http://xkcd.com/55/
I've been considering the question of "What is the opposite of Love?" It's an important question, because so often we only see clearly by contrast. I want to know what about me is love, so I also want to know what about me is anti-love. I want to understand abuse and hurt, so I want to know about love. The reality is that love's attitude and action have to go together, because love compels action. That is why to say "I love God" but not reveal that in your actions, gives lie to your statement. Most people I ask immediately say the opposite is hate. But that's an unthinking answer, and doesn't really work: God is love, but God also hates. So if God is love then love can properly hate. Many have said the opposite of love is indifference, or apathy. As George Bernard Shaw said "The worst sin toward our fellow creatures is not to hate them, but to be indifferent to them: that's the essence of inhumanity". But that says "the worst sin is indifference", the worst sin (if there is one) is not the opposite of love, it's an offense to love. Indifference is like the cold, or darkness. You can have a lot of heat, or a little heat, but there's no such thing as cold. Cold does not exist, its only a useful word for the absence of warmth. You can have a lot of light or a little light, but you can't have a lot of dark, only the absence of light. In the same way indifference is not the opposite of love, only the absence of love. If I stop loving, I am indifferent. Indifference is inaction, not an opposite. To find the opposite you have to go through nothing and come out the other side. To go from +1 to -1 I have to go through zero. Someone said the opposite of love is Satan (thinking perhaps of the statement "God is love"). But to say "God is love" is not the same as saying "love is God". So as love is personified in God, the opposite of love is personified in Satan. (Please note, I am not make a statement of dualism, I am not equating God and Satan. God is way more than Satan.) So what then is the opposite of love? I think we get trapped by the idea that the answer has to be binary, that if there is a +1 then there is also a -1. This is a problem of language. In English we have one word for love, the Greeks had 4, and I'm sure other languages have many subtleties to capture the sense of this thing called love. English as a language encourages seeing love through the lens of dualism. To even make the statement "there is an opposite of love" is to imply dualism. So at the very least we might be able to conclude there is no exact opposite of love. This also fits with our understanding that God is love. God created all, and so anything we might conclude to be the opposite of love can at most be a twisted distortion of what God made, arising from our use of free will. We can also conclude that the opposite of love must be exhibited in action, because the absence of something is not an opposite. Love is exhibited in action, with consequence. So we may conclude that the opposite will also have consequence through action. If we then accept that the opposite of love is not something singular, just as love is not one-dimensional, and, if we accept that like love any opposite also includes action leading to consequence, then how should we look at it? In one of my middle-of-the-night sleepless moments (do you have those too?) I started working through what I knew love is, and then considering the opposite to those characteristics. This also led to the thought that love is relational, so an opposite would break relationship. Then in the morning I saw two online comments in a forum where I raised this question, and which reinforced my thinking. One wise person pointed me to 1 Corinthians 13, which points to what love is. Another said the opposite was "selfishness", which points to the anti-relational nature. Well, there's lots of facetious "wisdom" on what love is: cartoons, along with mushy, sentimental, deep, silly, or even stupid statements, and lots of cynical comments. Instead lets go with the source that most people find indisputable (especially if evidenced by how much it is used in wedding services). Here we are, from 1 Corinthians 13, love is, and its opposite:
Love is reality: hard, unbending, true, and absolute. Else it could not be love. The opposite of love denies reality, it is a pretense that whats real is not true. It is flexible, pliable to suit the needs of the moment, relative. This does not mean the opposite of love has no consequence. To deny something is to try and kill it, to deny truth will have consequence (try deny gravity for a few hours). To be unloving to another can destroy them. My conclusion: The opposite of love exists only in our exercise of free will when we try to destroy love. Love is attitude in action. The opposite is the anti-attitude in action. Both have consequence: love establishes and affirms truth, reality, and relationship. The opposite seeks to replace truth with lies, reality with unreal fantasy, and relationship with individualism. After thoughts: In today's world we have so much denialism, relativism, and fantasy world views. Just look at the belief that capitalist exploitation is sustainable, climate change is not real, and values are self determined. Perhaps this shows just how little love we have.
* The term "things" as used here, should be read as "reality": those things which actually exist, like truth and gravity, as opposed to the things we only imagine to exist like our lies and pink elephants.
