If there’s any one cliche which gets me and the rest of my generation going, I’m sure is “Love (marriage) is a commitment.”  “Ack!” shouts the responsibility-shirking segment of society as it runs over to pragmatic and sentimentalist camps.

*Sigh*  .. more polarism, less understanding. Let’s try this again without (a) force-feeding/legislating morality and (b) reacting without consideration.

Do I doubt prima facie that love (and yes, I’m referring to the love which lands you squarely in life-long marriage!) has commitment? Of course not. It’s the baggage of the word itself which I and those like me fear: 2 people, for the majority of their lives, stuck in the same house together with no ability to communicate, no real interest in each other’s personal good.

“That doesn’t sound like any fun!” Cries me and those with me. “Of course it ain’t!” retorts the older generation. Stuck again.

Round 3: What my generation is afraid of is the lack of personal connection with someone whether you’re stuck with ‘em or not. That’s not saying they’re afraid of being stuck with someone. Just the  dissolution of personal interest, communication, etc which their lack of anthropological foundations leaves them to be relationally agnostic. “I dunno if I could commit to her.. what if I change? If she changes?” “Change” is thus one of the fears; unfounded in how or why people change, and not understood.

All this simply because PoMo adequately ripped up any foundation or storyline which makes sense of how people change. Anthropology is thrown out to sea on the waves next to anything & everything else.

Solution? Get an anthropological framework which is founded in reality!

But back to commitment: it’s not commitment which brings or causes impersonal dead relationships. Rather, commitment enacted is the life in the relationship. Commitment shirked is the death feared.  Commitment enacted is what will stir the waters to face miscommunication which leads to death. But not facing miscommunication without knowledge: commitment enacted will bring you to learn how to communicate, and how to be personally connected with another.

I think I get what the old guys are meaning, but the difference is I’ve got ideal dreams of living out of commitment, and they’ve got reality. Reality is that it’s a lot harder as years go on to fight and work on the disconnects which come up unseen. Hopefully studying a bit about human development(see, anthropology is your friend!) will fore-warn a bit.

Greek has 2 words for life which is helpful for understanding peace. l have a phrase ‘squeezing life out of life.’  We all want life,. Energy, strength, no fear, peace, love, all the spirit’s fruit. That’s psuche–soulish life. But all the world offers us is bios- the pragmatic means by which we all live.. Our clothing, car, job, relationships/friends. We are prone to use them for our own selves, not in love giving bios so as to promote psuche. And the goal is not to hear the message to the rich ruler, and our inevitable assumption that we now have to ‘go and do likewise.’ You don’t have to sell your lexus.. Let’s start here: how about you do the harder. Keep the lexus and not get your self worth from it. Everyday hear the enemy’s voice telling you ‘that’s yours and it tells everyone who you are and how much you are worth.’ Lies.

And in romans 8.. We need not fear that bios ..all ur things.. can separate us from the life from the love of the father in and though the son. Sure they can separate us from the experience (fellowship), but the love is always there.

this morning, what i truly only want is social..
reading the news or finding the latest toys won’t do it
not to recieve.. not as in some transaction..
but yes, to know(trust/convinced) i am loved.

is it evidence? no.
it is experience.
experience which is cognitive, but emotionally *E*ffected.
but i in myself must be convinced..
and i do think that i am rationally convinced when i am emotionally changed.
until then i’m a bitter skeptic..
So through my bitter skepticism, i say in semi-blind faith (truly in faith, trust in previous knowledge & experience) “Come.. and love me..”
with the follow-up.. “I know I need it.. you”
and the poem:
“oh how I hurt so! And I’m so very sure you bring it! i know you want me, i know i deny. my bitter skepticism so strong! some days i can deny & ignore & be strong/sufficient.. but it only adds up & builds the tidal wave.”

this makes so much more sense than any purely intellectual approach.. using my will(which is only arrogance- not needing Jesus, only self) to bash my emotions.. rather, here, i have a legitimate problem, with the true solution, founded on truth deeper than i like, but at least as deep as i need. and it’s wholly logical.. but the will and emo’s won’t take pure logic alone.

