Paradox

Review: The Grand Paradox

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Grand ParadoxSummary: An exploration of the mysteries and apparent contradictions in life that call followers of Christ into the life of faith. A good book for a thoughtful, general audience for whom the “conventional” answers are not working.

Most of us don’t like things that seem contrary to each other. We often try to resolve the messiness of either-or binaries by choosing one and dismissing the other–until that stops working. Ken Wytsma argues that paradox is at the heart of the life of faith in Christ, and is the only way to live with the messiness of life and the mysteries that lurk behind statements like having to lose one’s life to find them, that it is more blessed to give than receive, and that givers prosper while misers perish.

After introducing this idea he begins with our idea of faith and drawing on Kierkegaard’s Fear and Trembling uses the story of Abraham’s sacrifice of Isaac to talk about faith as implicit trust and obedience that walks into the unknown. This means walking into the life of unceasing prayer that learns to listen for the voice of God. This in turn leads to the startling paradox that loving God calls us into living justice in the world. Living joyfully is found not in having but “on our heart’s wanting the right things” (p. 62). The remedy for doubt is not answers. He argues that when we doubt and struggle, the answer is both honesty about our doubts and pain, and paradoxically a faith in the goodness of God we cannot see.

We find our way in life not by discovering God’s plan but by pursuing God and pressing into the life of love which is always God’s intention for us. Living well is not a consequence of more information, more experiences and more technology but growing in the Christ-shaped life. As flawed as the church is, it’s messiness is what we need to sort out our lives.

The last chapters focus on our destiny, the eternity that begins now, living with hope in the darkest hours, and the patience that waits for the blessing of God on God’s terms. It is living in the tension of being between the gardens of Eden and the New Jerusalem, which is often a Gethsemane experience.

As you can tell from this summary of the book’s contents, Wytsma gives us less a linear argument for paradox than a series of reflections on the paradoxes that run through the life of a Christ-follower. He draws on philosophers like Pascal and Kiekegaard and theologians like Niebuhr and stories out of his own life and community to provide to explore different facets of this paradoxical life of faith. It’s one of those books to be mused on a chapter at a time rather than read straight through.

This is a readable book with short chapters but not simple answers. He describes a Christian life with lots of loose ends and mess, with doubt and pain and darkness. Yet he also gives an account of the life of faith that has a ring of truth–one that helps the person in the midst of the mess to go on pursuing God. Such writing is all too rare as are such voices in the pulpit. May Wytsma’s tribe increase.

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Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookLook Bloggers book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

 

The Reader’s Paradox

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The world beyond my books (c)2015, Robert C Trube

The world beyond my books (c)2015, Robert C Trube

I’ve been thinking this morning about the reader’s paradox.

If you are a bibliophile, you know what I’m talking about. You might even know what I’m talking about if you are a friend of a bibliophile.

Paradoxes. These are things that seem in conflict and yet both are true. I am convinced there are a number of these in life. Is light a wave or a particle? Are we one or many? I’m also convinced that many of us don’t like to live in the tension of paradoxes. We prefer to resolve them by focusing on one of the two elements in the paradox and exclude the other. This makes life simpler. But smaller.

So what is the reader’s paradox? It is that books often are windows onto the world that give us delight and insight and sometimes diversion. And yet life and the world are far more than the books we read and there are realities beyond the page (or tablet) to which books only point but are no substitute for our experience of the real thing. Like the love of God or neighbor. The pursuit of a just and peaceful world. The making or enjoying of actual music or art. The growing of a fruitful and beautiful garden.

The danger comes when we cease to live in the tension of this paradox, which is a tension I face. I love books and reading and encouraging others to connect with the best of what is thought and written. So I read, and write about reading and books, and interact with others interested in writing and books. There is a sense in which I feel I am employing a gift, however humble in doing this.

What I realize is that I also live in need of the gifts of the world beyond my bibliophile world. I think we actually need each other’s gifts. Reading and reflecting on what I read sometimes leads to insights into problems and challenges those in my world are face. But only as I am in loving relationship can any of this be life-giving. And love takes a goodly amount of time with one’s nose out of a book!

Equally, books can sometimes distort my view of the world and those real-life encounters where my book-inspired ideas come up short serve as a good reality check. That, too, is a life-giving gift!

My faith seems to embrace some of the biggest paradoxes of all. I believe in a God who is One and Three. I confess as Lord one who is fully God and fully human. This makes me wonder if in fact the other paradoxes I see in my world and my own life stem from this. It is clear that my faith would be simpler, but smaller without these paradoxes, just as would my life. And it makes me wonder if living in wonder, faith and obedience with these great paradoxes somehow is connected to living in the tension of the lesser ones, like the reader’s paradox.