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23 years ago today. It begins with a coma: a 5-year old facing death. A 20% chance of survival, and even then likely to be brain damaged. This is not something any child should face, nor the parents. The doctors usher us to a small room ... that one reserved for bad news. They send a fat priest. The previous night ... at a summer barbecue with friends, and our 5-year old has a headache. Nothing particularly worrying. Then come the convulsions, throwing up, the progression into coma. As strangers in a foreign land, with no insurance, what does one do? We rush to the emergency room, leave a message with the deaf house mate, pray - that is all that we can do. Met by a doctor with a Christian belt buckle, this is reassuring. Not so the questions of "have you been beating her?" Then a CT scan, but only when the machine miraculously begins to work when, out of frustration, the nurse throws forceps at it. Shallow breathing, no consciousness, and a golf-ball sized blood clot compressing the brain. It was so good that a 60-something-year old man has had a heart attack, because now the helicopter is there for him, and they can squeeze our daughter in too (to her everlasting frustration she can not experience the flight). Poor parents. We drive two hours drive to catch the helicopter. We try to pray, but words are hard to find. Arriving at last at the hospital we can catch a last quick touch of her, barely breathing, unconscious. They finish a second CT scan, and wheel her off to the operating room. The doctor says not to be too hopeful. Then she's in the waiting hands of the top neurosurgeon within 3 hours flying time. We wait, in the small room. First the platitudes of the minister ... I think our confession of Christ is more assurance to him than he is to us. A phone call comes ... from the other side of the world my parents track us down to this tiny room. That brief message to our deaf house mate has amazingly made it to far-away home. Terse loving conversation, facts conveyed to my questioning surgeon-father, prayers communicated, information passed that over 200 people are praying. Still waiting ... we expect 4 1/2 hours. Friends enter ... they have tracked us down on the flimsiest of information, collected things and driven 2 hours to find us, bringing a compassionate ear, prayer, food, and favorite teddy bear. We're told we must eat, and the friends take us to a local restaurant. Distracted conversation, holding emotions in balance with trying to stay functional. Back at the hospital, and the doctor is angry. Where were we? The operation is over, she is out earlier than expected, she's alive. We see a tiny body with enormous head bandage lying in ICU. What state her brain is in no-one knows. But at least coming out of the operation so soon must be a good sign, surely? Off to the Ronald McDonald house next door to beg a room. If only it was to McDonalds to get a happy meal. Morning, and she is moved out of ICU. The doctors are amazed, she's doing very well. For 5 days we hover by her bed, even to the point of begging permission to sleep in the chair. From dozy consciousness she slowly progresses to fully awake. Friends call daily and visit - no cell phones. Each does the long drive, even her kindergarten school headmistress. A red and silver tinsel wig to cover the shaved skull with its horseshoe-shaped blanket stitch scar where they entered her head. Familiar pictures and drawings stuck to the walls and ceiling. Messages from near and afar ... everyone is praying. Long hours of reading to her, continuing the Narnia series of books we had been busy with before all this started. Stories of a God in love with a strange people ... us. We begin short walks down the corridor, first with her in a kids trolley, then walking while holding her hand. She walks and drifts into the wall ... she has lost vision on one side from the compression of the optic nerve. Tests, more tests by more doctors, but she gets stronger. One week later to the day we leave hospital. The doctors are amazed. We say God heals. Back at friends, we lay her on the kitchen table, head over the sink, as she has her first hair wash to clean away accumulated muck and goo ... but only one side of her head has hair. Two weeks later we climb the local hill. This 5-year old climbs confidently to the top. Miracle? More tests, visits to the hospital. Her vocabulary is off the top of scale, her puzzle solving is poor, vision has not returned on one side. Medication regimes are discussed ... anti-seizures for the rest of her life, but at least she's alive. The doctor has a drawing from her stuck on his wall. It says "I'm a miracle." He agrees. We worry about finances. No insurance, a student grant, that's all. The bill arrives: because it is an emergency admission of a foreign minor whose parents have no insurance, and only because of all those factors, we need not pay a cent. The hair begins to grow, a T-shirt is painted together with friends that says "I'm a miracle". We briefly change continents to see the family. A memorable greeting, rejoicing, and giving thanks to God. Six months later we stand at the rail of a ferry as we cross a lake. With parents on either side she realizes she can see both in peripheral vision ... sight has been restored. Two years later and no complications. School is progressing well. All seems normal. The doctor says, "if you like, you can try wean her off medications". We do so, and then she has tick bite fever ... no complications, no seizures. Today she is married to a wonderful man, knows God, is a super athlete, an adventurous explorer, a graduate student, and a compassionate volunteer with the poor.
