On Love (Part 8): Love is not awesome

I was eating Mexican food with my friend Canada (in the good ol’ US of A) Discussing politics, and ironically foreign policy.

“That’s why revolutions and coup de tats don’t work,” I said, “It’s all just pride. One group is getting oppressed. So they take over with the intention of really changing things, pride sets in, they start enjoying all that power, and just take over oppressing where the last set of rulers left off.”

“Yeah, it’s all just ‘I can do it better than that guy.’ And in reality, they can’t. Humility is just realizing I’m a monster, but then...everybody else is a monster too, so it’s kinda okay,” said Canada.

“I know you think it’s fear, but I really think that pride is the root cause of every single thing we do,” I suggested. (Canada believes that most of our actions are spurred by a fear of becoming unloved.)

“Let me tell you something about me,” said Canada, and then he finished chewing a few tortilla chips dipped in corn-salsa. I waited patiently for this pearl of wisdom on pride and love.

“My legs are disproportionately long, and my torso is disproportionally short. So whenever I sit at a table with somebody, I look shorter than usual.”

That’s when he leaned over and wrote “Awesomely Humble” on my to-go box, and “Humbly Awesome” on his own.

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I am awesome.

I am willing to admit that I may be biased.*

I am also quite humble. I can give the most convincing monologue -- eloquent and well-acted -- proving to you in factual facts that I am a horrible excuse for a human being. I may even believe it -- at the time. If you know me and love me, you may take this for humility.

But I am not humble; I am awesome. You can’t be both, and therein lies the problem.

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Those of you who haven’t been to college (or those of you who went to a BFA program) may be surprised to know that most of us are required to write a lot of research papers. Early in the process, I discovered my golden geese: two books that could be applied to the subject of any paper, no matter what the topic. I’m not kidding. I used one or the other of these books in about 75% of the papers I wrote over my four years of college. The topics of both books (they were both broad psychological theories) were so tied to the entirety of human thought processes and behaviors, that they literally applied to every single subject -- from Environment and Man to Language and Gender to World Lit. Now, I can’t tell all of my secrets...one of these books, I’m gonna hold on to...but the other (the one I need to talk to you about right now) is called A Theory of Cognitive Dissonance by Leon Festinger.

The basic concept behind the book is that people tend to live with an extremely high amount of consistency. What we believe, we implement:

“Study after study reports such consistency among one person’s political attitudes, social attitudes, and many others. There is the same kind of consistency between what a person knows or believes and what he does. A person who believes a college education is a good thing will very likely encourage his children to go to college; a child who knows he will be severely punished for some misdemeanor will not commit it or at least will try not to be caught doing it. This is not surprising, of course; it is so much the rule that we take it for granted.”

The purpose of Festinger’s book is to explain how people can behave in contradiction to their beliefs. His theory is that dissonance (or inconsistencies) cause so much psychological discomfort that they warrant forcing two opposing ideas to become consistent with one another. In his book, Festinger uses smoking cigarettes as an example.

“Only rarely, if ever, are they accepted psychologically as inconsistencies by the person involved. Usually more or less successful attempts are made to rationalize them. Thus, the person who continues to smoke, knowing that it is bad for his health, may also feel (a) he enjoys smoking so much it is worth it; (b) the chances of his health suffering are not as serious as some would make out; (c) he can’t always avoid every possible dangerous contingency and still live; and (d) perhaps even if he stopped smoking he would put on weight which is equally bad for his health. So, continuing to smoke is, after all, consistent with his ideas about smoking.”

This is all from the introductory chapter. The book goes on to deal with a lot of issues with inconsistencies within our thinking. The main point being that resolving the inconsistencies in our thinking is a HUGE behavioral motivator. People will go to enormous lengths to prove to themselves that their behavior reflects their beliefs. (I highly recommend the book, by the way, especially if you’re in the middle of a college research paper.)

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We believe that pride is sinful. It is in opposition to what should be a constant struggle to become more and more like Christ. How do we make our actions consistent with our beliefs?

By saying: “I am not humble. This is because I am not perfect. It is impossible for me to attain pure humility. But, I must struggle with that anyway.”

That’s the lie we tell ourselves. That’s what we know we’re supposed to say. Because, in the question above...about pride...we took pride completely out of the equation.

You see, there’s this other cognitive dissonance we have. (Seriously, Festinger should have studied Christians...he could have written three more books) We all believe that we are awesome, right? I mean, just a second ago, you admitted that you weren’t humble. Doesn’t that mean you’re prideful, and therefore, believe that you’re awesome?

So, you’re awesome. Likely, you’re not as awesome as me, but I’ll forgive you and let you have a close second. The problem is, we’re Christians, and we are taught (correctly) that humility is rockin’ awesome and pride is totally for losers. So, in an attempt to relieve our cognitive discomfort, we align these two ideas: “If I am awesome, and being awesome means being humble, then I need to be humble.”

Tada.

All your “humility” is just pride in disguise.

Everything you do is rooted in your believe that you are awesome.

One could make the argument that pride is the most basic of all sins, and all other sinful behaviors -- when traced all the way back to their source -- are all just us proving to ourselves how awesome we are.

A child steals his brother’s toy car because he believes himself superior and more deserving of the car than his brother.

A student cheats on her test because she believes that she is so inherently worthy of a college education that the fact that she does not know the information is inconsequential.

A man drives home drunk because he believes himself to be so valuable that the inconvenience to him of taking a taxi or calling a friend is more terrible than the possibility of ending some unknown other person’s life.

