ThinkBlog

A couple of months ago, I mentioned that I’d been thinking about some things that involved (i.e., were sparked by) the live performance of the Sonata Arctica song Replica. Here’s a little bit of an explanation about that; I’d like to see whether you can relate. [This is taken from hastily-typed notes from 20 June; please ask if anything’s unclear.]

The thing that struck me about this song in particular is that it’s sung in a minor key, an almost archetypically tribal sort of song that I imagine being sung for a fallen Saxon hero, especially as it is on the live album (in a way that is, of course, not caught on the studio recording; but you still can get a feel for the mournful tone, especially in the last chorus).

For me, innocence has been something of a long-lost memory; but I have gotten only what I wanted in my foolishness several years ago; I forsook the singular pursuit of the Gospel for the knowledge that can only come by pain, that peculiar fall from grace that one chooses consciously so as to Know (experientially) rather than to Believe (even if it’s the truth). What struck me about this song in particular was the sense of one’s crying over oneself, a new and less pure self still able to mourn the loss of an old “self.” “Empty shell inside of me: I’m not myself, I’m a replica of me—” This is the essence of emotional self-awareness, being able to recognize one’s own fall and to mourn it, so as to move past it. I have not been able to do that; I have not been able to believe I have been or am worth crying for, either by myself or by another. Much like Aristotle’s definition of a happy (eudaimon) life, it is only once all the deeds and circumstances of my whole life have been tallied up can I be called a “happy” person, or allow myself a blessed existence. I don’t even like Aristotle; why would I agree with him here? Yet only after I am dead may I be mourned.

A friend of mine had recently blogged about her experience that she had had, a “word of knowledge” if you will regarding her own beauty in Christ, that she had worth and was beautiful. Everyone needs and, I believe, has this experience at some point in his or her life; but needs this consistently, and to believe it is not revoked. It has been said that women need to feel beautiful; and I believe it. Women who do not believe in their own beauty and who are not consistently supported in that are driven to eating disorders and anger issues; but men need it too. Men need to know that they are good leaders, that they are beautiful and efficient, effective and truly excellent at whatever it is they are best at, whatever it is that they are trying to be. Men and women both, though, need to know that they are beautiful for who they are, not just because of what they can or do produce to be used. They need to know that there is substance to their purposes in life and that they are not “done” on Earth. Everyone who understands this dilemma and still doesn’t take his or her own life understands intuitively, if not explicitly, that there is a purpose to his or her life in just this very sense.

How does one lose this sense of being worthy of mourning by oneself or by another? For me it came by a series of decisions that I can remember beginning to add up at a Fall Retreat at my church in the late 1990s. I was still considered a “youth,” if a bit old, and I sat listening to the speaker talk about some “youth issues” and whatnot one night. There, as the sun set into a dark, cold hillside, I listened to the speaker’s illustration about romantic love. In this particular situation, he held up a stereotypically-shaped red construction-paper heart for all to see, and he showed us that giving ourselves wholly to other people when Christ should be (or have been) the focus is like tearing up bits and pieces of that heart: he ripped a corner off. “You know that girl you dated and gave too much to?”—Another piece came off. “And that friend who convinced you to smoke?”—another piece. “How about that guy you never told anyone about?”—He looked the girls over and solemnly tore another large chunk off. Eventually, he was done, and the red, full paper heart, now a foreign amoeba lying dead on the floor, was the despised bit of nonsense that dwells in the believer when he or she sins—the way I had, I thought.

I then turned, gradually, to outward confirmation. I had entered the realm of women already; but they became my sole crutch, the crux of my value. But how easily does “Thou, my beloved” turn into “Thou hateful wretch!” Much after this long-past fall retreat, a girlfriend told me she loved me unconditionally. I knew it wasn’t true, but it gave me a cold chill to think that we could all make promises like that, which would ultimately fail. I don’t believe in unconditional love from any human; to do so, in my opinion, is an invitation to destruction and chaos. Believing so, we will test, wittingly or un-; and, testing, will find that the human heart is “exceedingly wicked” and fickle, and in fact places many conditions on its love.

So the eternal love of God becomes corrupted and localized into a human being, a singular woman, whom I ultimately have disappointed; and between us both pass the tacit words, “YOU have failed ME, to whom you’ve given your heart. You were but are not; the period in which you have done me good was brief and now over.” What then of the tender moments? Burned away, leaving by the flame of tearing two souls from one another a proud and tender bitterness like char, bleeding sap on the scorched side of a tree, where blessing and forgiveness used to flow.”

