Smoke and Wind
Reality can be elusive, a shadow fleeing the light, the way that it escapes our sight, flying over the horizon even as we emerge from the latest mountain we've climbed. It is - for those who have read the Hobbit - like a troupe of dwarves unwisely leaving the path searching for elusive fires in Mirkwood. Ah, the truths of children fiction.
Being in Ottawa has been very exposing. Being away, as I'm sure you can attest to, has a similarity to standing in the face of a cold wind - it reveals the cracks in our clothing.
Silence is revealing, like being alone, and continues to be revealing.
This week I have been struck by this fact: reality is so elusive.
One of the members of the church I attend, they have an old German Shepherd named Hank. He's (as they frequently mentioned) near neurotic at this point when it comes to playing Fetch. He always needs to be doing it. That's what I see with myself and what I tried to explain in the last blog. There we had a small conversation on The Golden Life, in which I tried to reveal my own state of mind: neurotic like Hank. Always running after something; after all reasons I still chase after it though it doesn't exist.
Let's talk about it a bit more.
----------
Smoke*
One of the most intriguing and challenging books in the Old Testament of the Bible is this one named Ecclesiastes. It's got a completely different tone to it than any other in it and is characterized by a word that is used nearly 40 times through its course of thought: Meaningless. The Hebrew is a word that means smoke or vapor. It fits our understanding of reality: elusive, confusing, disorienting, and just a bit hard to grasp, like smoke.
I've been thinking about my worries. I'm a first class worrier, unfortunately.
And there's plenty of things to worry about.
Money problems
whether you'd read this blog
the complexities of all types of relationships
my spiritual renovation
my lack of spiritual renovation
whether happiness is all we're here for
the lack of commas in this section.
Lots of things to worry about. I am worried, however, that it's all a lie. It's a bit too smoky, a bit too insubstantial, these future things.
Let's take a few contemporary examples:
A drinking culture: isn't it so vaunted in our culture, down to Ed Sheeran song that speaks with wistfulness on 'throwing up with my friends'? But if that's reality, it's sad. But, it's held up with promise - there might be life there, the golden life.
Pursuing happiness: enshrined that one is. All the way up in the American Constitution (though not ours here in Canada). But that always seems like achy feet and frowning faces; no happiness there - but on the altar of success we pile our families, children, and our souls. Terrifying, but that's held up.
Sexual Experience: We prize this in modern culture, with everything sexualized and oversexualized, moving from one relationship to the next, overstimulated on constant images; our culture could be portrayed like a starved person lunging at a buffet table, one thing after another flung into their mouth. With so much we have so little - the golden life.**
Life the way it's pictured in our culture, it's all smoke. The Bible got it right there for sure: smoke, smoke, smoke. Grasping through fog, running through vapor, lost and blinded.
Wind
And then the Bible offers something of a counter-concept.
Where life generates this evil smoky substance, this blurring of reality, there is something else whirling through the world.
God's Spirit is likened to Wind, a force that goes where it wants and brings people to life; and you need to breathe. We all live by the air around us - it's life to us - and then you see this concept in the Bible: God's Spirit, like the Wind, making us breathe again. It makes me think that maybe the world is full of people who aren't really alive, who aren't really breathing.
The unique thing about the book of Ecclesiastes - you should read it! - is that it points out the smoky nature of our existence and how it isn't easy to see its purpose, and it does so by talking about three things:
The March of Time: It moves, regarding not our appeals. It moves and we are, like all those mighty kingdoms and powerful rulers, forgotten as it passes by.
We are All Going to Die: It is not simply that we are forgotten; we die. We don't take anything with us. Not our clothes, not our cars, not our looks - absolutely nothing.
Life is Random: Time and Chance happen to us all, and things don't work out to some karmic principle. People who do tremendous good can be harmed; evil people can die wealthy and happy.
We must be more than this material world.
Body and soul, that ghost in a machine as Descartes put it.
I've realized this with the only true and living God, the God of the Bible: When He does something, it never looks the way you'd think.
Everything important must be somewhere else, somewhere that fits the whimsical nature of truth.
Here we are, wreathed in the smoke of a passing world. People sell reality, those things that will bring us life and joy and goodness. And yet Jesus said that true joy was with him, in a world beyond this one, and it's got to do with what's in you, not around you.
While everyone stands by offering material things to satisfy, so many people feel dead inside. You're not simply helping some flowers grow around your grave after you die. Your body will do that, but your soul lives on.
If that's the case, everything you do matters, and the state of it matters.
Asphodel
In Greek myth there are three compartments to the Underworld: The Isle of the Blessed (for people who did particularly good acts), the Fields of Torment (for people who did particularly bad acts) and then this place. Asphodel, it's for those who didn't do tremendously good or bad acts, so their fate is to stand around aimlessly for all eternity. This is one view and it fits: a neutral outcome for a neutral life. But I think that depicts us now.
It's like we're in a land between two worlds - in transit. And everyday is a day to either be fooled by the smoke and lies of this world, or to realize that we might need to breathe.
And God's Spirit is for breathing.
----------
You know how yearbooks comprise of dozens of little, 150 word soundbites from people? There was one in mine that I never forgot. It said:
Have you ever thought about breathing?
Now you're doing it mechanically.
I loved it! I was immediately aware that I was breathing!
It was so clever and yet, think about it: you are always breathing.
Or are you?
* Some of these ideas come from a video by Bible Project titled 'The Wisdom Series'.