And it goes deeper than just the typical run-of-the mill sins...

A person commits murder for only one of two reasons:

(we’ll call him Darth Vader -- just a random, ordinary, average-joe type name)

1) Darth believes that the other person is in some way inferior and deserving of death. Pride, clearly.

2) Darth hates murder, especially of someone he does not feel deserves it. However, in this particular case, if this person is not murdered, then someone else will die. So, in the interest of protecting this third party, (or perhaps himself) Mr. Vader must kill this person. Here, Darth has played the role of God...deciding who’s life is worth more than the other. Sounds like pride to me...besides...with a name like Darth Vader, you’ve got to assume he’s pretty prideful.

So, what about when we apply other types of murder to the same set of rules. Capital punishment clearly falls under category one. Killing during a war, will always fall under one of these categories.

Imagine if a person breaks into your home. You have a gun. They have a gun. What do you do? Yes, even that falls into one of my two categories. Even that, I would suggest, is a sin, and was the result of your glorious over-opinion of yourself.

So, you’re saying: “Surely you can’t be suggesting that I let this man kill me, when I’m perfectly able to defend myself!?”

Jesus let somebody kill him, even though he was perfectly capable of defending himself.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, but that was for a purpose...he was dying for our sins!”

Paul let some people kill him. Actually, you know, Peter did the same thing. In fact, seems to me like a WHOLE lot of the main characters in those New Testament books, walked willingly into death.

And you think your life is more valuable than theirs?

Anyway, this could get down into semantics very quickly, you pull out a Bible verse, I pull out a Bible verse...only, I’m the only one that’s actually writing, so I get to make the rules. I can win the argument if I want. And I do want.

I will concede, however, if you can show me one -- just one -- killing where pride was not the motivating factor.

You can’t. For the same reason that I cannot definitively prove my opinions** on murder; pride is the motivation for nearly EVERYTHING we do. Sometimes we even do the right things for the wrong reasons. But I can only speak of my own thought processes. I assume that you think the same way I do.

But maybe I am wrong.

Maybe I am the only one.

Sometimes I am afraid that I am not a good person.

I look at history, and I see people like Adolf Hitler...and I wonder sometimes, how different are he and I, really? At our core, we’re both just motivated by pride. I prove how awesome I am by writing about my struggle to love and I proudly point my finger at certain types of people I hold responsible for most of the world’s problems. Didn’t Hitler do the exact same thing?

Sometimes I remember that “I am awesome” and “I am humble” are TOTALLY opposite, totally inconsistent, totally cognitively dissonant. Neither words describe me. And that safe bubble world that I live in is obliterated. I am left shocked and unable to react beyond apologies...at least for a very short while -- then I’m right back to being my usual awesome self.

There’s this joke: “what’s the difference between you and God.” To which you reply, “What?” And then I say, “God doesn’t think he’s you.”

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People like to imagine demons to be the cause of sins. Lust is a demon that whispers in your right ear. Greed is a demon who whispers in your left. Perhaps there’s something to this. I’m not willing to say one way or another...but I’ll tell you this -- if this is true, I personally imagine pride as a demon that lives inside of you: more like some kind of tape worm, only bigger -- spread out over every inch of the inside of your body with twisting roots, making your own internal organs indistinguishable from his. And perhaps, the only way of removing him would cause significant damage to all the many parts and pieces he is wrapped around. In fact, it would probably kill you if it weren’t for divine intervention.

In fact, my guess is, that bad boy is so comfortable inside your skin, that when you get really serious about getting him out, he lets your remove lust, greed, wrath...whatever...all so that you’ll feel holy. If you get busy patting yourself on the back for how humble you are, you can’t work on your humility anymore.

Sometimes, our humility is just one more thing we’re proud of. We Christians are living proof of Festinger’s hypothesis.

I am far from having removed every bit of pride’s ever-regenerating presence. Most of the time, I don’t even try.

And yet, according to Paul, love is not proud.

As long as you are proud, you are incapable of love.

Considering I don’t think I’ll ever be fully rid of pride, I find this idea more than a little bit sad.

On the other hand, the more I rip out my own internal organs because that is the only way to execute that particular bit of pride...the closer I get to being able to truly love another human being.

As I study love -- read up on it in the Bible and other places. As I reflect on it and pray about it. As I try with increasing difficulty to practice what I learn about love, I find that I am discovering what hundreds of thousands of people before me have known for hundreds of thousands of years -- and tried their best to tell me: Love is worth more than me. Love is worth more than all of us combined. And to succeed in the constant struggle to dispense love onto another human being is the most noble goal imaginable.

You don’t have to agree with me on murder. You don’t have to agree with me on pride or on cognitive dissonance. I’m an arrogant prick, and I believe a lot of things that are wrong. But don’t assume that it makes me wrong about love! Please, don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater! I may be wrong about everything else I’ve ever said in my entire life, but I know that I’m right about love. Spending your life trying your damnedest to love -- struggling from sunrise to sunset every day of your life to implement more and more of a Jesus-esque love...that is THE greatest pursuit we humans can attempt.

And you know, if you want to know my personal opinion. If it causes me to be able to show a more Jesus-like love to those around me -- even by one tiny little molecule -- invisible to the human eye, well I think that’s worth ripping out my heart a hundred times over.

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*I am not biased. I am awesome. If you knew me, you’d agree. I am equal parts Hercules and Cyrano.

**because they are absolutely, 100% just that. Opinions. There are not fact.

One more way that Hollywood has screwed us over.

There are two types of people in the world.