How can we deny this statement power, this position of finding love in a “lover” instead of God, the Lover of Alll and Over All? We start from a position of “you were crafted in the imago Dei, you are human, you therefore have worth.”

But that becomes quickly, “You [the lover] have worth to me.” This secondary worth flows from anything that we find desirable externally in that person as it relates to us. Exempli gratia, “You are beautiful, and I appreciate your body; you are strong, and you can protect me; you are poetic, and my soul cries for someone to touch it tenderly and not with the cold blade of logic; you are literary and I, too, am well read; you are an available mistress, and my wife is too busy and frigid to have me; you are good at taking dictation, and I need a secretary.” Whatever.

Then, gradually as we recover from lust and greed, selfish pride and utter deceit, we rediscover in those things their worth for that person, purely as they uniquely manifest the Imago Dei— the way that such-and-such a person is beautiful insofar as they are made in the image of God, and insofar as they uniquely show what they are, “from” God. This happens at various rates in various areas of a person’s life as it relates to the other’s. For instance, if you are going through a period of learning about the grace and beauty of Christ in acts of service, it may strike you as particularly beautiful for me to make you dinner, whereas it would normally not.

But what of the ultimate result of the vast majority of relationships? “I love you” is answered with, “Aye, so you say now, but know you not the words with which you’ll curse me in the soon-coming day when we part company?” And so the constant knowledge that you have to prove yourself has altogether replaced the “unconditional” love of before, and the genuine, non-quote-qualitified unconditional love of Christ which has long been forsaken.

So the love of the Other is revoked. And with it, the promises, the love, the forgiveness, the grace, all human-conveyed and human-retracted. And, left alone with these pieces of a paper heart, what is one to do? Only to seek first the Kingdom, and, failing that, seek ultimately the Kingdom once one has had his or her fill of pain. Only then can we understand that we are worth something, not conditionally, but eternally. If God is love, and Love never fails, then emotion and temporal girl-boy love can’t be the benchmark by which other Loves are examined.

Here’s to regaining that sense of worth that will allow us to mourn over our pasts and forge ahead to genuinely joyful and productive futures.

A couple of months ago, I mentioned that I’d been thinking about some things that involved (i.e., were sparked by) the live performance of the Sonata Arctica song Replica. Here’s a little bit of an explanation about that; I’d like to see whether you can relate. [This is taken from hastily-typed notes from 20 June; please ask if anything’s unclear.]

The thing that struck me about this song in particular is that it’s sung in a minor key, an almost archetypically tribal sort of song that I imagine being sung for a fallen Saxon hero, especially as it is on the live album (in a way that is, of course, not caught on the studio recording; but you still can get a feel for the mournful tone, especially in the last chorus).

For me, innocence has been something of a long-lost memory; but I have gotten only what I wanted in my foolishness several years ago; I forsook the singular pursuit of the Gospel for the knowledge that can only come by pain, that peculiar fall from grace that one chooses consciously so as to Know (experientially) rather than to Believe (even if it’s the truth). What struck me about this song in particular was the sense of one’s crying over oneself, a new and less pure self still able to mourn the loss of an old “self.” “Empty shell inside of me: I’m not myself, I’m a replica of me—” This is the essence of emotional self-awareness, being able to recognize one’s own fall and to mourn it, so as to move past it. I have not been able to do that; I have not been able to believe I have been or am worth crying for, either by myself or by another. Much like Aristotle’s definition of a happy (eudaimon) life, it is only once all the deeds and circumstances of my whole life have been tallied up can I be called a “happy” person, or allow myself a blessed existence. I don’t even like Aristotle; why would I agree with him here? Yet only after I am dead may I be mourned.

A friend of mine had recently blogged about her experience that she had had, a “word of knowledge” if you will regarding her own beauty in Christ, that she had worth and was beautiful. Everyone needs and, I believe, has this experience at some point in his or her life; but needs this consistently, and to believe it is not revoked. It has been said that women need to feel beautiful; and I believe it. Women who do not believe in their own beauty and who are not consistently supported in that are driven to eating disorders and anger issues; but men need it too. Men need to know that they are good leaders, that they are beautiful and efficient, effective and truly excellent at whatever it is they are best at, whatever it is that they are trying to be. Men and women both, though, need to know that they are beautiful for who they are, not just because of what they can or do produce to be used. They need to know that there is substance to their purposes in life and that they are not “done” on Earth. Everyone who understands this dilemma and still doesn’t take his or her own life understands intuitively, if not explicitly, that there is a purpose to his or her life in just this very sense.

