Sticky Relationships

Lifelong relationships have a glue that is mysterious to us in America (“America” may be a generalization, but it is a helpful generalization denoting American pop culture). When we see couples who have been married sixty years, we stand in awe and view them as otherworldly creatures. When we see couples who have been married forty years, we do much the same thing. When we see couples who have been married twenty-five years, we’re impressed, and when we see couples who have been married five years, we may wonder how much longer it will last. Lifelong marriages are growing increasingly foreign to American culture. But it doesn’t end there. In America friendships are similar, for the self usurps the priority of the relationship.

Commitment is not an American value. We are far too sophisticated for such things. Short-term relationships are much more convenient and entertaining for the self – entertainment after all is a core American value (Cf. Either/Or vol. 1, “Rotation of Crops”). We enjoy the use of prenuptial agreements. When the going gets tough, we opt out. There is no reason to stay in a difficult relationship, for “it is much more important that I be true to myself than true to any relationship.” Not surprisingly, we have probably all heard some version of this statement from Hollywood celebrities. It seems that we in America have forgone the glue for relationships and have opted for a whimsical game of pin the tail on the donkey with as many turns as we so desire. 

This debacle with commitment isn’t foreign to the church. I’ve heard far too many pastors lament the high numbers of divorce, but church bodies seem to splinter as much as marriages do. Churches will have a difficult time avoiding hypocrisy when it comes to talking about commitment. 

It seems then that we don’t know the first thing about covenant, albeit the church ought to know all about it.

Is “covenant” just a word we Reformed desire to tack on to our theological emphases in order to baptize them as truly Reformed?

This rambling blog is in some ways a convergence of a lot of things that have been on my mind as of late. In early church history class, our professor has emphasized the centrality of the early church’s yearning for unity, often at great cost. In Pentateuch class, I have encountered a refreshed understanding of covenant, i.e. God’s incorrigible loyalty to Israel. In some recent stories, I have felt the hurt and anguish that commitment in relationships sometimes incurs. And in my own denomination, I have watched as people have opted out of the denomination for one reason or another.

I am not saying that separation is never an appropriate course of action. Sometimes it is – OT teachings on the subject seem to presuppose that relationships break down. But it seems that we in America have begun using various types of separation as devices of convenience that have the self as the sole standard. Relationships are hard, and making a relationship sticky seems in many ways inscrutable. I basically don’t know what I am talking about, considering I am only twenty-four and have been married only a few years. But my naïveté on the matter doesn’t change our need to recover the value of commitment and a robust notion of covenant relationship that necessarily excludes prenuptial agreements and easy ways out.   

Korean Drama and Jesus

This title makes me chuckle. Last night Esther and I finished watching a Korean love story. First of all I should admit, I was slow in being drawn into the story. I missed most of the first few episodes because it seemed terribly uninteresting. However, somewhere along the line, I found myself transfixed and unequivocally invested in the story.

I would very much like to recap the entire story here. However, that would take a series of blogs, and in that case you might as well just watch the show. Let me suffice it to say: two friends, a young girl and a boy grow up together in meager circumstances in rural Korea. She needs heart surgery, if she has any chance of living. The boy’s father is a scoundrel and steals the money for her surgery. The mother of the girl then searches for the boy’s father in Seoul that she might recover the money for her daughter’s surgery. In the process, the mother is hit by a car and dies. To make matters worse, the boy’s father abandons him. The young boy cares dearly for the young girl, but he doesn’t know what to do because they are penniless. He attempts to steal a lady’s purse, but he is immediately caught. As it turns out, he looks strikingly similar to a wealthy couple’s recently deceased son. The wife is suicidal after losing her son, so the husband tells the young boy that he will pay for the young girl’s surgery if he, the young boy, agrees to become their son. The young boy agrees, but they take him away before he is able to find out if the surgery was a success. They tell him the young girl died during the surgery. However, fifteen years later, he discovers that she didn’t die at all. The story continues with a feeble seed of hope.