Or so most filmmakers and crusaders would have you believe.

But for the next few minutes, let's pretend that they're right.

There are two types of people. The good and the bad.

Working in the film industry, as I do, I watch a lot of films. I call it research. It's awfully convenient that my "research" is called "entertainment" by the rest of the world. It sure beats hitting the libraries. I've been doing this for years. There's a pretty solid chance that if you name some classic film, I've seen it...and that list is growing constantly.

But I've noticed something different lately. I find myself identifying more and more with the villains...and I don't think that I'm supposed to.

Now, I'm not saying that when I went to see "Inglourious Basterds," I walked away thinking, "When I grow up, I want to be just like that man with the funny mustache." But, I am saying, that -- even with some of the cruelest -- I find myself forcing myself to see things through their eyes.

The types of movies I'm watching aren't changing. I watch a pretty solid variety. I think that my philosophy's are changing.

I like to think that this is a good thing -- so that's what I'm going to do. I officially declare this philosophy change to be directly related to all the research I've been doing into love, and the implications of attempting to force myself to love more. Not that any philosophy switch-up I've gone through has anything to do with my own willpower toward enlightenment. We are all influenced by the company we keep. I'm lucky to have good company. And I'm even luckier that much of that company points me toward reading good books, and listening to enlightening speakers. Furthermore, I've been reading my Bible a lot, and praying far more than is usual for me. I'd say that those two things have had the most impact on this brain transplant I've undergone, but that might step on the toes of people who disagree with my theology. So, I'll tell the truth. This theology is mine, just slightly different than anyone else's and therefore unique to me. I like to think I'm right and you're wrong, but then...I am biased.

So.

There are two types of people. (Or three if you count the ugly)

We grow up in a hard world, where the fairy tales have grown up a bit. We know that the good guys don't wear white, and the bad guys don't all wear Darth Vader helmets. So, it is up to us to figure out who the good guys are and who the bad guys are. And then, we must join the team of the good guys, because according to the laws of the movie -- they will win.

So, in movies, we are presented with this dualism. There is a person, the hero, who believes in X (the value presented by the writer). This hero is also virtuous, like-able, self-sacrificint, and brave. Then, there is the villain, who vastly disagrees with the hero about X. He, however, is ruthless, evil, cowardly and dislike-able in every way imaginable. So, we come to agree with value X, and propaganda is born. Whatever you may think about your invulnerability to propaganda...you are wrong. All film is propaganda. You have been exposed to it since before you could talk, most of you...to the point that you have been immunized to most propaganda which contradicts your original messages. In other words, the only reason you RECOGNIZE propaganda is because some earlier propaganda message taught you NEVER to trust ANYTHING that says that X is true. The fact is, writers know how to make you believe something, and they have made a living off of doing exactly that since longer than you and I have been on this wonderful planet.

The nice thing is that it's not "the man" who's controlling this propaganda. It's artists, visionaries, writers...and also business folk. But all of them, or at least most of them, only seek to tell the truth as best as they know it. Very few people are purposely trying to turn you into sheep.

The problem is not in value X. If it was, then how exactly are we to be sure that X is wrong at all? How do we know it isn't value Y that is wrong...the value that taught us to never, ever, under any circumstance EVER believe value X. Or what if value Q is the REAL problem, the one that says that we should keep our ears open and be receptive.

But here's where I think the problem is: there is no hero and there is no villain. We all cling to X or Y or Q or A or B or whichever value...oftentimes, not because we respect or believe in the value itself, but because we idealize the hero that stands for that value. It is because we demonize that villain.

How many times do we change churches because we find out that our pastor has flaws? The church is in error on a hundred things, therefore, they must not be the hero. Maybe they're not the villain, certainly not the hero. So we move on to another church. They too, always turn out not to be the hero. Many of them pretend to be the hero. Many are honest and open about their failures, but that doesn't stop us from believing that they are the hero. For many, this goes too far, and they abandon one religion in search of another, where the real heroes exist. They assume that if the Christians are not the heroes, then their value must be incorrect. Therefore, another, opposing value must be the truth...where the true heroes lie.

Let me tell you the truth. There are no heroes. None. Not one exists on the face of this entire planet. We are all liars, hypocrites, cheaters, thieves, and assholes...each in our own unique way. Some may be a smidge more loving than others, but every last one of them will let you down.

Sometimes, we also base our morals and philosophies on what the villains AREN'T doing. Equally wrong. There is no soul so dark that it is totally devoid of light. Now, this is just my hypothesis here -- I don't know any of these people personally...I'm just guessing. But I'm betting Adolf Hitler did one or two things over the course of his life that were GOOD. I'm betting the people who formed the KKK may have genuinely loved SOMEONE, even if it wasn't black people. In fact, for every horrible dictator that has ever existed...I would bet you that every single one of them believed that what they were doing was right.

I recently watched an episode of House M.D. featuring the brilliant James Earl Jones. Mr. Jones played the tyrant king of a small African nation. He was allegedly responsible for multiple genocides. Throughout the episode, more and more evidence was brought forward that this man was a plague on humanity. He tells one of the doctors a story about his childhood, when the people who were in power went on a murdering rampage. Now that he is in power, he plans to crush these villains before they have the opportunity to rampage again.

As Gandhi said: an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.