How does one lose this sense of being worthy of mourning by oneself or by another? For me it came by a series of decisions that I can remember beginning to add up at a Fall Retreat at my church in the late 1990s. I was still considered a “youth,” if a bit old, and I sat listening to the speaker talk about some “youth issues” and whatnot one night. There, as the sun set into a dark, cold hillside, I listened to the speaker’s illustration about romantic love. In this particular situation, he held up a stereotypically-shaped red construction-paper heart for all to see, and he showed us that giving ourselves wholly to other people when Christ should be (or have been) the focus is like tearing up bits and pieces of that heart: he ripped a corner off. “You know that girl you dated and gave too much to?”—Another piece came off. “And that friend who convinced you to smoke?”—another piece. “How about that guy you never told anyone about?”—He looked the girls over and solemnly tore another large chunk off. Eventually, he was done, and the red, full paper heart, now a foreign amoeba lying dead on the floor, was the despised bit of nonsense that dwells in the believer when he or she sins—the way I had, I thought.

I then turned, gradually, to outward confirmation. I had entered the realm of women already; but they became my sole crutch, the crux of my value. But how easily does “Thou, my beloved” turn into “Thou hateful wretch!” Much after this long-past fall retreat, a girlfriend told me she loved me unconditionally. I knew it wasn’t true, but it gave me a cold chill to think that we could all make promises like that, which would ultimately fail. I don’t believe in unconditional love from any human; to do so, in my opinion, is an invitation to destruction and chaos. Believing so, we will test, wittingly or un-; and, testing, will find that the human heart is “exceedingly wicked” and fickle, and in fact places many conditions on its love.

So the eternal love of God becomes corrupted and localized into a human being, a singular woman, whom I ultimately have disappointed; and between us both pass the tacit words, “YOU have failed ME, to whom you’ve given your heart. You were but are not; the period in which you have done me good was brief and now over.” What then of the tender moments? Burned away, leaving by the flame of tearing two souls from one another a proud and tender bitterness like char, bleeding sap on the scorched side of a tree, where blessing and forgiveness used to flow.”

How can we deny this statement power, this position of finding love in a “lover” instead of God, the Lover of Alll and Over All? We start from a position of “you were crafted in the imago Dei, you are human, you therefore have worth.”

But that becomes quickly, “You [the lover] have worth to me.” This secondary worth flows from anything that we find desirable externally in that person as it relates to us. Exempli gratia, “You are beautiful, and I appreciate your body; you are strong, and you can protect me; you are poetic, and my soul cries for someone to touch it tenderly and not with the cold blade of logic; you are literary and I, too, am well read; you are an available mistress, and my wife is too busy and frigid to have me; you are good at taking dictation, and I need a secretary.” Whatever.

Then, gradually as we recover from lust and greed, selfish pride and utter deceit, we rediscover in those things their worth for that person, purely as they uniquely manifest the Imago Dei— the way that such-and-such a person is beautiful insofar as they are made in the image of God, and insofar as they uniquely show what they are, “from” God. This happens at various rates in various areas of a person’s life as it relates to the other’s. For instance, if you are going through a period of learning about the grace and beauty of Christ in acts of service, it may strike you as particularly beautiful for me to make you dinner, whereas it would normally not.

But what of the ultimate result of the vast majority of relationships? “I love you” is answered with, “Aye, so you say now, but know you not the words with which you’ll curse me in the soon-coming day when we part company?” And so the constant knowledge that you have to prove yourself has altogether replaced the “unconditional” love of before, and the genuine, non-quote-qualitified unconditional love of Christ which has long been forsaken.

So the love of the Other is revoked. And with it, the promises, the love, the forgiveness, the grace, all human-conveyed and human-retracted. And, left alone with these pieces of a paper heart, what is one to do? Only to seek first the Kingdom, and, failing that, seek ultimately the Kingdom once one has had his or her fill of pain. Only then can we understand that we are worth something, not conditionally, but eternally. If God is love, and Love never fails, then emotion and temporal girl-boy love can’t be the benchmark by which other Loves are examined.

Here’s to regaining that sense of worth that will allow us to mourn over our pasts and forge ahead to genuinely joyful and productive futures.