The Island and ‘V’ for Vendetta… same idea? Rebellion into freedom from fear-mongering dictatorships, one personal, the other social. Ahh.. anti-authoritarian heroism..What would american media be without it!

And here I am reading up on anarchy & Plato: “Anarcho-Syndicalists regard individual autonomy as the basis and the necessary precondition for the enjoyment of a truly human existence, one based in the development of a strong individual self, complete with a distinctive character and personality and pursuits which bring spiritual fulfillment, happiness and pleasure.” Aka “what is the role of a civil society?” NONE!
And Plato? “What is the role of civil society?” “to bring about maximal pleasure through the self-giving of the masses!”

So I’ve been listening to Bethany Dillon the past two days, and I’m reminded of something I learned awhile back: “Hope is with the young.” Now, before I am decried by all youth workers out there, hear the corollary: “The heart without hope has only cynicism to fill the same gap.”

Having just written a paper on middle adulthood, it seems their hope (dream) has been modified and cut off by pragmatism (and understandably so- if the checkbook says ‘no’, then it ain’t happening!) I find adults have trouble with youth on this hope/cynicism thing, thus have trouble ‘ministering’ to them.. and parenting them.. and guiding them.. But why not learn from them? Maybe hope isn’t so impossible.. Maybe hope will keep you alive. Hope is seeing the possible or the ignored.. and maybe the ignored is what you need to consider.

Each generation “takes up a cause.” Usually an ignored cause. This is a good thing, and usually serves to clarify the good, bad & ugly about such a cause. This isn’t far-fetched; we’ve seen this: GenX’ers with their Global Warming, or GenY’ers with their Global Justice (Darfur, AIDS in Africa, etc).

Now take more ‘at home’ issues: how you have been parented, or the issues and topics of address in your church (and how these topics have been addressed and valued). Chances are, in your youth, you weren’t happy with something of these; you saw a better way. That’s the hope I’m on about. And if you didn’t see a “better way” you reacted with violence against it, not being given the validation, time or tools to address the problems you see. And the adults ‘in power’ didn’t help the change either. Usually because they’re preoccupied with implementing their own dream (apparently we’re all one step behind).

Or maybe they just didn’t ‘see’ what you did. Maybe the intergenerational communication difficulties aren’t so much wholly different, and not simply a matter of linguistics, but that new language is formed because there is not prior language known(popularly, which is why history is helpful!) for the issues and elements involved they see. Perhaps they see the consequences much clearer than the ‘ruling adults’, and see, think, and speak in “higher resolution.” Thus, an adult telling a child to “just do _____” brings reaction from the child, who values all that he thinks the parent doesn’t consider or value.

This makes sense. Each student usually sees further than his teacher (Hence Lutherans go ‘beyond’ what Luther said, and likewise “Calvinists”), unencumbered by the ‘situatedness’ of the teacher, able to synthesize from differing backgrounds.

Youth need guiding, yes. They need to see the pragmatism of adults, but I think adults need to see the hope of the youth. Temperance of both, indeed. Wouldn’t this solve the “you never listen to me!” complaint of the youth? Wouldn’t this curb reactionism, perhaps keeping the church from dividing once more? A little humility can go a long way..

Need I say more? Such a great phrase for the indulgent! (Note: gluttony as a deadly sin!) A quick review of the singular english word in the Bible will reveal it’s association with laziness and poverty.

Now, for the emotional gluttons, who have not learned emotional control, the end can be quite the same. As to a more precise definition, is it simply, “wanting what’s ‘not allowed’”, with “not allowed” as determined by God primarily, who has rulership over all this world, who sets up authorities over us, against whom we prefer to rail.

He has set up even our own souls which operate and function best within certain parameters.. one is absolute love over fear or paranoia. 1 Jn 4 so well clarifies this. But how we wish our souls were designed differently, according to our own desires, that we should not be bound by a deep sadness or unsettledness despite our actions and choices of what to desire..

So in our dream-world of wishing our own souls to be of different composition, we run from love and hope still for peace. The love of God is so very capable of bringing peace, for the one who IS love, is also peace’s prince!

Coming to grips with our own souls’ anatomy & dietary requirements can *so* be a guide unto the truth of absolute love, when we’re sick of our soul-sick hangovers from our gorging into emotional and physical delicacies..