Why does this villain commit genocide? If you said hatred or revenge, I think I disagree with you. Now, you may be right. I am even slightly unsure myself about this one. My theory is: fear. The tyrant is afraid that if justice (his own definition of justice) is not upheld...further murderous rampages will occur. Therefore, by committing genocide himself, he prevents future genocides committed against the people he loves. One could argue that he commits this genocide out of love. However, you would more accurately argue that he commits his genocide out of fear. I was recently reading about a disagreement between Joseph Stalin and Leon Trotsky over whether or not to go to war with Hitler. The problem was that they too wanted to conquer Europe. They believed so strongly in the ideals of communism, and it's care for the proletariat that they believed that the only way to protect their own country was to conquer all of Europe. Why? Did they hate the rest of Europe? No. Did they seek revenge for previous wrongs? No. They were afraid. If Germany hadn't beat them to the punch, Joseph Stalin probably would have started World War II.

Under misguided attempts to protect, humankind has been known to commit terrible atrocities. Saddam Housein was a terrible dictator and needed to be removed from power. I agree with this statement fully. But America only decided to attack and forcibly remove him from power after he was alleged to be in possession of nuclear weaponry.

The unfortunate thing is, we're already the villains in the story. You and I, we naturally protect what we love...or to use a more precise term...what we covet. But when love for the attacker is taken out of the equation, protection quickly turns into fear.

Imagine an armed man in a mask breaks into your home and threatens you. What they don't know is that you have a gun in your back pocket. While they are not paying attention, what do you do? Kill them? How do you know that they really would have hurt you in the first place? How do you know it wasn't an empty threat? Do you even know why they are robbing you?

Now imagine this: your mother is dying. There is a disease which cures her illness, but you are too poor to buy this cure. Furthermore, you do not have enough money to eat. Across the street from you lives a wealthy family. They are arrogant rich-folk. They have made their money standing on the backs of those less fortunate. They treat people poorly. They are villains. So your brother breaks into the home of these villains, with a toy gun...so that he can steal enough money to save your mother's life. But the villains kill your brother, who was, in fact, the hero in the story...who only sought to save the life of his mother. Now what? Do you take vengeance?

And so...an eye for an eye leaves the whole world blind.

Our friends are all heroes. Our enemies are all villains. But all our villains have their own friends and family, all of whom view them as the hero. You may even be the villain to some.

The truth is, this is one type of person:

the villain.

You're the villain in the story. I'm the villain in the story. We're all the villains. We all end up hurting people we shouldn't.

So stop the vengeance. Stop the fear. Stop the eye for an eye cycle. Stop believing in heroes and villains. Stop worshipping heroes and demonizing the villains. Just start loving people. Be willing to sacrifice yourself and everything that you love for anyone...even the people you consider the villains. Even when they attack you. Even when they deserve punishment. Jesus says to turn the other cheek.

I have friends, who I think are wonderful people, who have concealed carry licenses -- these allow them to carry guns with them wherever they go, and not in plain sight. These people mean well, I want to say that over and over and over: they mean well, and their desire is GOOD. They desire to protect either themselves or those around them.

Jesus, I'm fairly certain, is slightly more powerful than a gun. And he didn't lift a finger to stop his own crucifixion.

Turn the other cheek. You are the villain.

Anyway, I gotta say, this particular post isn't very well written. I suppose I'll rewrite it at some point.

On Love (Part 7): Love never fails

If you hadn't gathered it already, I'm a big fan of Rob Bell. In a sermon that seems to have launched a movement, he very accurately translated "love never fails" as "love wins."

Rob Bell is a much wiser man than I. And he is a man far closer to God than I have ever been, and possibly closer than I will ever be (although I do hope, and -- most of the time -- strive to get that close). If you want to know about how love wins and many of the implications therein, listen to that sermon.

There is only one aspect of this particular passage that I'm interested in discussing. How does "love never failing" affect my life-long struggle to learn to love more.

Just yesterday, I was hanging out with a friend of mine when he said he was going to step outside and have a cigarette and then try to wash the smell off of himself so that he could hang out with his girlfriend. He said that she hates that he smokes.

As soon as he’d said this, the synapses started firing off in my brain -- this is bad.

I smoke. You may want to tell me how unhealthy or sinful that is, but that’s not what I want to discuss. I can, however, tell you with 100% certainty that something worse than smoking is hiding the fact that you smoke -- especially from a significant other.

A while back, I dated a girl for four years. I’d quit smoking before we started dating -- I use the term ‘quit’ loosely. After about a year, I started back. I knew that she would not approve. I hid it from her -- for the next three years.

I became an expert in stealth-smoking. I snuck around. When you’re hiding something that you’re ashamed of, you quickly learn to take a shower before seeing the person you’re hiding from. Always wear a jacket, so that you can take it off afterward. Use soap and water to get the cigarette smell off of your hand. There are always ways of hiding.

This caused major problems in our relationship. I found myself getting on edge after a while if I wasn’t able to sneak away and have a cigarette. I enjoyed being with her, but only in small enough spurts that I was able to get away from her and fill my lungs with that beloved tar and nicotine.

I cannot express, but I hope you can imagine how much unnecessary stress, pain, and hurt this caused both of us over the next three years. Hiding things from each other, whatever the type of relationship, will create a divide between two people -- and can easily rip the two apart.

A few times, I would want to tell her, confess to her that I’d been lying to her for so long. I would have tucked her in, upstairs, in my room. I would sleep on the couch. I didn’t do this out of some chivalrous notion. I did it so that she would be away where she wouldn’t notice me sneaking off into the night to have that last cigarette before bed.

On a few occasions, I would smoke that final cigarette of the night, and feel overcome with the need to tell her everything. She was a good person, caring. She would still love me. She would have disapproved, but we would have worked it out. So, I would put out my cigarette and march up the stairs to my bedroom, and gently touch her on the shoulder.

