging her submission, almost in spite. Then, unexpectedly, her life began to change.

When she first broached the subject of faith with me, a month or so before we were married, I was–true to form–utterly clueless. She asked if I believed in Christ, and I replied that I always had–and promptly poured myself a Scotch, self-satisfied that I had put that awkward topic to bed with style and panache. But at some level something stirred: what did I believe, if anything, about God, and Christ, faith and spirituality? The terror of impending marriage quickly drove such thoughts from mind–but not from the heart, where they would resurface in unexpected ways in the quieter days after our union.

The routines of our early marriage proved propitious: I on short vacation before resuming medical school, she working full time and some evenings, left me with time alone–time to read. I started to engage the New Testament, which was for me very much an open book: I had no preconceived notions of what I might find there, yet an ill-recognized anticipation that answers deeply sought might be discovered therein. It was, I knew, the core text of Christianity–but a core never confronted, something of a secret book glimpsed but dimly through the ritualized litanies of liturgical worship. Expecting in no small part the arid aimlessness of countless homilies haplessly delivered, I was stunned to find something quite disquieting: a stirring of spirit, the soft whisper of words breathing life, a narrow shaft of brilliance from a door barely ajar, cutting the dense darkness like a scalpel slicing deftly to the depth of the soul.

Days passed; I could not desist. The Book drew me in like some enchanting wizard, widening my vision and deepening my distress as I sought some resolution, some culmination lying just beyond my reach. The path broadened and narrowed, its destination uncharted, its wooded boundaries obscuring my view yet drawing me forward in some impassioned journey to a land unknown.

The clearing came suddenly, almost shockingly: a tree, and upon that tree, a man. A man I had known, but dimly, yet long forgotten. A man who knew me–gazing to the very depths of my rawest wounds and raging shame–yet a knowledge not terrifying, as such knowledge might be, but liberating, unshackling, almost whimsical with joy first discovered. It was a new day, a new light–a new life. How little I understood of the tortuous path thus traveled–or of the perilous and unpredictable turns in the journey ahead.

But I had found purpose and direction; little else mattered. I had but to trust–but trust was a stranger to a heart bound by fear. It would take many mistakes and countless wrong turns to unbind its cruel cords.

Healing Faith

Dr Bob

chains
A reader named Katherine recently e-mailed me. She had lost her husband, a man some years older than she, to multiple myeloma and Alzheimer’s disease. She is a Christian, and is struggling to make sense of his death, and the difficult questions of why God allows suffering. She writes, after giving me some details of his life, death, and fine character, and asks:

Why does God allow such terrible illnesses to such a kind person? I know there is really no answer as I know all about Job. The thing I am really afraid is that I prayed for his healing, and it did not happen. When I became a Christian back in the 80’s, the health and prosperity gospel was big at the time, and I guess it really influenced me more than I care to admit as I now know it is false. Even though I know it is false, I have become obsessed that God did not answer my prayer because of not being able to get rid of all the sin in my life (as if this were possible to do). One of the teachings of that movement was that if your prayer for healing went unanswered it was either because of lack of faith or sin in your life. I kept thinking that I don’t always put God first in my life, and that I spent more time reading secular magazines than reading my Bible and listening to more secular music than Christian music. These were my “main” sins, at least in my mind and thinking. Can you shed some light on this for me? I would be very appreciative.

The problem of suffering and evil is an ageless one. It poses a particular challenge for Judaism and Christianity, because of the seemingly insoluble tension between a world filled with suffering and evil, and the belief in a God who is good and all-powerful. Solutions to this dilemma, both adequate and inadequate, abound. It is the desperate hope of the atheist that this logical incompatibility proves beyond question the nonexistence of God. Others, less willing to ditch a Divine order, have concluded that God is good, but impotent; or that God is detached and uncaring, or capricious, or moody, or sadistic — and therefore not good.

It must be said plainly that answers to this paradox are neither simple nor entirely satisfactory. The dilemma as it stands may be solved in a global and satisfactory way — as has been done by both Judaism and Christianity — but invariably the lofty principles seem to break down at the moment when a solution is most needed: in the time of crisis when we ourselves experienced the depths, hopelessness, and irrationality of suffering in our own lives. CS Lewis, whose tightly reasoned treatise The Problem of Pain provides an extraordinarily deep and thorough discussion of this dilemna–later in life nearly repudiates his faith and sound theology after the death of his wife, a process painfully detailed in his diaries, A Grief Observed. It is indeed unsettling to watch Lewis discard all of his carefully reasoned and theological understandings of pain and suffering in the brutal crucible of unbearable pain and loss. Nonetheless, he ultimately comes to terms with the paradox, and undergoes an embracing of this profound dilemma far deeper than the intellectual by means of his own trial of fire.

At the heart of this difficult issue lies the human heart. God undertook a vast and dangerous experiment when creating man: He wanted, not merely another animal — of which there were countless — but an animal capable of something He alone understood: love. He gave this exalted animal vast intellect — but this was not sufficient to engender love. He gave His creation powerful emotions, the capacity for both creation and destruction, which He alone had possessed — but this also was not sufficient. For love — the utter, uninhibited emptying of self for another — required that most dangerous license of all: free will. This being thus created, designed with the capacity to love, must of necessity be utterly free to choose — for choice is the very heart, the very essence of love.

It was, by all measures, an experiment gone wildly awry. Having given this creature the extraordinary capabilities required to love fully — intellect, emotion, passion, empathy, the ability to feel intense pleasure and pain both physically and spiritually — he set this creature free to love, first of all Him, and then others of its kind. And the first choice of this pinnacle of creation was the decision to turn away: to replace the intended objects of love with the sterile altar of self. Thus was unleashed the monstrous liability of a truly free creature: the ability to hate, to cause pain, to kill, to destroy.