What do you think? Have you experienced the reader’s paradox? Do you think there is a paradoxical aspect to life and how do you account for this?

Review: Works of Love

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Works of Love
Works of Love by Søren Kierkegaard
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Works of Love is a searching exploration of the distinctive and demanding character of Christian love. It is not a “feel good” book but one that might leave you wondering whether you really have loved at all, or loved well.

Kierkegaard begins with the paradox of love’s character as both hidden and yet bearing fruit in works of love. He then explores the great command to love neighbor as oneself. He plumbs the challenges of loving a neighbor in all the ways we love ourselves, and the fact that it is the neighbor we are to love, literally anyone, and not just the friend or the lover.

He then considers how love is the fulfillment of the law, seen most fully in how Christ fulfilled the law. The law is always indeterminate–we can never know if we’ve met all its demands, but if we love as Christ, we can be sure of this. He also introduces here an idea also found in Bonhoeffer that God is the middle term between us and the person we love. We love others in God and to God. And so also, this is how we love with a clear conscience. We first are transparent with God, and so then with the neighbor we love.

Perhaps even more challenging is to love those we see. We are not to look for those who are lovable but to love those in our sight apart from anything “deserving in them”. But it doesn’t stop there. Kierkegaard’s chapter on the debt of love argues that this is a debt that is never discharged toward another person as long as we live. We can never say we have loved “enough”.

He turns to 1 Corinthians 13 and takes this phrase by phrase. He talks about love building up and, in this, love presupposes the love of the other, that is we upbuild others by presupposing the best in them. Love believes all things, that is it believes, and persists in believing the best of others. It isn’t self protective and thus never truly deceived. Similarly, love hopes all things, is always hopeful of the good in another. Love never seeks its own because there is no “mine” in love. Love hides a multiplicity of sins because this is not what it is looking for, and even when this is unavoidable responds in forgiveness. Love abides and never knows the breaking of a relationship because love keeps loving.

His concluding chapters explore the character of mercy, the nature of reconciliation, and something I’ve never seen before, an exploration of love in the remembering of the dead, a love that cannot be reciprocated and is therefore the freest love. His concluding chapter truly sums everything up in the idea of “like unto like”. We love and we believe we are loved, we forgive (or not) as we believe we are forgiven. We either live in a world of judgment where we judge others and live under the fearsome judgment of God, or we believe the God of love and forgiveness in Christ and live in that love and forgiveness toward others. Hence, the works of love really are an expression of faith.

If this summary of the book seems a bit ‘dense’ or even perplexing, this probably reflects the book’s character. Kierkegard leaves no stone unturned in his exploration of love. This is a book to be read slowly and perhaps repeatedly and only if one is willing to wrestle with the uncomfortable challenge of what it truly means to practice Christian love. Perhaps this is implicit in Kierkegaard but all this is fact an impossibility apart from Christ’s indwelling fullness. This isn’t simply a more demanding ethic, but one that leads us first to repentance of how poorly we have loved and casts us back onto the empowering presence of God’s Spirit. In every sense then, this is a hard book, but because of that, all the more worthwhile.

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Paradoxes: Choices and Simplicity

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Efficiency and simplicity are often at odds. So are choices and simplicity. One the one hand, the incredible cornucopia we encounter at any supermarket in the US likely staggers the imagination of people from many parts of the world. On the other, it can make for a fatiguing series of choices to make between brands, flavors, and varieties. We don’t just have apples–we have 25 varieties, some good for eating, some for pies, some for applesauce and more. Even more bewildering is the array of beers, wines and other beverages. And on it goes…

At one time, it seemed everyone knew the trusted brands, and when you had to replace a vacuum cleaner, or an appliance, or a car, you tended to go back to your old standby. Now it seems, you have to engage in a research process before you buy your toothpaste! Picking up Consumer Reports reviews, researching products online, and more seem to be the pre-requisite, unless you want to appear “uninformed”–a cardinal sin these days.  Yet I wonder. The most all this can do is tell me what the new buyer experience is–not irrelevant necessarily. But what I really want to know is, will it last and what will it cost to repair. Not so easy to find out until it actually breaks on you. Then you know!

Paradoxically, I think most of us simplify life by reducing the choices we make. Most of the time we buy the same items every time we need that item in the grocery, despite the attempts of coupon dispensers to get us to switch. Whenever I need a new pair of jeans, I just order the same ones I always do from LL Bean. I wonder if there are some further steps we can take toward simplicity that may mean less choices but greater freedom. A few I can think of:

1. One is simply deciding that some of our wants really aren’t our needs. That alone cuts down on the choices we need to make.

2. Work with retailers and other vendors who get to know us and actually care about customer service.

3. Similarly, when I find someone who provides good quality, I stick with them unless quality slips, even if it costs more.