Surely, neither gender can control what twisted shape their bodies contort into when unconscious. Neither gender can decide whether they want their faces to display awkward expressions, or restful bliss. Yet, women seem to always sleep like peaceful angels; while men looks like awkwardly tangled monsters.

She would open her eyes and instantly focus on mine, as if she hadn’t even been asleep, merely waiting for me to arrive.

“Were you asleep?” I ask quietly.

Then she inhales deeply, something that cannot be faked.

“Yeah,” she says in the voice of a five year old girl. And I think that perhaps that might be the answer. In our dreams, perhaps we all revert back to five year olds: women, princesses and sleeping beauties, waiting patiently...like angles; men, wrestling with monsters, off on endless adventures...twisting us into misshapen beasts ourselves.

“Can we talk? Are you awake enough?”

“Um...yeah...well,” she blinks desperately, trying to keep her eyes open...it’s a battle she’s losing and finally gives up. “Could we talk in the morning?”

“Okay.”

But we never did. Most of the time she didn’t even remember. When she did, I would make up something else I’d wanted to talk about.

The courage I’d had the night before had always vanished in the daylight. That demon that whispers, “This is better left our little secret, just you and I,” always returned in the morning and taken his position back inside my eardrums.

So, when my friend gives me any reason to think that he may be stampeding toward that same disaster I know first-hand is waiting for him, I feel the need to do something to prevent this from occurring.

But how?

I go through all the possible scenarios in my head. Each of them doesn’t work. What can I possibly say to him that will change his course of action?

I am a writer and director of both stage plays and screenplays. One of the most important lessons that I have ever learned about this art form is this: you may never preach the truth, you can only reveal it.

A great writer or director takes a truth that they wish to impart on the audience and guides them into discovering it for themselves. If at any point the director or writer begins dictating that truth, the audience feels like they are being spoken down to and stops listening. The only people who will agree with the message of this sort of play are the people who already agreed before the curtain rose.

This is why I think Michael Moore fails. Sometimes I agree with his message. Other times, I do not. Either way, his ideas are so flagrantly presented that the people who disagreed with him are not swayed by his presentation (if they even set foot in the theatre).

Now, to be fair, I think that Michael Moore is a brilliant man and a brilliant filmmaker. His work has changed the scope of filmmaking, and one could easily make an argument that the rise of the documentary genre can be traced back to this one individual. He is a fantastic artist -- one we should admire for his passion and devotion to and talent in his craft.

In addition, he should be respected for the fact that he sees a problem with the world, and rather than simply complain about it with his friends, he does everything in his power to create a change. You may not agree with that causes he champions and you may not agree with his method, but the fact is -- he gets off his ass and does far more than most of us to create a lasting positive change in the world.

But he also alienates those who do not agree with him. His message, whether spoken or implied, is always ‘this is how it is, and those who disagree are either idiots or corrupt.’ Michael Moore preaches rather than reveals. This makes him a clanging cymbal, a resounding gong.

Many of you who already agreed with me about Michael Moore are now thinking, “Yeah, that’s exactly what I’ve always thought about him! Tssk Tssk! How wrong he is!” So for those of you who are a little more conservative than liberal...let me bring things a little closer to home.

You may also be thinking, “We should really change the title of ‘preachers’ to ‘revealers,’ because that’s really what they’re doing up there on Sundays.

Wrong.

Why do you think most of the people who agree with the pastor Sunday afternoon are the people who walked into church that morning knowing that they would be agreeing with him. They made a conscious choice to listen to what their preacher had to say. Those who are skeptical about this Jesus fellow, often get little out of a church service...if they even set foot inside.

There are definitely some who reveal rather than preach...but they are few, and they are not always revealing. It’s not their fault -- they can’t. It’s a difficult art, and they have to create a brand new masterpiece every single week. It is easier, by far, to just TELL people something you want them to know, rather than leading them to discover it for themselves.

Interesting that Jesus used so many parables.

Also interesting that he often didn’t explain them...just allowed people to ponder over them.

Here, he’s got this massive audience, totally hungry to hear whatever he has to say...and he gives them a riddle to work out. He doesn’t even tell them the answer to the riddle at the end.

Dr. J. Robert Clinton writes in his book The Making of a Leader about how tragic and baffling it is that so many people forget what the Sunday sermon was about after a few days. He later philosophizes that, “truth discovered by the learner sticks longer.”

So -- my friend seems to be hiding the fact that he smokes from his girlfriend. I have been through that specific hell, and what I want (out of genuine love) is for him to be spared.

I have a few options in how to proceed.

1. I can say, “Dude! Don’t hide the fact that you smoke from your girlfriend! That’s not the right thing to do!”

And what would he say? Well, first of all, he will probably be more careful what he lets slip in front of me in the future. And he would get defensive. I’ve called him out on a negative quality. He has a blemish in his soul, and I have seen it. His natural reaction will be to hide that blemish from me and everyone else like me in the future. Depending on the level of our friendship, he may simply chose to avoid me from now on.

And he probably won’t stop hiding his smoking from his girlfriend.

1. Knowing all of this, I can make it clear how much I love him and gently teach him something I know that he doesn’t: “Hey man. I don’t mean to come off like a jerk or anything, but I just noticed it sounds like you’re hiding the fact that you smoke from your girlfriend. I just wanted to say, you know, I’ve done that myself before, and it really tore our relationship apart.”