23 years ago today we learned what's valuable, and we learned trust in God, we learned friendship, we learned so much. Did God make it happen? No! Has God used it for good? Yes. The question was posed to me: "Apart from salvation, what can I expect God to do for me?" Sadly it's a question that many Christians would quickly pounce on and say "How can you ask that?", as if questioning God was not allowed. But God gave me a brain, and presumably I should use it (unlike some, Limbaugh comes to mind).
(This is not the question of what can I expect of God if I enter relationship with Him as damaged goods ... thats another story for another time) It was a question that made me pause, and I had to resist the temptation to trot out all the platitudes we so unthinkingly use. Then the cynic in me wanted to say "we can expect nothing" ... for on what grounds can we expect God to do anything. He's sovereign, and owes me nothing. But the more I thought about it, the more I came to the conclusion that's not exactly true. The balance is between understanding the expectations of relationship, and what I think he should do for me. Its a fine line we so easily confuse. Many relationships founder on this, when one partner begins to run the relationship by their individual requirements of the other. Here's my analogy (remember, analogies are finite): When I married, promises were exchanged. These were not promises of "I'll make sure you have a good job", "I'll prevent you from sickness", "I'll shield you from the evil of others", or "I'll be sure that you have a nice suburban house with big screen TV, iPad, and high speed internet". These promises are not made, because relationship can never grow if experience is not shared! No, the promises were that "I'll love you, stand by you, never leave you, forgive you, not harm you, walk with you, and share the struggles". God says the same things, with one exception. He also says follow me, and I promise these things. It sounds like conditional love, but its not. As humans we are so quick with our conditional love ... "I'll do this if you do that" .. and when the other person fails we withhold our favour (yet we are quick to complain when the situation is reversed). That's because human relationships are based on the equality of partners. So if God's promises are not conditional, what are they? God's statements of "Follow me and I'll ..." are objective statements of the reality of relationship with a God. He's saying that while we are in relationship, his promises hold and I can expect that. If I break the relationship, the relationship is just that - broken! It's not that God then fails to deliver, its that we have walked out the room (amazingly God's grace even then may prevail). So what can I expect of God? I can expect him to honour the promises of relationship. These are not promises of never being sick, never hurting, never knowing sadness, never suffering, never being hungry, never feeling lost, never having to make a decision for myself, never having to use my brain. Because part of growing in relationship is to take my share of responsibility. No, the promises are that God will be the strong partner, be a lover, share responsibility, collaborate (which in itself is amazing). And part of being in an unequal (healthy*) relationship is that the stronger partner desires to see the other grow. (Remember the limits to analogies?) It's like the master trusting the apprentice to do a job, even though the master has NO need for the apprentice, but does so because the apprentice will then become more than he is now. He does it for the apprentice. This is dangerous, because the apprentice is exposed to danger. The apprentice may hurt himself, may fail, may know misery, but those are the risks of learning. To learn and never try is to never learn. And every success is built on the lessons of trying. Through this the apprentice becomes more like the master, and more skilled, more able to complete the tasks, and enters into a deeper relationship of shared understanding with the master. The first time I could truly empathize with someone who had lost a parent was when I lost a parent. The first time I could really understand someone who has been hurt by another, was when I had been hurt by someone. When I failed at a task, I could help another who was struggling with the task. That is why I struggle to deeply empathize with someone in the gutter ... I feel sorry, I am moved, and may act in response, but the depth of my emotion is finite. Yet let me hear of someone being bullied, and my anger is roused because I know what it is like. So what can I expect from God? God by definition is the senior partner in our relationship ... he leads and he has a mission. He is the master and I am the apprentice working to serve the greater wisdom. He sees the completion, and knows the steps to reach it. I am the pupil who he amazingly entrusts with tasks towards that end goal ... entrusted while we are in our relationship. Like Frodo and