Not The Same

“'See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them;
they will be his people,
and God himself will be with them;
he will wipe every tear from their eyes.
Death will be no more;
mourning and crying and pain will be no more,
for the first things have passed away.'
And the one who was seated on the throne said, 'See I am making all things new.'”
- Revelation 21:3b-5a

I Believe I'm a Walking Contradiction

Today's post is long, but I think it's worth it, and, if you're feeling lost, be sure you read yesterday's: Same Old Thing.

Today I started class by challenging my students with the quotation that began yesterday's post. I asked them to tell me one thing that had happened in the last 2500 years that would have surprised the writer of Ecclesiastes - one entirely new aspect of humanity that he never could have dreamed of.

First came answers like “the microwave” and “the internet,” but I pointed out that the microwave and the internet are just new ways to cook and share information, things humans have always done. After more thought they put forth “the moon landing” and “the atom bomb,” and again I reminded them that death, suffering, and pain, the discovery of harsh and alien landscapes were very old experiences, and that the atom bomb and moon landing differed from their antecedents only in magnitude, not in kind.

Finally, two students kicked the discussion up a notch by posing two important questions: “What about miracles?” and “What about individuals?”

Honestly, they had stumped me, especially since I teach at a public school and am therefore relatively limited as to what assertions I can make.

While the laws of nature are universal in every time and place, I believe, if I believe in the gospel, that at some point God utterly violated those laws and changed everything, forever. That much I had to admit, as well as that while human nature itself might be entirely universal (we are all born, we all learn, to love or desire family and friends, we labor, we fall in love, we reproduce and we die) the individual is just that: unique and therefore of inestimable value.

When the author of Ecclesiastes composed this passage he neither had a conception of the spiritual transaction that would take place during the crucifixion of Christ, nor did he have the fullness of the gift of the Holy Spirit that we experience now. In a sense, those things are entirely new, but I'd like to consider them in light of the comment Katie made on yesterday's post. She suggested that somehow, even if we weren't privy to the knowledge, the nature of God has always been the sole factor in determining what constitutes reality. God was always three persons: Maker, Redeemer, and Advocate.

Moreover, God doesn't look at time like we do, he doesn't see a linear progression in human knowledge. In the same way that we can't see or conceive of a mono-dimensional object (with only length, width or height), I doubt, except insofar as he condescends to our own time-based minds and senses, that God really notices a thing like time at all.

I love Catholicism, and Christianity in general, for a number of reasons, but perhaps the foremost among these is the fact they not only accept, but embrace as doctrine, and even worship, contraries which blatantly oppose logic.

For example: that God is one nature and three persons, that Christ is 100% man and 100% God, that the Eucharist is actually the body and blood of Christ despite having every discernible-by-sense-data quality of bread and wine, and most importantly that God was just when he accepted the life of an innocent man as a ransom for those worthy of death.

While Christ did come at a specific time for a specific purpose, and in doing so totally changed our conception of human nature, in many ways his coming is so absolutely perfect that we can't imagine history without it. He seems to be the deus ex machina, but could we really make sense of anything that had happened before or after Christ without him? We were always the redeemed people. We were always children of God, but he decided, in true heroic fashion, to let us lose him, so that he might win us.

But, is the beauty of the thing an adequate justification for believing it to be true? Can I rest assured that because God did what appears to be the most beautiful thing, that the facts of the matter can defy logic?

Let me know what you think, and listen to today's song; it's by Ben Folds and describes an especially strange story of conversion.

Same Old Thing

“What has been is what will be,
and what has been done
is what will be done;
there is nothing new under the sun.
Is there a thing of which it is,
“See, this is new”?
It has already been,
in the ages before us.”
- Ecclesiastes 1:9-10

Stop Me If You've Heard This One Before

Every day I begin my English classes with a famous quotation. Lately, we've been looking at what figures like Oscar Wilde, Goethe, C.S. Lewis, and Thoreau have to say about originality.

“Most people,” Wilde says, “are other people, their thoughts are the opinions of others, their lives a mimicry, their passions a quotation,” and most of my students are inclined to agree. They've already been primed with Goethe (“all truly wise thoughts have been thoughts a thousand times already”) and Lewis on the subject, and I think I've fairly convinced them that the themes of human literature and thought are few: love for country, brother, nature, woman, and God, hatred of oppressors, enemies, death, and decay, and desire for immortality, honor, and self-knowledge.

While the list isn't exhaustive, it is startlingly close to being so. No work that is founded on a so-called “unique” idea will ever be great, principally because the great ideas have all been ideas “a thousand times already.”

Of course, it's obvious that Wilde isn't really on the same side of this debate as Lewis or Goethe. While he too admits that there is very little about mankind and our thoughts that can be called revolutionary or unique, this thought isn't the comfort for him that it is for Lewis; rather, it seems to actually disgust him. I'd be tempted to accuse Wilde of a “poor me” attitude, and of entertaining the misconception that he was the first and only homosexual writer to aspire to greatness, but I know he was better-read than that.

Personally, I think more people's passions should be a quotation. My personal passion would probably come from Ecclesiastes, A Midsummer Night's Dream, or the work of Emily Dickinson. Mimicry, in fact, is one of the best habits we can acquire: whether it be of our national heroes, of the saints, of great authors or thinkers, or even of Christ himself, we need models.