I do not want to diminish the magnitude of laying down one’s life for another – “no one demonstrates greater love than this.” Dickens captures this notion well in A Tale of Two Cities. In fact, I imagine that there are many stories that have utilized the notion of dying for the sake of another. However, I think there is something to be said about living a whole life of sacrifice, and I do not mean merely being subservient in rhetoric and disposition. I mean trading in one’s own life and identity that another might live, like the young boy trading in all that he was that the young girl might have a chance at life. For me this was the most striking aspect of the story: that the young boy would give his whole life over to strangers that the young girl might have some hope of life.

Before I go a step further, let it be said that I do not go about baptizing movies and TV shows, and I do not like pretending that this and that movie have biblical analogs (many people have done that with The Lord of the Rings, which to my understanding is in direct conflict with Tolkien).

That said, after finishing the show last night, I found myself naturally wandering into the land of the Gospels. The Son came and dwelt among us as Jesus of Nazareth. I am fully aware of the many Christological heresies that would ensnare me, if I were to draw direct parallels between the young boy in the Korean drama and Jesus. I have no intention of attempting to draw consistent parallels between the Gospels and the Korean drama as a whole. But in a sense, the Son sacrificially traded in his identity that humanity might be drawn into life, perhaps similar to the young boy allowing himself to be essentially kidnapped that the young girl might have the life-saving surgery. When we think of the Son’s sacrifice, we often think of Jesus’ death, but I think we would do well to take heed of Jesus’ earthly life as a whole that we might then be drawn into the Son’s overwhelming and rather incomprehensible life-long sacrifice.

I wonder if this might also shed light on Christian life.

Suffering and the Presence of God

I remember when the phone range and my mom answered it. It was the doctor. There was silence. She hung up and walked into the living room. I remember standing, waiting for an explanation. She told us that she had been diagnosed with cancer. It felt like the world had imploded, but strangely it hadn’t. It felt like life had ended, but strangely we woke up the next morning the same as before. When my mom was diagnosed with cancer, I felt like my world had come crashing down, perhaps analogous to what many people felt on 9/11. For many long and excruciating weeks, my mom endured chemotherapy. I remember sometimes going with her to treatments and sitting with her on the bed. I didn’t have much to say, and there wasn’t much I could do. Most of the time, I just sat there with her.

I shall not build a theodicy. That is for someone else to do. But I will say that if a theodicy begins and ends “on paper,” then it isn’t a theodicy at all. Formulas, theorems, and syllogisms do no service for a mother who loses her daughter or for a son who loses his father or for a wife who loses her husband.

In The Sickness Unto Death, Kierkegaard sheds light on what may be a potentially redeeming quality of suffering. He says, “When life begins to quake, then it is immediately apparent that despair was what was lying beneath” (Penguin Classic, 74-75). It seems then that tragedy can potentially serve as a trigger to realize one’s despair and one’s need for deliverance. However, these words would seem cold and insensitive to anyone who is enduring tragedy and suffering.

Years later, my mom said that during those long weeks and months of cancer and chemotherapy she experienced a closer presence of God than she had ever before. She said, “I felt sorry for everyone else who had to be bustling about.” God was present with her in the midst of her cancer.

When it comes to dwelling in the presence of God, lying in bed with cancer is rather different than vogues in Christian circles that blur the boundaries of entertainment and the holy. I’m not suggesting we adopt a sort of Christian asceticism. But perhaps when it comes to dwelling in the presence of God, we are a bit off kilter and even upside down. Perhaps, we have forgotten to take off our shoes and childish desires. Instead, we have “satisfied” ourselves with sugarcoated experiences. It seems that we often associate God’s presence with health and surplus, and we play hot potato with suffering. It’s little surprise then that we in America don’t know what to do or say about the presence of God in the midst of suffering. But the testimonies of many around the world, including my mom, ought to teach us that God is present with those who are suffering, and perhaps they recognize God’s presence better than we who are “bustling about.”

Seminary is a Cemetery

“Did I just see you guys at the café?” A generic looking Caucasian man said to me as I stood in line at a restaurant with Esther.

“Maybe so…we were just there,” I trailed off and turned my attention to the menu hoping to avoid a conversation.

He began to aim words in my direction again…

…aimless chatter…

“So what are you doing in Pasadena?”

“Going to seminary,” I said. I did not want to disclose the name of the seminary, lest I be obliged to defend myself.