And this is the soulish behaviour all parents wish their children to avoid. Oddly enough, they may be fully against their child ACTUALLY going about being a glutton of food, time, money and lovers, but what of the same activities going on in the soul of their child? But it is not the place for us to barge in with claw and nail into the heart of another, seeking the witch to burn, the heretic to stone. Such activities must be undertaken by the soul’s own keeper not the parent or pastor. Exterior to the self can only remain exterior, and the work of burning heretics of our hearts and amputation of mis-fed, diseased portions of our heart can only be done by the One who is internal.. So with 1 John 4:12-13 I confess, “we know that we abide in Him, and He in us, because He has given us of His Spirit” and that Spirit is able to bring about in us love for one another, which is His love perfected in us.

So to all the gluttons out there, come to the one who, as “the friend of sinners” was himself considered a glutton(Luke 7), yet did “not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.” He’s there to help, He’s sent his Spirit to help. Why wrestle yourself alone..

In the other subjects, however, I was compelled to learn about the wanderings of a certain Aeneas, oblivious of my own wanderings, and to weep for Dido dead, who slew herself for love. And all this while I bore with dry eyes my own wretched self dying to thee, O God, my life, in the midst of these things.

For what can be more wretched than the wretch who has no pity upon himself, who sheds tears over Dido, dead for the love of Aeneas, but who sheds no tears for his own death in not loving thee, O God, light of my heart, and bread of the inner mouth of my soul, O power that links together my mind with my inmost thoughts? I did not love thee, and thus committed fornication against thee.²⁶(Cf. Ps. 72:27). Those around me, also sinning, thus cried out: “Well done! Well done!” The friendship of this world is fornication against thee; and “Well done! Well done!” is cried until one feels ashamed not to show himself a man in this way. For my own condition I shed no tears, though I wept for Dido, who “sought death at the sword’s point,”²⁷(Aeneid, VI, 457) while I myself was seeking the lowest rung of thy creation, having forsaken thee; earth sinking back to earth again. And, if I had been forbidden to read these poems, I would have grieved that I was not allowed to read what grieved me. This sort of madness is considered more honorable and more fruitful learning than the beginner’s course in which I learned to read and write.

So very clear. His words about the death of self in the face of education, and truly, the misdirected love-turned-addiction. I love John Eldredge’s idea that “ecstasy is not optional.” I think Augustine would agree, that our desire to love deeply and be caught up in something is right and proper, just needing a bit of direction out of the object of affection being self-defined..

Elsewhere in Book I, Chapters XII-XIV he has much to say about discipline and freedom in the educational process. Extending the ideas further would be a worthy enterprise..

So I’m reading a few chapters of his ‘Confessions’ each morning.. this one from Chapter 9 caught my attention:

For will any common sense observer agree that I was rightly punished as a boy for
playing ball–just because this hindered me from learning more quickly those
lessons by means of which, as a man, I could play at more shameful games? And did
he by whom I was beaten do anything different? When he was worsted in some
small controversy with a fellow teacher, he was more tormented by anger and envy
than I was when beaten by a playmate in the ball game.

Hmm.. sounds about right, eh?

Knights in armor, modern-day movies, novels & you and I.. We all have this much-ballyhooed role, but what of it? I see all too closely a young girl in a bad situation, latching on to a man who promises a future of her imaginations, mostly filled with and defined by one word: freedom.

Aside: Now, for all that parents try to protect their children, an earlier statement of mine need only be made available:

Why has protection been definitively what a parent does? Is a parent to not allow their child to stick his hand on the oven? It seems the softening of families (fathers giving in/up) in parallel with the hardening of culture (also due to men abdicating their role) leaves our children needing protection from the big, bad world. I’m certainly Glad Jesus never had that perspective, but had enough sense to leave us here empowered and guided. The subject of much jocularity: fathers who prefer their child burn their hand on the hot oven with the justification, “They won’t do THAT again!” Personal Experience over Authority. Women tend for the avoidance of pain, men practically seek to inflict it!