If we are to be honest, much of the pain and suffering which comprise the evil of the world is due to nothing more than this: that man, having been given the ability to choose, chooses wrongly, and uses the gifts and abilities given for the purpose of love to instead elevate himself at the expense of others, often in ways stunningly malicious and utterly wicked. Look around you, at the world both near and far: pride, selfishness, greed, lust, rage, jealousy — all these things manifest themselves in our lives and those of others, causing great pain and endless suffering. The child abused; the wife abandoned; the drive-by shooting; the greedy CEO who bankrupts the company and rapes the stockholders; the serial killer and the rapist; genocide; wars of conquest; torture; senseless massacres: these are the actions of men and women putting self above others — and each of us does it, to a greater or lesser degree, though we minimize our own roles to justify our own actions. We all wish for a world where God would eliminate evil — but all assume that we ourselves would be the only ones left standing when His judgment is delivered. A world in which God eliminated evil would by necessity be emptied of all mankind.

Yet there also exists those evils which have been called, in days past, somewhat ironically, “acts of God” — those circumstances or events which cause pain and suffering, not directly engendered by human evil. Thus the child is born with a severe birth defect; hurricanes, earthquakes, and tornadoes cause death and destruction; chronic and devastating diseases fall upon those who seemingly deserve a far better fate. It is with this, this seemingly capricious evil, with which we struggle most earnestly, straining to understand, yet to no avail. Judaism and Christianity both imply that some such evil may be consequential, the result of punishment or predictable consequences for the malfeasance of man. A more robust theology is less accusatory and thereby more coarsely granular — maintaining that such evil has entered the world because of the fall of man. Under such design our divine divorce has corrupted not only behavior, but our very natures, and all of creation. Yet such theology is of little comfort to those who are the objects of such seemingly random evil; we demand to know of God, “Why?” — and in particular, “Why me?” Yet there is no answer forthcoming, and we are left assuming a God either powerless to stop such evil or unwilling to do so.

Yet the problem of a good God, an omnipotent God, and an evil world of His creation is not entirely insoluble. Much lies in our projection of human frailty onto the nature of the Divine, and the impreciseness of our definitions of good and omnipotent. When we say God is good, we tend to mean that God is “nice” — that he would never do anything to cause us pain or suffering. Yet even in our limited experience, we must acknowledge that pain and suffering, while not inherently good, may be a means to goodness. We choose to have surgery or chemotherapy, though painful and debilitating, that our cancer may be cured. The halls of Alcoholics Anonymous are filled with men and women who, having faced both personal and relational destruction, have used their former liabilities as a gateway to a new, more fulfilling life — one which could not have taken place apart from their harrowing journey through alcoholism. To a misbehaving child, the discipline of a loving father is not perceived as good, but such correction is essential for the development of personal integrity, social integration, and responsibility. Our inability to discern the potential for good in pain and suffering does not by necessity deny its presence; there are many who, when asked, will point to painful, difficult, and unbearable times in life which have brought about profound, often unexpected good in their lives, unforeseeable in the midst of their dark days. There surely is much suffering which defies our capacity to understand, even through we strive with every fiber of our being to find the goodness therein. But the fact that such inexplicable suffering exists, and that answers are often lacking, does not preclude the possibility that God is good, or that such suffering may ultimately lead to something greater and more noble than the pain endured.

In our egocentricity we often neglect to look for the benefit in our suffering which comes not to us, but rather to others. Caring for someone suffering unbearably provides an opportunity to the caretaker to experience selfless love, compassion, tenderness, patience and endurance — character traits sadly lacking in our selfish world, which routinely turns its back on suffering to pursue an untroubled life of self-fulfillment and self-gratification. It is not inherently evil to be called to give beyond our means and ability — as caring for someone suffering always demands — for in the exhaustion and inadequacy thus revealed, we may discover unknown inner strengths, and come to a richer, and more fulfilling dependence on God. We are, as CS Lewis so accurately described, “not merely imperfect creatures that need improvement: we are rebels that need lay down their arms” — and finding how shallow are our reserves of love, compassion, and strength, we may through this brokenness seek to acquire them, humbly, from their Source.

But surely an omnipotent God has the power to stop suffering — is He not either impotent or evil when failing to use such power to remove our suffering? The omnipotence of God, like His goodness, is but dimly perceived. For the power of God is in perfect harmony with the purpose of God, and is thus used to advance these purposes for the greater good. Thus, the good deed of creating man with free will — and thereby capable of love — by its very nature restrains the omnipotence of God to violate that free will. The evil of the world exists in large part, if not wholly, because this free will has been abused. Yet the abuse of free will must be permitted, that the proper use of free will — the laying down of arms, the surrender to the sovereignty of a wholly good God — may take place, freely and unfettered as required by love. God must tolerate the existence of suffering and evil, that all may have the freedom to choose the good — though many will refuse to do so. Yet he does not merely tolerate the presence of suffering, but provides for its very redemption: that suffering, though itself evil, may ultimately produce good. Thus pain, suffering, death, and evil need not triumph: they may provide the means that some may turn toward the good, or bring forth further good for themselves or others. This is redemption: to buy back that which is destructive, worthless, of no value, evil, and make it worthwhile, valuable, even priceless.

Christianity, throughout its history, has struggled with and largely resolved the problem of pain, within the confines of the mystery of God. Yet Christianity in its many doctrinal eddies has sometimes chosen the wrong path and the wrong answers to this challenge. Such errors generally fall into two broad categories: the concept of suffering as punishment or retribution from God, and the manipulation of God for man’s gratification. The first of these runs counter to the core doctrine of the cross: that God has chosen to provide in Christ a sacrificial lamb — that Christ, through his suffering, may bear the justice of God, so that we may see the mercy of God. Our suffering is not a punishment for sin, as such punishment negates the purpose of the cross. Correction, it may be; discipline, it often is; opportunity, it always is; punishment, it never is.