My students' final and most desperate plea toward original thinking went something like this: “What about politicians? Shouldn't they be original thinkers? The problems they have to deal with are all new. The oil crisis, atomic warfare, terrorism, the internet- it's all new.”

After reminding them of the striking resemblance that JFK's “Inaugural Address,” which we recently read in class, bears to Barrack Obama's speech at the DNC a couple weeks ago, I told them this:

“Heaven help us if the people running this country are original thinkers. My ideas, even my best ones, have only been churning around in my head for five or six years, yours have only had two or three years. At best, an original thinker has had a decade or two of rolling over the same thoughts. Shakespeare has had over three hundred years, Lincoln over a hundred, Homer over three thousand. If I were to teach you only from my own thoughts, I would have exhausted them about two and a half weeks ago. None of us has a long enough lifetime to comprehend the great truths. Heaven help us if we tried.”

Tomorrow I'm going to use the above quotation from Ecclesiastes, we'll see how they respond.

Let me know what you think.

Take A Chance on Me

Friday night is date night, and if you're anything like me you spend it writing blog posts.

Unbelievable Dating Advice from the Unassuming Bachelor

-or-
I Spent All Night in a Ramen-Induced Coma and Slept Through Today's Movie Review

I've got a lot to say about things. Lots of things. Important things. But mostly I confine myself to a few platforms: the relative nutritional virtue of Wheat Thins, the impact of Science Fiction as a literary genre, and obscure cultural references in Barenaked Ladies songs.

What I don't know anything about thought is dating. In the divinely inspired works of the Old Testament book of Proverbs:

There are three things which are too wonderful for me,
Four which I do not understand:
The way of an eagle in the sky,
The way of a serpent on a rock,
The way of a ship in the middle of the sea,
And the way of a man with a maid.

- Proverbs 30:18-19

So, like most of the time, I'm going to be speaking to you about a subject on which I have no authority, and probably (statistically) the worst record of anyone I know (do the math). Without further ado three helpful tips on dating, the first installment of an ongoing series on the art of love.

Concepts to Know:

1. Net self-esteem differential.

The cruelest reality of the dating world is this: we all have our place. You have a certain range of eligible members of the opposite gender outside of which you will never successfully date. Now, contrary to popular belief this "target range" isn't determined by the amount of money you make, your social circle, how sweet of a car you drive, or even your looks. No, while all that stuff does matter, and it matters much more than most other factors, it doesn't actually determine your range.

The only thing that actually determines your range is the self-esteem of your target. Make sure you determine during the first hour of any first date a rough idea of what your date's self-esteem percentile score is.

While an individual's self-esteem typically is based on things like money, friends, possessions, and physical appearance, it isn't necessarily based entirely on these things. Sometimes a person comes along who didn't really grow into their teeth until like senior year of high school, so, despite the fact that this person is probably in the top 15% for looks and money, their self-esteem is stuck in the 45th percentile because of the nickname "molar monster". This person is prime real-estate.

Ultimately a really successful couple will have a max self esteem differential of 15%. These are the cases where one person actually has a reason to be down on themselves and the other just had an emotionally scarring experience which results in an 88th percentile person thinking that the 67th percentile person is doing them a favor.

Really, the only way to keep the magic alive is mutual self-doubt. As long as you both think you have to do everything you can to hold onto the other person, you'll do great.

2. Man-points.

Ever play Mario, Sonic the Hedgehog, Donkey Kong, or Coinworld? Well in these games your only real job is to get in, complete the level, and get out. Dates are kind of like these games. There are lava-pits to avoid, enemies who will compete for your princess, moving platforms, and clouds that disappear like 1/100th of a second after you land on them. While it seems like the best idea to just run, jump, and swing your way through the date there is actually an alternate goal worth pursuing.

In all of these games, including dating, there are tons of instances where you can go out of your way to collect bonus points. Usually in the form of coins or bananas, these don't actually win the game for you, but they sure do help. Getting these bonus points in the game of dating usually involves things like bringing an umbrella, cleaning that spot in your apartment that you're sure she won't see, not mentioning the names of any other girls or even actresses under the age of 40, hiding your Magic cards. Whatever.

See and seize these opportunities.

3. The Fluid Assumption. That sounds almost dirty and almost theological.

Stereotypes are stereotypes because they're true. No, not every girl wants you to open the door for her. There are some who will be offended when you do, but a much higher percentage (varying on your geographic location) will be offended if you don't. Know your crowd. Even if you're on a blind date you have at least a little bit of information. You know the girl that set you up has read Purpose Driven Life 10 times. This means you probably should open doors, pay for things, and look offended when people around you spit, swear, or wear t-shirts with the names of metal bands.

Never act like you don't know what you're doing just because you don't. Make up a general set of likes and dislikes that a date probably has before you even meet them, and then tweak it as you get more information. Your goal is to act decisively in the way that has the highest probability of working out in your favor.

But don't take my word for it.

Well, it's Saturday afternoon here and I've just gone grocery shopping. For my next trick I plan to make a Mexican concoction with the help a newly purchased crock pot. You'll see how that went tomorrow.

Your history lesson for today: