Power's Weakness, Strength's Meekness
Turn That Smile Upside Down
I think the above title is a stanza out of my epic poetry compilation "40 Days and 40 Nights: Dysfunctional Poetry for Men." For about four years, commencing 20 or so years ago, starting with the suicide of a childhood friend/neighbor which cracked open something Noahic in my soul, I wrote 40 or so poems. I eventually xeroxed them all and put them in a little booklet which I then postal mailed to every good friend I had.
The poems were maudlin for sure. Amateurish rhymes. Some good ideas amid the rubble. Most were grappling with the happiness/sadness paradigm and paradox. We think we want something, we get it, and it doesn't make us happy. We lose something cherished and it winds up being good that our hands were pried from it. Vexing indeed.
At the time of the release, there was a woman I was quasi-dating (I did a lot of that) who I didn't know real well yet. When she read the tome, she thought I was depressed and perhaps even suicidal. I assured her that I was fine--or had been down for so long, as The Doors lyric goes, that it looked up to me. In retrospect, I see that I had a case of major depression throughout my teenage and early adulthood years. I was really brought to the end of myself. Becoming a Christian was both a moment of decision, a change of direction inwardly, plus a series of steps, and many missteps, towards wholeness. Still on that journey. Just when I think I arrive....
In some ways, I am glad that I had to work everything out pretty much on my own. I don't run down people on meds and therapy. But, there should be progress on the pain at some point. Some perspective that allows people to make peace with their past and to move on, baggage and all.
What triggered this recollection of yesteryear was watching a sermon last night on NBC after Saturday Night Live. Andy Stanley has wisely placed his program after SNL to catch that crowd who have little to no chance of heading to church Sunday morning. He preached about the Sermon on the Mount. Andy Stanley is the son of Charles Stanley who has been on the television for as long as I can remember.
The younger Stanley has a more relational style than his dad and it is more a generational thing. Seems like a solid dude but these days one can't be sure with the fall of so many megachurch pastors. Dropping like proverbial flies. Makes me wonder if the mega-church model is just like a star getting brighter before it finally explodes. I think we would be well-served to get back to house churches--with some ecclesiastical oversight to keep the heretics at bay. Mega usually leads to Lessa.
Even though it was late, I watched the entire sermon where Stanley worked through each Beatitude. "Blessed are the poor in spirit," which is Jesus's opening salvo, sets up the rest of the speech. My take is when we realize how passing this life is, where we will lose everything eventually besides the gold or dross that we have accumulated in our souls anyway, it should cause us to be humble, merciful, and peacemakers. For the time is short and eternity is long. If we realize that loss is going to happen as surely as the setting of the sun, maybe we can take our hands off the temporal and fraying rope that we clutch trying to pull ourselves up.
It is good to be ambitious, hard-working, industrious, and prosperous, yet not as end of themselves, to prop up our fragile egos. We want the crowds acclaim and applause but they are fickle, fanciful, and just as deluded as we are about our status and fate ten feet under. I call it "Dust Applauding Dust." We should seek success and share it, rather than hold onto it. We, rather than Me, type of thing. Working in a school will not lead to rock star status as far as I can surmise. But, looking at the lives of rock stars gone rancid, it makes me wonder why I would want it to start with.
The old adage holds true: "Before setting your heart too much on something, look at the lives of those who already possess what you want and see how happy it has made them."
On a very personal note, today I woke up with my fairly typical headache in the right side of my head. When I fight it and try to counter it with strength, it just digs in deeper. When I just admit that I am weak, not as a statement of outward piety but inward reality, that seems to reset my mind. I think God goes, "OK, we are back in reality here. You have admitted your state and need. Let me lift you up now that you are done denying it."
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