The countering position — that of God as divine opiate, ever present to kill our pain — is a variant of the faith which has become perniciously widespread, feeding on a culture of ease and self-gratification which creates God in its own image. Thus God becomes a font of wealth, of health, of prosperity, of a trouble-free materialistic lifestyle, a divine vending machine whose coinage is faith. Faith, however, in such a worldview is no longer a profound trust in a God who is beyond understanding and infinitely wise, but becomes instead a means of buying from God all which we demand. Hence, we may be wealthy, if we only have enough faith; we may be healed, if our faith is sufficient; we will not suffer if we will but strengthen and enlarge our faith. Our faith must be prefect, lest our pleas go unheard. The strength of faith matters more than its verity; we charge the gates of heaven with the bludgeon of self-will.

The perniciousness and destructiveness of this perversion of historical Christian faith lies in removing from the hands of God decisions of life and death, health and illness, wholeness and suffering, while burdening us with the hopeless demand that we steel our faith to impossible heights to coerce and manipulate the will of God. That such efforts are typically fruitless seems self-evident: God most surely is capable of healing — and does indeed do so at times — but most surely does so in accordance with his divine wisdom and will. Should His wisdom dictate that suffering, poverty, brokenness, even death and despair would better serve the purposes of drawing men to Himself, what measure of human obstinacy and recalcitrance will change this will? When such “faith” proves futile, it destroys trust in God, and not infrequently leads to utter loss of belief, a bitter agnosticism born in false expectations and misplaced hope. Hence, we demand of God that which we alone deem to be good, then blame Him when He pursues a greater good beyond our understanding. This is the struggle to which Kathleen is alluding, as she questions the goodness of God in failing to heal her husband, blaming her own “sins” for his untimely demise. To us, such a healing seems only good — in so far as it mitigates our pain and loss, as well as that of those we love — but like the surgeon’s knife, sometimes such pain must not be withheld that evil may be conquered by the good. Were he healed, and restored to full health, would he not then face death on yet another day? Our lives have both purpose and a proper time: we live for that purpose, and we die when that purpose is fulfilled. That those who are left behind cannot grasp that purpose — and appropriately suffer profound pain and loss at this separation — does not negate that purpose nor impede its culmination.

We live in a time when our expectations of health, of prosperity, of a pain-free life are increasingly met in the physical realm, while we progressively become sickly, impoverished, and empty in the realm of the spirit. Despite our longer lives, we live in dread of death; despite our greater health, we obsess about our ills; despite our comfortable lives, we ache from an aimlessness and purposelessness which eats at our souls and deadens our spirits. Though we have at our command the means to kill our pain–to a degree never before seen in the history of the world–yet we have bargained away our peace in pursuit of our pleasure. The problem of pain has never been an easy one; in our day, it has not been solved, but rather worsened, by our delusions of perpetual comfort and expectations of a trouble-free life. Until we come to terms with suffering, we will not have comfort; until we embrace our pain, we will never have peace.

The Path – I:
Genesis

Dr Bob

The Path Part 1: Genesis

A journal of one fool’s journey, and the faith which found him.
Genesis It was, at the outset, about direction. Direction demands trust.

At the outset, I had neither.

Faith came easily when young, with a naturalness almost peculiar in retrospect. Ours was a religious home, Roman Catholic, not by any means an oppressive one or coercive as are some, but one in which faith was real, taken seriously, practiced more than preached, rather a quiet but ever-present fact of life. I took to it easily, a shy, timid kid, more at home with books and fantasy than with games and friends. The inner life was lord–for the outer life was, if not utterly chaotic, not entirely healthy or sane either.

My mother ruled the roost: daughter of an alcoholic father who abandoned his family when she was young, and an immigrant mother from Poland whose rage at her own abandonment (sent by ship alone to America at age 14, married at 16, abandoned by her drunken spouse after 3 daughters a few years later) was never resolved in any meaningful way. Grandma’s bitterness was never far from the surface, poisoning my parents’ lives in a host of ways–and she passed this dark inheritance to her daughter. Grandmother had moved in with them shortly after their marriage, and lived with us throughout their married life, outliving my father–to my mom’s deep and oft-expressed resentment. My dad was quiet, gentle, rather a passive man, a physician adored by his patients and loved by his staff, but rarely seen by his family–in part due to devotion to his profession, in part, I suspect, to spend as little time with his mother-in-law as possible. My mom, left to husband a mother she at once loved and detested, concocted thereby a semi-toxic brew of smothering love and unpredictable rage which made engagement with her either emasculating, or terrifying–or both. To hide was the safest path–and hide I did. I learned to live alone while living among others.

Our home was but a few blocks from our parish church–a magical walk, with aged oaks hung low, cool and verdant in the moist heat of summer, stark and graceful in winter snows. I found the church a place of refuge–not during Mass, when far too crowded–but in those quiet times when pews were empty, lights were low, soft echoes of footsteps on marble, shadows of votive lights darting on darkened walls and sainted statues. The flickering candles whispered of a quiet presence: a comfort, a peace I rarely if ever found elsewhere. I loved it there: God was close. It was the only place where I knew no fear.

But children grow, and become teenagers. The Jesuit prep school I attended–men only, a tedious commuter train trek from home (my love of the rails its only saving grace)–fed me robust education and rotten theology. It introduced to me an angry God, constantly seeking to catch you in your faults, punishing you for every misdemeanor, trivial and trite. For a timid, wounded kid, it was hell: a lonely, graceless, fearful place with few friends and no happiness. It was a glorious day when I left those dark halls, their lockers like cell blocks in juvenescent jail. Abandoned in tatters was a simple faith of earlier years, replaced with cynical disgust for the hypocrisy of self-righteous religion.

College was liberation–a liberation, like most, more enslaving than ennobling. Whiskey, weed, and women were the new watchwords–success forthcoming in but two of three, as my social ineptitude and painful interpersonal impotency made relations with the opposite sex futile at best, moot most often. But booze and bogies trumped babes in spades–tequila demands no small talk, rejection revels in rotgut wine. These chemical friends restored a measure of serenity, divine ecstasy in empty bottles, cannabis incense, and solemn hymns of Hendrix and the Dead. There were, by grace, sufficient periods of sanity and enough non-toxic neurons to survive with good academic achievements. Miracles do happen, indeed.

There is in life always a guiding theology–though you be atheist or agnostic, religious or indifferent–as was I. Mine in this period was remarkably feeble: a passing acknowledgment of some vast Being able to create a billion unique snowflakes, yet caring not one wit about some solo slob stumbling through life. So, I figured, I was on my own–and on my own wasn’t going well: my chosen major, chemistry, a crushing bore, and a career therein unimaginably awful; an aching loneliness for relationships never fulfilled; the dreaded demand to settle on a lifelong career with no inkling whatsoever of a course which might bring happiness or satisfaction. My draft lottery number–31–assured a rapidly evaporating school deferment would soon sweep me to new and untold adventures in the steamy jungles of ‘Nam. Panic is not too strong a term to describe my state of mind.

The decision was easy–if profoundly superficial: with my father a physician, and a brother headed as well down this path, medicine was the default choice–and offered an extended student deferment, and the faint hope of the approval of a remote father–a hope never to be realized.

Was there ever a more noble calling to the healing profession?

But the simple fact was that I had not one clue: no way of knowing if the choice was the right one; no means to judge my own suitability for such an undertaking; no tools, skills, or craft for assessing such a weighty decision; no sense of calling or direction. I was a blind pig praying acorns weren’t afflictions, stumbling forward with blind faith in pure dumb luck.

And thus, as if guided by some mighty unseen hand, I chose a course of life which would by turns transform that very life, in ways I could neither anticipate, nor plan, nor hope for, nor even dream possible. That journey, and the faith thus engendered, I hope to share in some yet unwritten and undiscovered entries in this path’s journal.

Collision of Worlds

Dr Bob

Collision of Worlds

cosmosAs wrecks go, it was not all that spectacular: some broken glass on the roadway, a few police cars, their rooftop strobes painting the night walls of nearby buildings with surreal dancing figures of light, red and blue. The SUV sat on a flatbed, with little apparent damage; the less fortunate compact, compacted on the passenger side. No apparent injuries, no ambulance, no stretchers.

The intersection–a T-bone emptying a side street into an urban arterial, controlled by a stoplight–was one I traveled often, almost daily. It was the insider’s way home–the city street longcut which circumvents the crush of rush-hour traffic, bypassing the freeway which costs time even on the best of days. Stopped at the light, I rubbernecked the scene, half-distracted by the mindless verbal patter of talk radio or some burned .mp3 I had heard too many times before. The mind wanders in such places, darting from thought to image, with no strong focus or overarching life crisis to rivet its attention. So the thought was odd, atypical, crisp in its clarity:

“Sometimes other accidents happen at accident scenes.”

The light turned green–my usual clue to pin the pedal and shorten my day by milliseconds while squandering a few extra ounces of too-costly petrol. But I paused: atypical. Was it the thought? Some other distraction? The fatigue of a day too long, the distracted weariness of a profession which sometimes bleeds your lifeblood like red pools on pavement? Who knows–how do you ever know?

My foot off the brake, not yet on the pedal, my car eased lightly into the now-allowed right-of-way. Retinal rods sensed motion without detail on the right–a car stopping at its just-red signal–or so it seemed at first.

He blew through the intersection–40, 45 my best guess–passing within inches of my front bumper. Never slowed, never braked, never aware that my car even existed. No surge of red from the tail lights, as they quickly faded down the dark arterial, undiminished and unaware.

The obligatory expletives rolled off my tongue, with far less fury than fear–it’s incongruous the bodily functions we sometimes call “holy.” The adrenaline leaves you shaken, and shaking, as the reality of what if sinks in.

“Sometimes other accidents happen at accident scenes.”

What is the nature of such intuition–a random thought presaging some disaster, a warning arising from–where? The depths of subconscious? Some long-forgotten experience, or story overheard? Perhaps a higher function of the brain, poorly developed and unrecognized, or some cosmic power, called “E.S.P.” or “paranormal” or “premonition” by those nearer to being charlatans than sages.

It may of course be any of these things, or several, or none: a random thought on a random corner, on a random night, near a random driver motoring recklessly. My sense, however–my conviction, even–is that it was something rather more–a collision, if you will, of two universes.

Such thoughts seem out of place–quaint even–in a technologically sophisticated culture where all that is known is that which is measured, where wisdom is weighed and parsed and packaged, and knowledge grows vaster about things ever more trivial. This vastness of knowledge has left us smaller people, living in a tightly constricted world, where joy and wonder have become the fodder of fools, displaced by cold cynicism and soulless skepticism. Ours is the triumph of gnosticism, the age of salvation through knowledge, fact trumping truth and science slaying the spirit. For in our great knowledge we have lost sight of that which is far vaster still, a universe unseen yet still experienced by many, a cosmos which impacts our lives moment by moment in ways both tiny and tectonic.

Ever since man looked upward at an incomprehensible sky, he has perceived the need for transcendence, to provide not only knowledge of the wonders beheld, but their meaning–to integrate that which is far larger, far deeper than himself into some sort of meaningful whole. Thus the history of man is the history of religion–a history with endless variations simple or sophisticated, from cave glyphs to gothic cathedrals, all pointing to something beyond man himself, whose very nature demands an explanation his nature alone cannot provide.

The fusion of these two worlds–material and spiritual–has had profound effects on human history in ways both great and small: from the lofty musical masterpieces of Bach and Handel, to the soaring architecture of the great cathedrals, to the preservation of ancient literature and culture by the monasteries, to the very roots of Western civilization, with its elevation of the individual and ideas of freedom and human rights, derived from Judeo-Christian insights on the nature of man and his relationship to God. And beyond these large and tangible mileposts lie countless lives transformed through the touch of spirit on hardened hearts, rippling through ages and cultures in ways almost imperceptible yet profound.

