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| (My back yard) |
In the days of my greater immaturity I sang in a college choir. I am a baritone, and I can hold a tune. I can stay on pitch. But X, who sang in the baritone section next to me, could not.
I grew to despise him for this.
Not only was X tone deaf, he could sing louder than anyone in the choir. X's tone deafness overwhelmed the rest of us. He was an eighth of a tone flat, all the time. Just slightly off pitch. To be slightly off pitch in a choir, and loudly so, is a great sin, for it works to drag everyone else down to its atonal level.
To make matters worse, X always had a smile on his face. I can see his broad smile now, fifty years later. X was upbeat, chipper, as he miserably bellowed. This angered me even more.
Not only was X tone deaf, he could sing louder than anyone in the choir. X's tone deafness overwhelmed the rest of us. He was an eighth of a tone flat, all the time. Just slightly off pitch. To be slightly off pitch in a choir, and loudly so, is a great sin, for it works to drag everyone else down to its atonal level.
To make matters worse, X always had a smile on his face. I can see his broad smile now, fifty years later. X was upbeat, chipper, as he miserably bellowed. This angered me even more.
X did not see how this was affecting me. My only
relief was to share my grief with others, to spread my pain far and wide.
I was everyone, and everyone talked about X. "X is ruining our
choir." "X can't sing." "Just what does X think he is
doing?" "X makes my life miserable."
"My life would be better if X were not in my life."
But that last statement, of course, is false. And immature. My trouble with X brought out my trouble with me. I, not X (or Y or Z or...), am my greatest problem. Unless I come to see the truth of that, I will be forever miserable.
C.S. Lewis, in a beautiful little piece called "The Trouble with X," wrote:
"My life would be better if X were not in my life."
But that last statement, of course, is false. And immature. My trouble with X brought out my trouble with me. I, not X (or Y or Z or...), am my greatest problem. Unless I come to see the truth of that, I will be forever miserable.
C.S. Lewis, in a beautiful little piece called "The Trouble with X," wrote:
"Even if you became
a millionaire, your husband would still be a bully, or your wife would still
nag, or your son would still drink, or you'd still have to have your mother-in-law
live with you.
It is a great step
forward to realize that this is so; to face up to the fact that even if all
external things went right, real happiness would still depend on the character
of the people you have to live with--and that you can't alter their characters.
And now comes the point. When you have seen this you have, for the first time,
had a glimpse of what it must be like for God. For of course, this is (in one
way) just what God Himself is up against. He has provided a rich, beautiful
world for people to live in. He has given them intelligence to show them how it
ought to be used. He has contrived that the things they need for their
biological life (food, drink, rest, sleep, exercise) should be positively
delightful to them. And, having done all this, He then sees all His plans
spoiled--just as our little plans are spoiled--by the crookedness of the people
themselves. All the things He has given them to be happy with they turn into
occasions for quarreling and jealousy, and excess and hoarding, and
tomfoolery..." (C.S. Lewis, "The Trouble with X")
But God's view is
different from my view, or from your view. "He sees one more person of the
same kind--the one you never do see. I mean, of course, yourself. That is the
next great step in wisdom--to realize that you also are just that sort of
person. You also have a fatal flaw in your character. All the hopes and plans
of others have again and again shipwrecked on your character just as your hopes
and plans have shipwrecked on theirs."
God sees me. To God, I
am X. And surely, I am X to some people. "It is important to realize that
there is some really fatal flaw in you: something which gives others the same
feeling of despair which their flaws give you. And it is
almost certainly something you don't know about."
There is a second way
God is different from me. I don't love X, but God does.
God "loves the people in spite of their faults. He goes on
loving. He does not let go. Don't say, "It's all very well for Him. He
hasn't got to live with them." He has. He is inside them as well as
outside them. He is with them far more intimately and closely
and incessantly that we can ever be. Every vile thought within their minds (and
ours), every moment of spite, envy, arrogance, greed, and self-conceit comes
right up against His patient and longing love, and grieves His Spirit more than
it grieves ours."
Today, when I think of
my attitude towards X, I am saddened. Surely X knew I couldn't
stand him. The thought of X knowing that, and still smiling as he sang with all
his off-tuned heart, sickens me. Who am I, before God, to treat anyone that way?
And who are you to do the same? Lewis writes:
"Be sure that there
is something inside you which, unless it is altered, will put it out of God's
power to prevent your being eternally miserable. While that something remains,
there can be no Heaven for you, just as there can be no sweet smells for a man
with a cold in the nose, and no music for a man who is deaf. It's not a
question of God "sending" us to Hell. In each of us there is
something growing up which will of itself be Hell unless it is
nipped in the bud. The matter is serious: let us put ourselves in His hands at
once--this very day, this hour."
***
My books are...
***
My books are...
Praying: Reflections on 40 Years of Solitary Conversations with God (May 2016).
Leading the Presence-Driven Church.
Deconstructing Progressive Christianity.
Leading the Presence-Driven Church.
Deconstructing Progressive Christianity.
(with Janice Trigg) Encounters with the Holy Spirit.