The trouble with authority is that it’s only accepted when it is trusted. And not just upon the statement of “your best interest in mind,” for that presumes that the parents have full view of their child’s rather naturally independent, idealistically questioning mind. Authoritarianism is the lack of accepting and answering questions. This, I presume is part of what “justice” is: acting more than just popular vote, but also more than simply your own knowledge.

Men are also the subject of concern and suspicion for their continued lack of “follow through.”  I do not question the popular conception of the man-as-savior, that is certainly a valid and altogether biblical (Eph 5) idea. But what of an over-popularization of this saving aspect? Young men could only get the conception that being the hero is their only role. Daily living in consistent wholeness sounds like a great ideal to be set not in contrast against but in harmony with heroism. Yet, this is an ideal most possible only for the select few of humanity with an “S” (steady) element to their personality. Most the rest of us are left to deal with the highs and lows, the circumstantial upheavals altogether unexpected by an overactive, constructivist mind.

What to do when personal reaction takes over ones tight-knit schedule? How many souls have rebelled against their owner to the point of life-system breakdown? Most of us, probably. And most shut down, suck it up, and move through its grey-turned-black skies of double-death. To be beat down by circumstance is the first, to finish the self off is the second.

Much has (luckily) been written on the 3-body system of circumstance, personal reaction, and God’s will. I’ve tried to describe it to so many people.. Perhaps some arithmetic:

Secularism: “undesired circumstance” = “sad/angered reaction” The only thing to be changed is circumstance OR your reaction (Stoicism: like what comes.)

Religious: “undesired circumstance” + “sad/angered reaction” = “God is against me.” This is all too common: It is equating God’s will with my will. Or perhaps more colloquially: God’s will with my happiness. It displays no depth of God’s character nor of our own.

Oddly enough, this is the same equation (in inverted form) as:

- (“undesired circumstance” – “sad/angered reaction”) = – (“God is against me.”)

“desired circumstance” + “happy reaction” = “God is for me.”

Wasn’t Job written against this kind of theology? But on other terms, notice the potential corollary which is never considered in this undesired circumstance:

“undesired circumstance” + “sad/angered reaction” = “God is against me”

“undesired circumstance”+ “sad/angered reaction” – “God is against me” = 0

“undesired circumstance” – “God is against me” = – “sad/angered reaction”

“undesired circumstance” + “God is for me” = “Pleasant reaction”

God-as-for-me is a rather strongly supported biblical idea as well as having a high utility for counseling since weak identity is so very core to our lives and decisions. This last option is quite different than another popular and similar equation:

“undesired circumstance” + “God is teaching you” = “Get over it and be happy.”

God may well be teaching me yes, but that tells me nothing of his character. I’ve had plenty of doubts as to whether teachers are co-extensive with “on my side.” Nevermind the “commanding” of emotions over guiding them as the “God-as-for-me” approach.

Religious Fatalism: “undesired circumstance” + “God is against me” = “sad/angered reaction.” Notice the similarity of this to the religious equation. The difference is the self-debasing conclusion: I am nothing, I am wrong.

These are hardly all possible combinations, however, it gets a feel for some of the more popular ones, and the stark difference between them.

As to original point of all this, what of a beautiful story of endurance through trial? Luckily, these stories are also popular among humanity. Sadly, the western church has agreed with western society which presumes that this life is sufficient for reward, and that reward is related to “unscathedness.” While unscathedness is not guaranteed, it can be promoted depending upon which equation is continually being reminded to us. And perhaps women won’t need so much saving if emotional torture isn’t being inflicted unnecessarily.. Counseling, then, is not needed only for the ‘victim’ but for the inflictor. Men must be willing to take counseling, edit their lives and further counsel their women. How ’bout that endurance!

So I was reading the comics a minute ago and it hit me.. As a kid, I used to always wonder why they called it “continental”.. I’m like “What? For people racing across the continent that they don’t have time to eat a full breakfast??” or “Who’s continent is it anyways! It’s a pretty small one!”

Well, that last question was finally answered by my own mind today, and yes, it IS a small continent!  Having had “the continent”‘s breakfast, I happen to like it.. it’s just that it gets weird when it comes to america: cold cereal, bagels & donuts. No good. I’m lookin’ for my schoco-muesli, kase und brotchen mit nuss-nugat oder schoco-croissants..