Yet Western civilization, so richly endowed with the gifts and benefits of its infusion of spiritual life and principles, has in an ironic twist taken one of these very gifts–the value of reason and logic and curiosity about the workings of a divinely-ordered creation, which gave rise to science–and used it as a wedge between the material and the spiritual. Western culture has bankrupted the very treasure from which its greatness arose, leaving an increasingly fragile shell of process without principles, institutions without inspiration, governance without grace. Steeped in knowledge yet long in shortcomings, our culture increasingly dismisses the spiritual and transcendent as but mere ignorance or malign superstition, and thus strangles its own lifeblood in its frantic rush to solve problems of the soul with the prescriptions of science and sociology. Our sickness is deep, and pervasive, and ultimately deadly–and made even more dangerous by our peculiar denial that there exists any sickness at all. Such malady takes many forms: from evangelistic secularism, seeking to purge all thought or mention of religion from our collective consciousness; to the intellectual miasma of postmodernism, where the only absolute truth is the denial of absolute truth; to the grand charade, where lust for power or corrupt materialism masquerade in the mantle of religious devotion or a gospel of social justice–which is neither just nor good for society; to the spirituality of the self, which seeks to find God within having denied Him without, and ends up worshiping only ego, in all its hideous manifestations.

There are, it is said, many roads to God–a cozy notion for the intellectually lazy and spiritually slothful, a passing nod to a past glory still spoken of but no longer believed. It is a bromide fast dissolving in a world where religious zealots praise Allah while slaughtering women and children; where men sing of Jesus while drinking poison Kool-Aid; where televised con-men fleece the faithful while preaching love and generosity; where men of the cloth speak of killing the elderly and suctioning the young with soothing words of “mercy” and “freedom” and “choice.” We are tossed like ships in a storm because we have lost both rudder and mast: the principles which have steered us, and the power which gives us purpose and direction, have been swept away in the rolling swells of material prosperity and the saturating rains of empty information and worthless knowledge.

It is time to do the hard work, the painful and unsettling job of foregoing easy assumptions and comfortable conclusions, to shine the harsh light of honesty and self-examination on our sated and sleepy souls. The easy road only leads downward, and we have followed it far too long. If all roads lead to God, then no road gets you there: you will spend an eternity seeking that which you do not wish to find.

I am a Christian; this is the road I have discovered, which has led me to God, which has allowed me to glimpse that universe which I understand little and conform to less. I make no apologies for my convictions, for I have found, by grace, a solid path which, while mysterious and tortuous and unpredictable, has proven real, and trustworthy, and tangible ways which only the intangible can be. As G.K. Chesterton said of his own journey into faith, the case for Christianity is rational–but it is not simple; it is an accumulation of countless facts all pointing in one direction. In the coming months, I hope to share something of my own journey into and through this faith. I do so, of course, in the hope that you too may also discover–or rediscover–its depth, and power, and integrity. But short of even this, may we begin to examine truth, and restore the principles, which alone may shine light on our ever-darkening age.

The Engine of Shame – Pt II

Dr Bob

The Engine of Shame - Part 2

DRGWIn my previous post on guilt and shame, I discussed their nature and differences, their impact on personal and social life, and their instrumentality in much of our individual unhappiness and communal dysfunction. If indeed shame is the common thread of the human condition–fraught as it is with pain, suffering, and evil–it must be mastered and overcome if we are to bring a measure of joy to life and peace to our spirits and our social interactions.

Shame is the most private of personal emotions, thriving in the dark, secluded lairs of our souls. It is the secret never told, the fears never revealed, the dread of exposure and abandonment, our harshest judge and most merciless prosecutor. Yet like the Wizard of Oz, the man behind the curtain is far less intimidating than his booming voice in our subconscious mind.

The power of shame is the secret; its antidotes, transparency and grace. Shame thrives in the dark recesses of the mind, where its accusations are amplified by repetition without external reference. Shame becomes self-verifying, as each new negative thought or emotion reinforces the theme that we are rejected and without worth. It is only by allowing the light of openness, trust, and honesty that this vicious cycle may be broken.

The barriers to this liberating openness are fear and mistrust: fear that revelation of our darkest selves will lead to rejection, pain and humiliation; and lack of trust that the sharing of such darkness will be used against us to our detriment. This fear and mistrust lock us into a self-imposed prison from which there is seemingly no escape. Our only recourse becomes the adaptive but destructive defenses of withdrawal, self-attack, avoidance, or aggression.

The most dangerous type of infections in medicine are those occurring in a closed space. As the bacteria grow, they generate increasing pressure which drive deadly toxins into the bloodstream. Only by uncovering and draining the abscess can the infection be treated and health restored. And so it is with shame: we must take that which is most painful, most toxic, and release it, lest we become even more emotionally and spiritually sick.

So just how do we go about such a process? It is not something to be done lightly, as the world remains a dangerous place, and there are many who cannot bear such disclosure–and who may indeed use it against us. It is for this reason–this reasonable fear (amplified many times over in the echoes of our inner chambers of shame)–that many will not take this step until life circumstances become so difficult or painful that they have no other choice. Hence you will find this process first in the alcoholic at his bottom, at the therapist for intractable depression, at the counselor after divorce, in the prodigal son re-seeking fellowship in a grace-based church or small group.