Here, I’m much more clear, and I seem much more caring. It seems like the loving option. How does my friend respond now? Unfortunately, you do not have the advantage of knowing this particular friend. I know how he would react. He’s a good guy, and the kind of guy who most definitely identifies a problem in himself quickly and responds to constructive criticism. However, I still think that this course of action would not change his behavior.

In my imagination, he would completely, wholeheartedly agree with me. Furthermore, he would explain that he totally knows what I mean. He, too, has been there himself. But the fact is that he’s not REALLY hiding it from his girlfriend...it’s just that she doesn’t like that he smokes, so he just keeps her from noticing so it won’t come up. She knows that he smokes, he just doesn’t want to smell like it and remind her.

And then he would wash the cigarette smell off of himself and go hang out with his girlfriend, unaware that what he’s doing is the same exact thing.

When someone’s pride is attacked, they become defensive, or they remove themselves from the problem. Now, why, especially in the second example, would they feel like their pride is being attacked?

They don’t think you’re smarter than them. And they certainly don’t think you’re better than them. By suggesting that we see a blemish in them, we are suggesting that we are without that particular blemish. Even when we bring ourselves right down into the mud with them, and say something like, “Dude, I totally do that myself, even though I know that it’d be better if I didn’t,” -- we are still placing ourselves above them by suggesting that while we both have this blemish in common...they have another blemish: the failure to notice the sin in their own life.

Is this boastful? Do you tell someone something instead of revealing it to them because you want to exert your wisdom? Do you seek to prove, maybe subconsciously, that you are better than they are (even if it is in some small, insignificant way)?

Is this prideful? Do you preach rather than guide because you are so convinced that you know more than your friend?

Is this impatient? Are you simply too lazy to bother spending the time and effort figuring out a clever way to help your friend internalize the truth in a lasting and effective way?

Lao Tzu said something you may have heard before: “Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”

If you’re a fisherman, it’s probably a lot less time consuming to just toss somebody a fish.

Love does not fail.

Remember that when you set about to teach someone.

As a semi-digression, I want to make sure that everybody understands that I’m talking about revealing and guiding, and NOT manipulating and brainwashing. You can also convince someone of something using trickery and or fear. That is NOT loving, for all sorts of different reasons. The ends never justifies the means. Anyway, continuing on...

Love does not fail almost seems to be Paul’s way of telling us that they’re all tied together. If love doesn’t fail, then love that at being patient isn’t love. If love doesn’t fail, then love that fails at being kind isn’t love...and on down the list. It’s either love or it’s not.

You can’t score love. You either love or you don’t. Pride, impatience, envy, keeping record of wrongs...these things aren’t love. It’s not that you sometimes are able to go down the “love checklist” and hit certain items and miss others and give yourself a 87% score. It’s either 100% or it’s 0% because love. does. not. fail.

Furthermore, if our actions fail, then our actions were not loving. If my next course of action with my friend does not begin the long process of revealing the truth to him about how important it is to be honest with his girlfriend, then what I am doing is not loving. It’s not 35% loving either -- it’s just NOT loving.

Think about that.

And you know what, don’t stress out about it either. Because even if your actions aren’t loving, even if you fail. If you never extend one single loving action to another person in your entire life. If you are a clanging cymbal, like me and Michael Moore; a resounding gong. Even if you are NOTHING, if you accomplish NOTHING...love does. Love never fails.

Love wins.*

___________________________________________________________

*Oh, also, sometimes I tell one story but it’s a metaphor for a bigger story.

Two Friends (Part 2): Mad Mix

Mad Mix is a rapper. Maybe you've heard of him*, or maybe you haven't heard of him, but you've heard his music without realizing it -- in some video game or on the radio. To me, he's a friend; he's my brother.

He just called me.

"Hey David, what's up?" I said.

"That girl from work called me," said Mad Mix/David.

"Yeah?"

"Like a few times. Like three or four times. I think she's messed up, man. I think she's about to overdose or something."

"Oh wow."

"Yeah, she was saying all this stuff. Like, she was talking to me like I was actually there. I had to say, 'I'm on the phone,' cause, I think she thought I was there. Like, what's going on with her, man?"

"Uh...I have no idea...that's weird."

"She beeping in now."

I wait, assuming he may have to go so he can pick up her call. He doesn't.

"I don't know what to do, man. This is weird."

"Well, what does she want?"

"She wants me to come over there! She's saying all this stuff like, 'Don't do this, David!** You don't know how much this hurts!"

"Wow."

"And I know I should not go over. That's just dangerous."

"Yeah, man. I...wow...this is bizarre."

"What should I do, man?" he says.

"I have no idea, man." I say. And then it's silent for a bit. "This is way out of my realm of expertise."

"Yeah."

"I guess, you should pick up when she calls. In case you do need to call an ambulance or something if she is overdosing. Beyond that, I have no clue."

"I don't even know where she lives, man! Hell, I don't even know her last name!"

I offered to pray for him, and for her. I told him to call if anything happened or if he needed anything.

I love David. Or, well, if I love anybody, it is David. Of every relationship I have on the whole planet, this big, black rapper is the closest I may have ever come to loving someone. As a result, he has taught me a lot about the nature of love, and God's love for us. I say that he's probably the person I love the most in all the world because I don't want anything from him. He's not a girl (and I'm not gay) so I'm not looking to him for sex or validation like I might want from any girl I claim to love. We don't have all that much in common, to be perfectly honest, so I'm not really looking for a buddy to hang out with...for fun, or a party scene, or somebody to introduce me to the hot chicks from which I hope to receive sex or validation. And to be perfectly honest, I'm not sure I expect anything from him...not in the sense that he's such a loser that I have no hope in him...but in the sense that if he fails in every single aspect of life, it wouldn't cause me to love him less.