“Cemetery?” His inflection seemed to indicate confusion.

“Seminary,” I corrected.

“Yeah, I heard you. I know exactly what that is.” His all-knowing pretentious tone spoke volumes.

I felt a combination of amusement and annoyance. I looked at him with what I hoped would be an unassuming smile, though I don’t know precisely how I came across. “Oh, ok.”

“I know all about seminary…” His voice was loud and seemed to permeate all the corners of the room.

…the conversation continued for a minute or two, and he concluded by wishing me good luck, which I thought just added to the oddity of the peculiar conversation.

I will not waste breath defending a theological education because I will likely be either “preaching to the choir” or pouring words onto deaf ears. However, I must say that it struck me as rather odd that a complete stranger would say something like that to me. After some informal research, which involved nothing more than turning to Esther and asking who in the world that was who spoke such tactless words to me, I learned that he was involved at a local church (I will not disclose which denomination or “nondenomination”). And I thought to myself, “We’re so bored and have lost any remnant of direction that we must fight amongst ourselves.”

Death and Love

I have not felt the urge to write a blog for quite some time, so I have decided simply to mention a few of the books I have been reading recently each accompanied with a brief quotation.

The Aeneid by Virgil. "Ah, merciless Love, is there any length to which you cannot force the human heart to go?” (110, Penguin Classics).

The Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann. "Love stands opposed to death – it alone, and not reason, is stronger than death” (487, Vintage).

The Collected Poems of W.B. Yeats.

"Who dreamed that beauty passes like a dream?

For these red lips, with all their mournful pride,

Mournful that no new wonder may betide

Troy passed away in one high funeral gleam

And Usna’s children died”

(“The Rose of the World”, Scribner)

The Complete Poems and Plays, T.S. Eliot.

"Unreal City,

Under the brown fog of winter dawn,

A crowd flowed over London Bridge, so many.

I had not thought death had undone so many.”

(“The Waste Land,” I. The Burial of the Dead; faber and faber)

The Sacred and the Profane by Mircea Eliade. "Religious man can live only in a sacred world, because it is only in such a world that he participates in being, that he has a real existence. This religious need expresses an unquenchable ontological thirst. Religious man thirsts for being. His terror of the chaos that surrounds his inhabited world corresponds to his terror of nothingness” (64, Harcourt).

The Rise of Christianity by W.H.C. Frend. "Christianity arose from the life, preaching, and death of Jesus of Nazareth” (12, Fortress). This opening statement of the first chapter illustrates this book’s rather peculiar underplaying of the importance of Jesus’ resurrection. Accordingly, I suggest this book be read in conjunction with The Resurrection of the Son of God, which expounds upon the significance that Jesus’ resurrection had for the early Christians.

I did not realize until after I compiled these brief quotations that they all involve death. I had not planned that; I did not plan to be so gloomy. However, I think it is important not to ignore death. I think it is important to realize that death is the fate of us all and that with Christ death loses its sting.

isolated and without the gods

I am currently reading The Aeneid. It is a beautiful and tragic story, but good stories are tragic. Reading The Aeneid has reminded me of the narratological difference between classical stories and modern stories. For example, there is a bit of a difference between The Aeneid and Nausea. A litany of differences and similarities could probably be compiled, though I am not interested in compiling such a list. However, I am interested in the fact that The Aeneid is far less focused on providing the audience with every jot of Dido’s phenomenology. Instead, the motions of her heart are intimately entwined with wishes of the gods and fate; there is a microcosm and a macrocosm, and the microcosm must conform to the macrocosm. And in Nausea Roquentin is not concerned about the gods. He wishes only to divulge his personal nightmare. In Nausea there is only an inconsequential individual; there is only a microcosm. With these thoughts in mind, I wonder how the Odyssey and Ulysses would match up. I suspect it would epitomize what I’m talking about.

I used to think that modern novels were sophisticated for their keen psychological insight, and in some cases I still think that. However, reading The Aeneid reminds me that the vast majority of modern stories are but footnotes. That said I do not wish to set modern stories over and against classical stories or vice versa, though I do have affinities for modern stories. I am mostly interested in the fact that story telling has changed. Also, I am interested in how we got from point A to point B, and I really don’t think that it was a straight line.