** I am indebted here to imagery from C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity. See p.53-58 for a brilliant discussion of sex and chastity in our modern context: http://www.samizdat.qc.ca/vc/pdfs/MereChristianity_CSL.pdf
Being in Ottawa has been very exposing. Being away, as I'm sure you can attest to, has a similarity to standing in the face of a cold wind - it reveals the cracks in our clothing.
Silence is revealing, like being alone, and continues to be revealing.
This week I have been struck by this fact: reality is so elusive.
One of the members of the church I attend, they have an old German Shepherd named Hank. He's (as they frequently mentioned) near neurotic at this point when it comes to playing Fetch. He always needs to be doing it. That's what I see with myself and what I tried to explain in the last blog. There we had a small conversation on The Golden Life, in which I tried to reveal my own state of mind: neurotic like Hank. Always running after something; after all reasons I still chase after it though it doesn't exist.
Let's talk about it a bit more.
----------
Smoke*
One of the most intriguing and challenging books in the Old Testament of the Bible is this one named Ecclesiastes. It's got a completely different tone to it than any other in it and is characterized by a word that is used nearly 40 times through its course of thought: Meaningless. The Hebrew is a word that means smoke or vapor. It fits our understanding of reality: elusive, confusing, disorienting, and just a bit hard to grasp, like smoke.I've been thinking about my worries. I'm a first class worrier, unfortunately.
And there's plenty of things to worry about.
Money problems
whether you'd read this blog
the complexities of all types of relationships
my spiritual renovation
my lack of spiritual renovation
whether happiness is all we're here for
the lack of commas in this section.
Lots of things to worry about. I am worried, however, that it's all a lie. It's a bit too smoky, a bit too insubstantial, these future things.
Let's take a few contemporary examples:
A drinking culture: isn't it so vaunted in our culture, down to Ed Sheeran song that speaks with wistfulness on 'throwing up with my friends'? But if that's reality, it's sad. But, it's held up with promise - there might be life there, the golden life.
Pursuing happiness: enshrined that one is. All the way up in the American Constitution (though not ours here in Canada). But that always seems like achy feet and frowning faces; no happiness there - but on the altar of success we pile our families, children, and our souls. Terrifying, but that's held up.
Sexual Experience: We prize this in modern culture, with everything sexualized and oversexualized, moving from one relationship to the next, overstimulated on constant images; our culture could be portrayed like a starved person lunging at a buffet table, one thing after another flung into their mouth. With so much we have so little - the golden life.**
Life the way it's pictured in our culture, it's all smoke. The Bible got it right there for sure: smoke, smoke, smoke. Grasping through fog, running through vapor, lost and blinded.
Wind
And then the Bible offers something of a counter-concept.
Where life generates this evil smoky substance, this blurring of reality, there is something else whirling through the world.
God's Spirit is likened to Wind, a force that goes where it wants and brings people to life; and you need to breathe. We all live by the air around us - it's life to us - and then you see this concept in the Bible: God's Spirit, like the Wind, making us breathe again. It makes me think that maybe the world is full of people who aren't really alive, who aren't really breathing.
The unique thing about the book of Ecclesiastes - you should read it! - is that it points out the smoky nature of our existence and how it isn't easy to see its purpose, and it does so by talking about three things:
The March of Time: It moves, regarding not our appeals. It moves and we are, like all those mighty kingdoms and powerful rulers, forgotten as it passes by.
We are All Going to Die: It is not simply that we are forgotten; we die. We don't take anything with us. Not our clothes, not our cars, not our looks - absolutely nothing.
Life is Random: Time and Chance happen to us all, and things don't work out to some karmic principle. People who do tremendous good can be harmed; evil people can die wealthy and happy.
We must be more than this material world.
Body and soul, that ghost in a machine as Descartes put it.
I've realized this with the only true and living God, the God of the Bible: When He does something, it never looks the way you'd think.
Everything important must be somewhere else, somewhere that fits the whimsical nature of truth.
Here we are, wreathed in the smoke of a passing world. People sell reality, those things that will bring us life and joy and goodness. And yet Jesus said that true joy was with him, in a world beyond this one, and it's got to do with what's in you, not around you.
While everyone stands by offering material things to satisfy, so many people feel dead inside. You're not simply helping some flowers grow around your grave after you die. Your body will do that, but your soul lives on.
If that's the case, everything you do matters, and the state of it matters.
Asphodel
In Greek myth there are three compartments to the Underworld: The Isle of the Blessed (for people who did particularly good acts), the Fields of Torment (for people who did particularly bad acts) and then this place. Asphodel, it's for those who didn't do tremendously good or bad acts, so their fate is to stand around aimlessly for all eternity. This is one view and it fits: a neutral outcome for a neutral life. But I think that depicts us now.
It's like we're in a land between two worlds - in transit. And everyday is a day to either be fooled by the smoke and lies of this world, or to realize that we might need to breathe.And God's Spirit is for breathing.
----------
You know how yearbooks comprise of dozens of little, 150 word soundbites from people? There was one in mine that I never forgot. It said:
Have you ever thought about breathing?
Now you're doing it mechanically.
I loved it! I was immediately aware that I was breathing!
It was so clever and yet, think about it: you are always breathing.
Or are you?
* Some of these ideas come from a video by Bible Project titled 'The Wisdom Series'.
** I am indebted here to imagery from C.S. Lewis Mere Christianity. See p.53-58 for a brilliant discussion of sex and chastity in our modern context: http://www.samizdat.qc.ca/vc/pdfs/MereChristianity_CSL.pdf
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