Now, I am certainly not using myself here as an example of how you should love. I'm not saying that this is what God's love looks like -- it's just the closest that I have personally gotten. And to be honest, I've had a lot of extremely close relationships over the course of my life. I have told a lot of women that I was in love with them -- and yet, as it turns out, I love this big, black, pill-popping rapper more than I was ever capable of loving them. This is more than a little bit sad for me.

So, I just let the cat out of the bag, huh? He pops pills. Lots of them. One time, I asked him outright how many pills he takes. I was blown away. I am not kidding. I'm not sure how he's alive. Often, he washes them down with hard liquor.

We hung out for a few hours today. He'd had a hard week. He told me about it.

Now, I want to put things in to perspective for you. Chances are, if you're like me, you've lived a fairly normal life. You try to pretend like you've lived this tough life, and you're all hardened because of it, but the truth is...you're soft. It's okay, I'm soft too. I could tell you some horrible stories about my childhood. You could probably tell me some horrible stories about yours. We'd all gasp and talk about how screwed up the world is and be shocked about how awful our parents were and how cruelly we were mutually treated in high school. But the truth is, we're soft.

Mad Mix, being a rapper (and an extremely good one), has women throwing themselves at him constantly. He's probably slept with more women than you and I have ever met. It is at this point that you may notice yourself peering down at my rapper friend from your beautiful pedestal, wagging your finger all "tssk-tssk" style. Well, tssk-tssk yourself. You see, what the Bible tries so desperately to teach us is that sin is not some arbitrary set of rules. You don't need to wag your fingers at the sinners...they are already FEELING the repercussions of their actions, I promise. Nobody sleeps with tons of girls because they are happy. They sleep with tons of girls because they want to be happy, and they think that will make them happy.

Mad Mix knows this and he does it anyway. Does that sound like somebody you should wag your finger at, or somebody you should love? He's hurting. He takes pills so that he won't hurt. (well, truthfully, he takes them now because he's addicted to them...but once upon a time, he took them so that he wouldn't hurt.) Sin is almost always something that we do to try to escape reality. Reality is too painful, so we look to some idol to take away that pain. You do it, I do it...our idols are just different...maybe instead of sex and pills, you chose television and gossip. The only thing is -- sin has consequences.

There's a reason you shouldn't sleep with women you're not married to. David has told me that every time he makes the mistake of sleeping with some girl, he feels a deep connection to them, and can't get them out of his head for a long time. He falls instantly in love with them, and obsesses over their every action. They go from something he wants sex from to something he wants validation from. And when they eventually leave, it rips him apart -- they take a piece of his heart with them as they go.

If you've slept with someone you weren't married to, maybe you know what he's talking about. I imagine that stuff from Harry Potter, about Horcruxes (or at least that's what I think they were called) when Voldemort separates his own soul into several parts so that he will be harder to kill, and then hides them throughout the world.

But the cost is that he only bears a small bit of his own soul. The cavity where his soul belongs is mostly empty.

My guess is that is how David feels. That's the way he makes it sound. Each girl takes a bit more with them. Each bit that is gone makes him more desperate to find something to restore his shattered soul.

Oh, also, recently, David's mother killed herself. He's still getting over that. In addition, he got laid off from his day-job, and he's having a lot of money issues.

So when he says he's having an especially rough week, I take him seriously. You and I, we're soft. When you say you're having a tough week, I say, "Sorry to hear that, man." When Mad Mix says he's having a tough week, I come running.

We talked for a while about his problems, and then we talked about God a lot, and the Bible, and high school and popularity.

He has three different girls vying for his attention at the moment -- that was the heart of the issue. He knows he needs to stay away from all three women, but he's having a tough time. Self-control is hard for all of us to varying degrees. You can sit on your pedestal and tell me about what he should do, but maybe you're not a smoker.

I swear, I have learned more about God from smoking cigarettes than I have in 26 years of sitting in church -- here's one of the things I've learned:

Sin is like smoking. It's easy to NOT smoke. It's even pretty easy to have one cigarette, decide they're gross and never look back. It's still pretty easy to quit after you've had two cigarettes. It's less easy after three. After a few months of smoking, it gets pretty hard to quit...but no where near as hard as it is after a few years of smoking. The longer you've smoked, the more a part of your daily life smoking is, the harder it is to quit. And the longer you've been smoking, the less damaging each cigarette seems. It's just one freaking cigarette -- how much damage can it really do? I just smoked a whole pack yesterday!

You can apply the same principle to Doritos. It's fairly easy not to open the bag...even if it's reeeeeeaaaally tempting. I say to myself, just one handful...but it's always more than one handful...cuz they're sooooo guuuud.

So, you can sit up there on your pedestal and look down on David all you want, but you have probably never faced the level of temptation that he has...or at least not in that area. You probably experience that level of temptation in some other area -- you just give in to it. David, lately, isn't.

One of these three women is married. She told David how she still loves him and has thought about him a lot, and believes that he's the only person who's been through all the ups and all the downs with her. My rapper friend Mad Mix, is a little conflicted at the moment.

On top of that, she let him know that at one point she'd gotten pregnant and had an abortion. He would have been a father, and instead, his child was aborted...he's finding this out years later. I imagine that would hit anybody pretty hard.