In Shakespeare there appears to be both a microcosm and a macrocosm. The heavens reflect Hamlet’s heart, as do his poignant soliloquies. There is a macrocosm and a microcosm, but the macrocosm serves as a mere reflection of the microcosm – for example, the heavens function merely as an indicator of Hamlet’s turmoil; the macrocosm is not to be reflected by the microcosm. There appears to be a reversal in roles.

It might then be asked, did the Enlightenment strip us of the gods and fate? Did the Enlightenment strip us of the macrocosm? I don’t know precisely, but I do think it is interesting that by the nineteenth century the macrocosm seems to have been put aside as inconsequential. What truly matters then is the autonomous “I,” a move that had been fermenting for hundreds of years and finally came to fruition.

In some of my favorite novels, the macrocosm is peeking through, but their stories are not of cosmic proportions. If Alyosha doesn’t find Dmitri, then Dmitri may be in trouble but the kingdom won’t be lost and the world won’t end. The Brothers Karamazov is not an epic, but rather ironically a large element of the story is a sort of debate about there being a macrocosm of which the microcosm is to be a reflection.

And then as if to throw a wrench into things, we have stories that have remained such as The Lord of the Rings. There is Frodo, and there is the struggle between good and evil that is sweeping middle earth. There is a microcosm and a macrocosm, and they are reflective of each other. However, even this is more similar to Hamlet, for Frodo is not seeking to reflect a personified macrocosm.

In light of these crumbs, it might also be noted that we often tell the truth with stories. And as our way of telling stories has changed, it appears that the way we tell the truth has changed. It would be rather nice to say that truth is truth, but alas we think and speak truth; truth does not reside in an unchanging vacuum; it passes along various and ever-changing contours of human experience, from generation to generation. We once spoke of the gods and our wills being reflective of their wishes, and now we speak of individuals as if they are gods.

“A Window into Your Soul”

I am currently in a Presbyterian Creeds class, and that to most people, I think, will seem most boring. Reciting, studying, and even dissecting creedal formulations written hundreds of years ago hardly seems like a day at the playground. The Book of Confessions is probably not next to Harry Potter on many people’s list for summer reading.

One of our culminating assignments for the class is to write a one-page statement of faith, a personal creed. On one of the first days of class, our professor looked at us – we few, we happy few, we band of brothers – and said, “your statement of faith shall be a window into your soul.” This window may be a beautiful window that says much of God and of you, or it may be a minute hole that is so generic that it does little more than reiterate a few lines of arcane theological jargon.

Our task then is to speak as best we can about God and humans in the course of a page and to do so using language that is unambiguous. How a mere page could be a full-fledged window I do not know, but I suppose I shall attempt.

This class is chockfull of short assignments each constituted by about six sentences all pointing toward the culminating assignment, the personal statement of faith. On one of the first assignments, our professor challenged me on the inclusion of a particular word. I must confess, since we are in the business of confessions, that I was not all that prepared for such a challenge regarding this simple word, “but.” It was then that I realized this class would require that I think carefully and do the best I can to craft lucid articulations of the Christian faith. It was then I realized that literally every word must be weighted with shiploads of meaning. Such is the case with creeds (and short stories!).

I have since considered the building of this window as a personal challenge, not a mere assignment. If I were to consider it a mere assignment, I am sure that it would feel quite laborious. But as a personal challenge, it is rather daunting and exhilarating. “A window into your soul!” Indeed! What a thought! Up to this point in my theological education (in college and in seminary), I have sufficed it to parrot the work of other theologians and to use proper citation. But now I shall attempt to do the unthinkable. I shall attempt to formulate a statement of faith that is both orthodox and personal with language that expresses the tenets of tradition with a refreshed and self-bespeaking vitality. Though it should be personal, I am, perhaps ironically, not trying to be original (in content). In fact, I must seek to be as unoriginal as possible, lest I find myself to be unorthodox.

No matter how I look at this assignment, I find myself paralyzed by fear and joy. It may be exciting to craft such a window. But what shall be seen when the window is complete?