4. Find another form of recreation than “recreational shopping.” I realize that sometimes it is fun to find a bargain and some really enjoy this and are shrewd in shopping at the best times to get a good price on things they need. That’s not me, though, and shopping does not re-create me!

5. Most of us don’t mind choices when it comes to the hobbies we love. Then we love learning about the varieties of equipment, or vintages, or whatever. Perhaps the most important choice here is simply knowing and staying within your budget.

What have you found helpful in navigating the array of choices we face? How have you negotiated the paradox that the freedom of choice does not always translate into the freedom of simplicity?

 

 

 

Paradoxes: Efficiency and Simplicity

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I grew up hearing about all the labor-saving devices that were going to make my life so much more leisurely. The forty hour work week would become a twenty hour week because technology would make our work so much more efficient. Funny thing though–while technology has indeed increased our efficiency, it has not led to a more leisurely or unhurried life.

I’m struck with this every time I fly (something I’ve done a bit of, lately!). Flying itself is interesting, because I can be in meetings in Columbus in the morning, and be leading a retreat in another state that evening. But it is not only that. I am amused with how as soon as we are “wheels down” everyone is on their smartphone (except for me who still has a “dumb” phone), to retrieve messages, emails, texts and Facebook updates queued up for them during the hour they had to turn their device to airplane mode (even then they are often composing emails).  Gone seem to be the days of the leisurely nap or conversations with a seatmate. I was struck recently with what quiet places planes have become–except when there are babies and children on board. Everyone is working. Airlines of course are capitalizing on this by offering wi-fi so you can be even more connected.

The paradox is that efficiency doesn’t make life simpler. The faster we can do things, the more things we do which may have been needless. And sometimes, technology actually complicates things. Remember when you could pick up the phone and actually get a person on the line and schedule a time to meet, whether for business or fun–and you might get a few minutes of catching up with the person in as well? Now it is often a matter of a series of emails or texts back and forthing about a time, then a place–if you get responses. What once could be done in five minutes now may take a series of interchanges over a half day or more–and far less personal.

Meyer Friedman, MD

Meyer Friedman, MD

What it seems all this has done is created a society that is far more complicated, and in a hurry. Recently, I came across the term “hurry sickness.”  The term was coined by Meyer Friedman, MD, whose research was on type A personalities and the increased incidence of heart attack and other circulatory diseases caused by stress.

Perhaps it is time for a return to the old wisdom, which never would have talked about “working harder, faster, and smarter” but rather recognized that rest, play, reflection, and deliberate thought actually were far more fruitful adjuncts to a creative and fruitful life than relying on technology to “save labor.”

How have you stepped off the treadmill of “efficiency” to embrace a life of unhurried simplicity?

Paradoxes: Dying to Live

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I’ve been thinking of late of some paradoxes of life. Paradoxes are ideas that seem apparently contradictory and yet are true. One of these is at the heart of my faith. It is the idea that to live, you must die. To try to hold onto your life is to lose it. Only if you lose it will you gain it. Jesus put it this way, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.  For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit their very self?” (Luke 9:23-25).

The problem with this paradox is that to test its truth, one has to believe in resurrections. In our modern world, when you die, you just die. Period. And so it seems to make sense to hold onto life as long as you can. The only question is, what kind of life are you holding onto? Yesterday, I reviewed Walker Percy’s The Moviegoer, the story of Binx Bolling and a life of quiet, middle-class desperation. And I wonder, is this the kind of life we are holding onto–one of acquiring more things and experiences and wealth in our early years, so that we can buy retirement condos and play golf into senescence? Maybe we sprinkle in some service to humanity and philanthropy. Yet the story is just about us, about living life “my way” (in the words of the old Sinatra song), until we die and are forgotten.

I wonder if at least for some of those who come to faith as adults, it is an awakening from this desperately comfortable zombie-like existence. It is recognizing that we really need resurrection, and for that to take place, first we must really die to running our own lives, to making our selves supreme. This seems hard. But isn’t this what we do when we go under the knife for a major surgery for a life-threatening condition? We could die, but if we do not undergo the surgery, we will. This is what following Jesus means–to die to directing my own life to follow the direction of another.

I’ve been on this journey most of my life and it is still hard. Jesus speaks of taking up the cross daily. At present, one of the things this means is shifting attention in my work from some of the things I’ve really loved to some necessary but less glamorous “behind the scenes” work that I know how to do and may multiply our work in the long term. It involves a kind of dying but what I’ve also thought about as I begin to lean into this change is the promise of new life that could not be had any other way. It means living afresh into the paradox that is at the heart of the gospel.

I end with a quote I first heard years ago by Jim Eliot, a missionary martyred in South America by a tribe who eventually found faith, “He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain what he cannot lose.”