And maybe you say, "He's made his bed, now he gets to sleep in it." And, you're right.

Or maybe you say, "Well, gosh, that sucks, poor guy. I feel bad for him...but, at the same time...you know, we all reap what we sow." And you're a little kinder, but you're just as right.

Let me tell you something else about Mad Mix. He loves God more than I do. Probably more than you do. In fact, it is extremely possible that he loves God more than any other person I've ever met in my entire life.

He made an entire album about his own hypocrisy, and I was BLOWN AWAY by the honesty and the vulnerability. He put it all out there. He rapped about what a screw up he was, he IS. He rapped, in great detail about exactly how badly he was letting God down. He rapped about what a terrible influence he was and about how he was in no way reflecting God's love for other people, and was only destroying himself. He rapped about things they would never allow people to talk about in a church.

But, ooooooh...they should.

My friend Canada says that the first time he ever went to church was at an AA meeting. That he saw there, for the very first time in his whole life, people who fully admitted they needed God on a daily basis. People who were willing to admit that they were screw-ups, and live their lives accordingly. They'd stopped with all the pretense. They didn't need to pretend like they had it all figured out.

How unlike a Sunday morning church service.

Several times growing up in the church, I heard people talking about how much God loves screw-ups, because the worse you've screwed up, the more you know you need God. Yet, we continue to live these pure, Holy lives, instead of living like Mad Mix...effing up royally and then bearing his soul, recording it, and then selling the albums for all the world to hear.

And you say, "Wooooooah! Hold the phone! Are you suggesting that we shouldn't live pure, Holy lives?"

You see, that was a trick. I just got you to say that you live a pure, Holy life. That's what you really believe, isn't it? When push comes to shove, you think (as I do) that...sure...I may screw up...but really, overall, I'm better than this guy Mad Mix. I love God, and I put that into action by striving to lead a pure and Holy life. I'm not perfect, but damn...I sure am close.

I'm not suggesting you stop trying to live a pure, Holy life. In fact, I think you, me, and Mad Mix should all try a LOT harder. What I am suggesting is that you reexamine your life. You do just as many drugs David. You smoke the cigarette that is called sin. You've got your big grubby hand in the bag of Doritos. You may not even know what your particular temptation is. You may not even be trying to stop.

At least David is.

The fact of the matter is, I think we could all learn a lot from Mad Mix. So, when you think of him, and when you meet people like him, instead of looking down on them for having such depraved behavior, take the opportunity to remind yourself that you might ought to look up to them.

Because people like him love God. More than you and I and everybody else on the path of pure, Holy, righteous living combined.

___________________________

*you actually MAY have heard of him -- I changed the name so as not to reveal his identity, as he is a public figure of some sort.

**again, not his real name.

All Apologies

To anyone who reads this blog -- if there is anyone who reads this blog (I'm pretty sure there isn't) -- I have a confession to make.

I am full of myself.

I know I've said this before...so this may not come as news to you, but it needs to be said repeatedly. I began the "On Love" sessions as something of a pouring out of my thoughts. Typing them out onto the internet for anyone to see sort of helped me lay out my ideas and understand what I believe.

The last post, though...the one about love being patient...was posted for different reasons.

Somewhere along the line, I fell of the horse, or the wagon, or however the expression goes...I fell off of something.

That post was to teach all of you something, because I think all this "On Love" stuff would make a pretty good book at some point, maybe. So I got to thinking about how witty I needed to be, and how I needed to come up with new, original interesting stuff. I started thinking about how I needed to write well, and be informative, instructive.

Which is stupid. I didn't learn anything, or rather, I learned very little. I think that's a big problem. As I've said, I am a clanging cymbal. I am a resounding gong. I am nothing. I gain nothing.

So, I'm promising you now, that I will go back to writing about Love, as I see it, and not writing about love as I think you ought to see it. I will continue to reflect on scripture and attempt to let that reflection of love shine onto this blog.

My friend Canada suggested I listen to this speech from an author he really enjoys, on creativity. The speech was all about creativity, and particularly, how skewed our society's view of creativity is. She spoke of the Greco-Roman idea of a muse, who guided the artist through the creative process. This takes a lot of pressure off of the artist, no longer needing to be some kind of creative genius. It also relieves them of the egomania that goes along with believing himself to be inherently talented and better than those around him.

Isn't that what all Christian art, should be? Why do we (and by we, I mean "I") seem to believe that God can work all sorts of miracles and knows everything about me and created nature and beauty and love and...everything, and yet knows nothing about filmmaking or screenwriting...or posting on a blog?

I can only speak about the goings on in my own pride-perverted mind...and, in many ways, I assume that everybody else thinks the same way I do. Maybe so. Maybe not. I don't know. But if you ARE like me, then you pretty much believe God can handle all the little and big things in your life, with one minor exception...your gift. Whatever you are phenomenal at. Whatever you are passionate about -- we seem to think we are better at it than God.

And on the one hand, it seems kind of silly, doesn't it? The idea of God knowing all about the filmmaking process? The idea of God coming down and teaching Quentin Tarrantino or James Cameron or Christopher Nolan a thing or two about how to make their movies better. Or sitting down with Peter O'Toole and giving him some acting tips.

God, and Jesus too, seem like such ancient relics, that we only look to them to help us with the sort of things that people needed help with back when Shakespeare was alive (isn't that when the King James Version was written?)

For modern artforms, we may ask his help, but do we really mean it? I know I don't. Maybe you do, and you've just discovered one of the many reasons you are more like Christ than I am. I, as it turns out, am the chief of sinners.