Gandalf, who shared a commitment to a grand objective that was good, true, necessary, and important. Frodo was entrusted with tasks, and Gandalf walked with him into the tough situations. Sometimes he was alongside, sometimes Gandalf was far away and Frodo had to struggle seemingly on his own with the task entrusted to him. Yet all the time Gandalf is working on his behalf, often facing dangers and trials that Frodo could never handle. They are in relationship, and can expect all that one does of relationship. So with God I expect relationship. I expect to feel close, yet sometimes to feel apart but know he is working for us ... I expect at all times that we work to a common purpose. I expect to be stretched, I expect troubles, sadness, and hurt. But I expect joy of the union of purpose. Because of relationship. Take that away, and I can expect nothing except dismissal. * Note we can be in relationships of unequals that are not healthy. Most particularly we can submit to other authorities, spiritual and physical, that harm us. Think of drugs, spousal abuse, or the occult. [Warning: This is a bit of a bizarre posting - reader beware] There's trouble ahead when you live only for the approval of others, saying what flatters them, doing what indulges them. Popularity contests are not truth contests - look how many scoundrel preachers were approved by your ancestors! Your task is to be true, not popular. [Luke 6:26] Two skins, both in need of care. Skins that I sometimes reveal, and sometimes hide. Skins I cloth, skins I decorate, skins that communicate. And with every passing minute I age, my skins "mature" like a fine wine or an old cheese. The skins change in flexibility and fragility, but forever they remain my container.
I typically only blog my own thinking here. However, I have an ongoing interest and engagement with a cross section of society about why they a) do or do not have a theistic outlook, and b) accept / reject Jesus (as opposed to institutional Christianity).
The rationale of many of these discussions is often based on an unthinking acceptance of assumptions, which when examined can disclose why someone's actions often tell a different story to their professed worldview. This paradox is not atypical of contemporary postmodern society where people are seemingly comfortable to hold contradicting views. Just as Christians are far from homogeneous in their belief ... often holding to the dogma with no reality to their faith ... so too do atheists also come in many flavors. To engage in discussion between members of different persuasion, it is helpful to be conscious of the diversity. This article has some interesting insights into the atheistic "groups" of people: HERE.
Simply perfect
This is a series of "I wonder" statements ... This simplicity of a focused, complete, clear, and accurately targeted essay ... I wonder, where have these gone? While growing up I was hugely influenced by the essay form of writing from the pre-internet era. The classic example is, of course, C.S. Lewis' essays, but there are many others. It strikes me that there is limited visibility for such composition - not a complete lack, as one finds them if one searches. But the deep, reflective, and thoughtful essays ... not theological treatises, not news commentary, not "in my opinion" ... these seems to be buried in (or in competition with?) the easy-to-access blogosphere. I wonder if there is a need for more insightful writing that brings a Christ-relationship to bear on the concerns of the day (Like Lewis' "Religion and Rocketry"). Or is the need really to uncover such writing in the plethora of essay-length yet transient blog opinions. So I wonder if the blog is the contemporary equivalent for such creative writing? If so, and with the ease and exposure of blogs, is the theological thoughtfulness of such writing comparable to the essays of yesteryear? For myself I find the writing of blog-based "essays" to be hugely helpful in crystallizing my understanding of issues - my blog writing is for myself first and foremost. I wonder what the motivation of pre-internet essayists was, and what really is at the heart of the motivation for most modern day bloggers? Pre-internet essays often catalyzed, or were a response to, other peoples essays - it was like beautiful dialogue in slow motion. Sometimes even books were the dialogue, such as Chesterton's "Heretics" and "Orthodoxy" (my top two favorite books) which were in large part written in response to the writings of G.B. Shaw. But I wonder if todays blogs have the same power to catalyze thoughtful composition and response by others? I wonder ... are the essay writers of today mostly just strategic competitors fighting for ego-presence in the noise? I wonder ... |
Why?
Probably the best therapy is to express yourself. Why do you think psychiatrists make you lie on the couch and talk, while all they do is murmur "hmmm", "uhuh", or "go on"? Archives
May 2017
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