But we need not wait for such disasters before beginning the process of addressing shame. There are a number of principles to begin the journey from shame to sanity and peace. Here are a few which come to mind:

  • Sharing of shortcomings with trusted friends: First and foremost, we must be willing to open the door, to begin sharing something of our inner selves with others. This involves finding someone trusted, someone who is a good listener and not quick to judgment. It means taking some risks, as many people may be unwilling–or unable–to be safe harbors for our vulnerabilities, failures, and shortcomings. Test the waters by sharing some small issues with others who seem trustworthy–or perhaps even better, by being open to others who may be willing to share their pain in some small way with you. Nothing builds the trust of others quite like your own vulnerability: it signals a willingness to establish a relationship based on true intimacy. We all put our best foot forward, expending great energy at maintaining our masks. But at the same time, we all hunger for the intimacy of being truly open with another.
  • Learn to listen: Our isolation begins to lessen when we hear our story repeated by others. As we begin to hear the bits and pieces of our own experiences, failures, and struggles in the lives of others, the uniqueness–and the shame–of our own experiences begins to lessen. We develop compassion for the struggles of others–and thereby become willing to accept our own shortcomings. Becoming mutually vulnerable is the essence of true, intimate relationships–and to achieve this we must be willing both to share our own weaknesses and to accept those of others.
  • Honesty: Deceit and shame go hand-in-hand–dishonesty with self and others is a requisite for the maintenance of the autocracy of shame. Dishonesty becomes habitual, making life far more complicated and difficult than one based on openness and truth. The main driving force for deceit is fear: fear of discovery, of condemnation, of judgment, of rejection. In reality, the consequences of honesty about our failures and shortcomings–particularly with those we trust and with whom we reciprocate acceptance–is far less onerous that of sustaining the fragile edifice of a life of lies.
  • The importance of forgiveness: When you begin to make yourself open to others, trusting them, you will sooner or later get hurt–perhaps intentionally, more likely inadvertently. Count on it, it’s a sure bet. Once it happens, you then have some choices: you can withdraw, no longer exposing yourself to the pain, or strike back, or carry a resentment. These approaches are proven shame-builders: they do little or nothing to visit revenge on our offenders, but rather replay the injury over and over (re-SENT-ment: to experience–to feel–again), reinforcing our loneliness and worthlessness. Forgiveness allows you to move on. It may mean taking the risk of confronting the one who has hurt you–a terrifying thought for a shame-based person–but such courage pays off in restored relationships at best, or maintaining your dignity at worst. Courage is not acting without fear, it is acting in spite of fear–and is the best antidote to fear, as reality is virtually never as bad as the scenarios our fearful minds fabricate. Bear the pain, reconcile where possible, and move on from there.
  • Other-orientation: We are designed to give, but have been programmed to receive. We try to fill our inner emptiness by getting: material stuff, the attention and admiration of others, pleasure, the oblivion of drugs or alcohol, food, sex, success, achievements in work or society. None of it works–the emptiness remains, as we are not worth something because we have something. We become worth something when we give–when our actions and efforts are helping others, improving their lives, giving them joy, help, comfort, support. This is why someone like Mother Theresa experienced a richness in life unmatched by endless hosts of wealthy, famous celebrities or business billionaires. We nod, agreeing that this is so–but no one wants to walk her path: we lack her faith, and her calling. But we don’t need to move to Calcutta to start down the same path: we can begin in small ways, one little act at a time. Make an effort to help someone out each day, somebody who doesn’t deserve it, perhaps someone you don’t like or would rather avoid. Do it when you’re too busy, or self-absorbed, or too tired. Do it willfully, not grudgingly. Don’t do it with any expectation of return. Try it–and watch miracles begin to happen, in your life and those around you.
  • Grace and mercy: Grace is receiving what we do not deserve; mercy is not receiving what we do deserve. Shame tells us we deserve nothing good, that we are tried, convicted, and condemned both by ourselves and by others. Grace trumps shame by not waiting until we are worthy, or worthwhile, or “fixed”, but by accepting us right where we are, just as we are. It must be experienced–it cannot be appropriated by logic, reason, will or effort. It is, indeed, anti-logical. It starts when you tell a friend a painful, dark secret–and hear that he has done far worse. It begins with terror at relating humiliating events, and ends with laughter and perspective about those same events. It arrives when you tell of hurting another, and receive not condemnation but understanding and guidance on repairing the damage and restoring relationships. And it shatters the gloom like shafts of light through broken clouds when the God whom you have driven away and abandoned–a God in whom you have lost all hope and confidence–instead wraps His arms around you in tears of joy at your return. When you have experienced such grace, your life will never be the same again.
  • The role of faith: People struggling with guilt and shame often turn to religion for answers and relief. This is not invariably a wise decision: religion can be of enormous benefit in overcoming these liabilities–but can also greatly exacerbate them. Guilt and shame are the golden hooks of toxic religion and religious cults, and even mainstream religious denominations which have a highly legalistic emphasis can cause far more harm than good. Cults and toxic religion lure the wounded by offering “unconditional love”–which later proves very conditional indeed. You are accepted only when you rigorously follow the rules–which may be arbitrary, capricious, or even unspoken–and interaction with “unbelievers” outside the sect is severely restricted, leading to isolation, ritualism, and depersonalization–and severe rejection should you choose to leave. Becoming enmeshed with such groups, driven by shame, is highly detrimental and a recipe for personal and emotional disaster. But true grace-based faith and spirituality can transform shame into service, guilt into gratitude. It finds the balance between a God who is just and One who is merciful. It is a place where love accepts us with all our imperfections and shortcomings–yet desires their removal that we may live with more joy and purpose, not hiding our flaws but using our own brokenness to restore, heal, and lift up others.
There was, the story goes, a holy man, who sat by the side of the road praying and meditating. As he watched and prayed, the broken of the world passed by–the crippled, the lame, the ragged poor, the sick, the blind. In his prayer, with broken heart, he asked God, “How could such a good and loving Creator see such things and do nothing about them?”

There was a long period of silence with no answer. Then, in a soft voice, God replied: “I did do something about them: I made you.”

Our shame, our brokenness, brings us great pain and wreaks much destruction in our lives. Yet it is by this very means that God equips us to be His hands, His heart, His voice, His compassion. In such can be found a purpose in life unmatched by anything else we might wish for or desire. Such are the ways of the God of endless surprise and limitless grace.

