The Sliding Scale

Well, here’s what we’re contending with as Christians: a horizontal tug of war that has no awareness of the vertical slide that is taking place. As our communities and nation distance themselves from the Lord it will be no surprise to see human devised frameworks decay and falter.

I’ve agreed with quite a bit of David Brooks thinking over the years. But his essay from the Atlantic has a deeply troubling issue. He marginalizes personal faith and removes God’s sovereignty altogether. It’s from this soil of personal faith and God's soverignty that real opportunity and progress flourishes. Not tradition. Not innovation. Not even altruism.

If there is one painful benefit to the essay, it’s Brooks’ articulation of the cold stoicism that is plaguing the GOP. But it’s sad to see Brooks identify with the Bill Maher crowd. Still a crowd of humanists no matter how centrist they appear.
https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/620853/

A Wisp Confronts The Wind

I am a broken man. More than just a sinner, I am compromised. 

I have chosen poorly. And I have been unfairly restricted. 

And yet.

There is mystery overwhelming me. A penetrating love has enveloped my being. 

I am held firm. 

But my hands are trembling. And my feet hesitate. 

I see no path. 

And yet. 

I should be falling. (I revile the sensation--my insides convulse.) But I am stable. 

I cry out "Father!" into silence. The quiet buzzes between my ears. 

And yet. 

I am here. 

The Beginning of Mabel

She was born in 1914. And while the rest of the world was careening into the great war, the shores of northern Lake Michigan continued in the indifferent cycle of nature. Waves roiled sand and stone. Cattails and snake grass swayed in coastal breezes. Color and pattern traversed the sky. Shadow and highlight knit patchworks across the rolling landscape's forest canopy. All dampened the silent hum of creation within. 
Atop the bluff that overlooked that great lake, nested behind a handful of plain wooden storefronts, sat the simple log cabin and subsistence farm of her childhood. There she learned her native language first. Men from the community would gather at her father's barber chair located in their home. She listened as the elders recounted stories of the Odawa people and mulled over their meanings. Next, she learned Polish from immigrant children of the local mill workers. Only by attending school at the Catholic parish did she learn English. 
Life was work. Regular employment and professional careers had yet to enter the native ethos. With her family, she worked their rows of vegetables. Green beans, indispensable for winter, were stored in large woven baskets. She gathered wild berries and herbs in the forest under the instruction of her grandmother. On hot summer days, they would cool their wrists and neck before drinking spring water. Her father and brothers fished the shores, and during winter the ice, for whitefish and perch. If a deer was killed it would be shared within the small community. Alongside other native women, she wove baskets to sell to vacationing whites from the distant cities of Detroit and Chicago. The sparse earnings purchased basic wares and supplies. 

These ways of life were on course to fade, change, and clash with the momentum of mainstream America. It was this transition that irreversibly influenced her broadening perspective of life and people. 

The Goldfinch

I admit I'm late to the party. I became aware of this book more than six years after the fact. Though, all things consider, it doesn't matter much at all. For the fact is, I'm not a book worm. I enjoy reading mind you, but books are not my escape. And I'm definitely not an intellectual. As such I don't scour bookshelves searching with an unquenchable thirst. Truth be told if I have an escape it's emotional detachment. And this brings me back. 

I just finished reading The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt. There are many in-depth posts analyzing the author's style, the book's themes, and the work's literary relevance. So I have no intention to add anything to that catalog. Honestly, had I not personally experienced so many of the neurotic tendencies that plague the main character, Theo, I would have abandoned this verbose work on nihilism early on. 

Only here's what I really, really want someone to explain to me. What if one happens to be possessed of a heart that can't be trusted--? What if the heart, for its own unfathomable reasons, leads one willfully and in a cloud of unspeakable radiance away from health, domesticity, civic responsibility and strong social connections and all the blandly-held common virtues and instead straight toward a beautiful flare of ruin, self-immolation, disaster?...If your deepest self is singing and coaxing you straight toward the bonfire, is it better to turn away? Stop your ears with wax? Ignore all the perverse glory your heart is screaming at you? Set yourself on the course that will lead you dutifully towards the norm, reasonable hours and regular medical check-ups, stable relationships and steady career advancement the New York Times and brunch on Sunday, all with the promise of being somehow a better person? Or...is it better to throw yourself head first and laughing into the holy rage calling your name?

And there you have it. This is the engine of the protagonist's serpentine track and the quagmire that fouls the relationships, decisions, and thinking throughout the book. It's the same slippery, pocked footing I struggled with in high school and college. And if I'm honest still wrestle in moments of weakness or distraction in my middle age. 

To answer the question, it is better to turn away. For one simple reason, we are not alone. We are not physically alone no matter how we isolate ourselves. And we are not spiritually alone no matter how we numb ourselves. The latter of course is the crux of the matter. Because we are created with intent, our existence is inseparable from responsibility.