Grace 4 U2

Dr Bob

Grace 4 U2

Bono of U2After endless weeks recently of watching Tom Cruise air-box, jump on chairs, pontificate on depression, and talk about the idiocy of Scientology, it’s definitely refreshing — yea, one might even say a veritable antidepressant — to have some sanity expressed by another celebrity who appears to have a more rational cerebrum (although, granted, not as much of a pretty boy). Here is an intriguing quote from Bono, of U2 fame, in his book Bono in Conversation:

It’s a mind-blowing concept that the God who created the Universe might be looking for company, a real relationship with people, but the thing that keeps me on my knees is the difference between Grace and Karma. . . .You see, at the center of all religions is the idea of Karma. You know, what you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics, in physical laws, every action is met by an equal or an opposite one. It’s clear to me that Karma is at the very heart of the Universe. I’m absolutely sure of it. And yet, along comes this idea called Grace to upend all that: “as you reap, so will you sow” stuff. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I’ve done a lot of stupid stuff…

I’d be in big trouble if Karma was going to finally be my judge. I’d be in deep sh-t. It doesn’t excuse my mistakes, but I’m holding out for Grace. I’m holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the Cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don’t have to depend on my own religiosity. I love the idea that God says: Look, you cretins, there are certain results to the way we are, to selfishness, and there’s mortality as part of your very sinful nature, and let’s face it, you’re not living a very good life, are you? There are consequences to actions. The point of the death of Christ is that Christ took on the sins of the world, so that what we put out did not come back to us, and that our sinful nature does not reap the obvious death. That’s the point. It should keep us humbled. It’s not our own good works that get us through the gates of Heaven.
It’s a bit unsettling when Karma and Christ get mentioned in the same breath — by a rock star never seen without his wrap-around shades and so-cool demeanor — in a literary aside laced with the appropriate profanities, moreover — and it’s one of the clearest expressions of how the world works you’ve heard in months. God’s a very funny guy sometimes, and uses rather peculiar mouthpieces — which gives me great hope indeed.

I once had an online discussion with a young man from England, an agnostic, who maintained that all religions were the same: they all had their rules, and if you followed the rules, you got rewarded. Hence, there was no difference which religion you chose — pick one you like, stick to it, and you may get some reward at the end. I agreed with him, with but one exception: Christianity. How so, he asked, skeptically? Because most religions tell to do something different to be right with God; Christianity says you must become someone different. This is the difference between Karma and Grace.

Karma’s about the Rules: do this, and that will happen; don’t do that, or this other will happen. It is, by and large, the way the world works — especially religion. Cause and effect, action and reaction, crime and punishment, yin and yang. In a theistic worldview — one which assumes there is a Being or Beings to which man is ultimately answerable — Karma is in effect one giant accounting exercise: do more good than evil, and you go to heaven, or reach Nirvana, or achieve some sort of eternal peace or rest. Do more evil than good, well there’s Hell, or Purgatory, or reincarnation as a rodent or Lyndon Johnson’s beagle, or Britney Spears, or perhaps — at the very best — just get annihilated — poof!!

But there’s a few problems with the Karmic system, as I see it. First of all, everybody’s rules are different, so whose rules apply? Seems like you’ve gotta get that right — do you meditate on your navel in the Himalayas, join a Trappist monastery, worship your ancestors, or strap on the ol’ C4 and mosey into the pizza parlor for one last blowout? Seems to me that might make just a bit of difference when your audit comes up with the Great Accountant. And where’s the break point, the marginal tax rate, so to speak — the point at which, if I do one more good thing, I pass, or don’t do it, and damn — nice try — hope ya’ like really, really hot food? You see, I want to know exactly where that point is — after all, you don’t want to run around doing namby-pamby do-goody-type stuff if you’ve already got your ticket home, ya’ know what I mean, Vern? But nobody — and I mean nobody — tells you where that point is. You have to guess. And that leads to another little problem, now that you mention it.

You see, like most people — pretty much everyone, actually — I’m a lousy accountant: in my moral bookkeeping, I greatly inflate my assets while offloading most all of my liabilities to an offshore corporation — I make Arthur-Anderson’s Enron books look like Mother Theresa’s prayer journal. Not good, if you’re trying to make it to that heavenly break point two breaths before the Grim Reaper arrives. And when you finally reach the Great Audit in the Sky, it’s a little late to cook the books or give a few more old clothes to charity.

I remember watching an interview with double-murderer Gary Gilmore, before his execution. He told the interviewer he didn’t believe he was a bad person “because I never tortured anybody.” Bad accounting, Gary — even OJ’s lawyers couldn’t help you beat that rap. But frankly, my accounting ain’t that much better — and I’d be willing to bet yours isn’t either.

And what if the magical good/bad break point is just slightly more than 51% good, 49% bad — oh, say, 100% good, and 0% bad? Whoa, dude!! — you are seriously screwed — who’s gonna pass that class? That’s like nuclear physics 501, and Albert Einstein’s in your class, and the teacher’s gradin’ on a curve. Holy Shiite! Time to drop out and audit The Cultural History of Rap — for no credits. But if the Ultimate Being happens in fact to be perfect, all goodness, no evil, He ain’t lettin’ no riffraff in the door. No trackin’ mud on those Snow White heavenly carpets, no sirree. Fuggeddaboutit. And if the Grand Auditor is not all good — perhaps He has a cynical, twisted sense of humor, and likes playing mean tricks on His heavenly guests, or is capricious and moody — getting in the door could be an eternal case of terminally bad judgment — or bad Karma, if you will.

So Karma is the ultimate crap shoot — and the dice are loaded: the house has all the odds. But what if you don’t buy all this heaven/God/reward/punishment stuff? All ignorance and superstition, designed to control the masses and line the pockets of the clergy, to be sure. Being a multiculturally inclusive kinda guy, I surely have no desire to depreciate you, and want to value your narrative as well — in fact, I would even add one more category — just for you — to Bono’s worldview: the Nihilist.

Ahhh, the nihilist — so enlightened, so intelligent, so skeptical. Truly a 21st century postmodern man in every sense. Nobody tells him or her what to do — the rules exist for others. All those archaic do’s and don’ts which have guided people for the past few millenia are outdated, oppressive, the product of ignorance and superstition and the will to power: no one’s gonna force their values down my throat, keep your rosaries off my ovaries, live and let live, and whatever doesn’t hurt somebody else (narrowly defined, of course) is OK by me, and OK for me. I didn’t do anything wrong if I don’t get caught. The nihilist doesn’t worry about the Rules because the nihilist makes the rules. Tolerance is the Golden Rule — which means nobody gets to tell me what to do, and in return I let you do whatever you like — unless, of course, you’re one of those religious, intolerant types. Sweet deal, really.

Only one problem: old lady Karma won’t leave the premises just because you don’t believe in her. Ideas have consequences, and behavior repercussions. You’re running your own show like a pro, making up the rules as you go, but for some reason that third marriage is kinda rocky — the princess just doesn’t understand my needs. Your kids are stoned, surly, and pierced in places they didn’t teach you about in health class — and despite your best efforts to buy them off, they still hate your guts. Your career is great, but for some reason all those co-workers you used and screwed on your way up just don’t appreciate your awesome talents. Those a-holes at the IRS are hassling you — of course that tryst with your secretary was solely for business purposes. The new wife, the new car, the new job, the new palace are great for your image — and fortunately, the Prozac and the single-malt help take the edge off that uneasy dissatisfaction that festers deep within despite all your stuff. You spend all your time and energy molding the world into your own image — but none of this is enough, it goes from bad to worse, from unhappy to miserable — and it’s pissin’ you off. The raging two-year-old inside makes mommy go away by tightly squeezing his eyes closed — but doesn’t prevent the wack to your naughty bottom. Karma is alive and well, and she knows where you live.

So whether you’re buying it or not — and in whatever form you choose if you do — Karma’s here to stay. That is, unless you find Grace. Grace is a disgrace to the logical mind — it’s just so, well, unfair, so un-American. After all, we get what we deserve and earn what we get — God helps those who help themselves, and all that. But grace intervenes when we arrive at the point where we cannot help ourselves — or worse, when our best self-help program has impossibly screwed up our lives. Grace gives you what you haven’t earned, and doesn’t give you what you justly deserve. Grace is scandalous, insulting, humiliating, an affront to our pride — indeed, it is the very enemy of our pride.

Everything we do to fix ourselves, to control our lives and those around us for our own gain and benefit, is at once both natural and self-destructive. It is natural because our inborn drives are self-protective — call it natural selection, call it survival of the fittest, call it enlightened self-preservation, call it selfishness and self-centeredness. It’s me first, and the hell with you. Of course, we wrap this up in social niceties because we live in a world with other people — people who can do us harm if we step on their toes too hard. But even this is fundamentally self-preserving. We are born to take care of ourselves, first and foremost.

But it is self-destructive, in ways that are not always obvious. We are social beings, designed for relationships: we reserve solitary confinement for our most reprobate criminals; loneliness is the deepest of emotional pains. We are not crafted to be self-dependent, but interdependent. But we are possessed of the notion — inherently anti-social — that self trumps other. And our mental skills are such that we can rationalize, deny, minimize, excuse the harm done to others in the name of self. Self-serving brings temporary relief but long-term misery: it is a proven path to an unhappy, unsatisfying life.

And that is why Grace is revolutionary.

Grace says someone else can do it better than you — if only you ask. Its message is an affront: it says we do not have all the answers — and the answers we do have are wrong — often disastrously so. Grace does not excuse our wrongs — it covers our wrongs. It doesn’t nullify Karma — it simply puts the bill on someone else’s tab. When we receive grace, someone else is bearing the price, the consequences for the hurt and the harm we have done. When we give grace, we choose to pick up the tab for another’s shortcomings, wrongdoing, destructiveness, evil. And that’s where we draw the line: we are happy to receive grace, but it is too much to ask of us to give it in return.

And that is the roadblock — ironically — which we need Grace to overcome.

What is needed is a core inner transformation: we must become someone different. We are hard-wired to take — we need to be transformed to give. Trying to be other-oriented — following the rules, being a good person — without this transformation is counter-productive: it breeds resentment, self-righteousness, pride, self-sufficiency. But this inner transformation cannot be brought about by ourselves — it must come through others, and above all, from Another. But once this happens — and our will must be broken before it can — the miracle of motive change begins to take place.

When I act, I do so for one of two reasons: I do so because I have to, or I do so because I want to. While these motives may overlap, it is — not surprisingly — much easier to do the things I want to do than those I have to do. Karma is about doing that which I have to do — to placate a demanding God, to save my own skin. The miracle of grace is the willingness — the desire — to do that which is contrary to my nature, yet beneficial to my spirit.

Yet grace does not instantly transform — it seems rather to thrive in the fertile manure of failure. Those who grasp grace still fail at marriages, have rebellious children, hurt others, act selfishly, pursue wealth and the material. But the seditious espionage of grace slowly erodes the forces that drive these disasters, changing — from the inside out, one small step at a time — the corruption of self to the contentment of service. Failure — the judgment and condemnation of Karma — becomes the very seed of recreation, of new life: from the stench of manure will grow the fragrance and beauty of a flowering garden.

The choice is ours. If we are unfortunate enough to be self-sufficient, strong in our determination to survive on our own, to meet our own needs in our own way, we will live under the painful lash and uncertain future of Karmic fortune. If instead we find, in honesty, our emptiness and weakness — and turn to only One who can fill these yawning chasms with grace — then a world beyond our imagining, filled with purpose, peace, and wonder, awaits us.

The choice is important — choose wisely.