I was reading an article on singleness that was reprinted from Glamour magazine when I came across this priceless quote.
“But hey, there are far worse things than not knowing your romantic future. Imagine being diagnosed with breast cancer, treating it, and beating it … but still wondering at every next mammogram if the cancer will have come back. That’s living with uncertainty.”
You’ve GOT to be kidding me.
The book of Ecclesiastes, which was written thousands of years ago, says, “There is nothing new under the sun.”
You’d think after that wise insight had been taught to hundreds and hundreds of generations, it would eventually sink in. But it hasn’t. Not with me, at least. I thought the recent lessons I’ve been learning about being rather than doing for God was an epiphany unique to me.
I was humbled to read the following passage written by C.S. Lewis more than 50 years ago.
“What is more (and I can hardly find words to tell you how important I think this), it is just the people who are ready to submit to the loss of the thrill and settle down to the sober interest, who are then most likely to meet new thrills in some quite different direction…This is, I think, one little part of what Christ meant by saying that a thing will not really live unless it first dies. It is simply no good trying to keep any thrill: that is the very worst thing you can do. Let the thrill go – let it die away – go on through that period of death into the quieter interest and happiness that follow – and you will find you are living in a world of new thrills all the time.
But if you decide to make thrills your regular diet and try to prolong them artificially, they will all get weaker and weaker, and fewer and fewer, and you will be a bored, disillusioned old man for the rest of your life.”
- C.S. Lewis, Christian Behavior
The other day I was driving on the freeway at 60 mph when I heard a loud bang, and my car began to shudder and decelerate. I tried to drive to the next exit, but my car was shaking too hard to drive it. So I pulled over to the side of the road and called a tow truck.
While I waited, I tried to figure out what could be wrong with my car. I had plenty of gas, and I’d recently had the oil changed, so those didn’t seem likely culprits. My Saturn is 11 years old, so it’s not inconceivable that something major, like the transmission, had gone out.
I thought about popping the hood and taking a look at the engine, but that didn’t seem like a good idea – partly because I was on the shoulder of a major highway with less than 6 inches between me and speeding traffic, and partly because I know absolutely nothing about engines. If I did look under the hood, it would just be for form’s sake, not because I could actually recognize or fix any problems.
When the tow truck arrived, the mechanic helped me out the passenger’s side and over the concrete divider where I could watch him work from a safe distance. As soon as I looked back at the car, I immediately saw the problem: my rear tire had blown out. It was flatter than flat, with shards of rubber hanging from the rim.
The mechanic hooked my car up to his truck, and towed it off the closest exit. He drove into an abandoned lot, changed my tire, and handed me back my key. “You’re really lucky it was your back tire that blew out, not your front tire,” he told me. “When the front tire blows out, most people lose control of their car.”
I thought about losing control of my little 2 door coupe in rush hour traffic, and shuddered. I thanked him profusely and, without thinking about it, threw my arms around him and hugged him before I climbed into my car. (I’m pretty sure he didn’t see that coming).
He waved at me as I drove away. I made it to my dinner date, only 10 minutes late in spite of the misadventure.
And I didn’t think much of it after that.
I didn’t raise my fist to heaven and ask, “Why, God, Why? Why would my back tire blow out instead of my front tire? Why didn’t I wreck my car? Why wasn’t I seriously injured? Just tell me why!”
That would have been ridiculous, right? But it is a fair question. With a 50/50 chance of back vs. front tire blow out, why did the odds fall to the safer of the two options, the one that didn’t get me killed in a fiery wreck?
Because, while I intellectually recognize the equal potential for good and bad in most situations, I instinctively want and expect the good things to happen to me. Bad things are what happen to other people.
A surgeon who lectured to my class in grad school gave an insightful answer to the question of the difference between major and minor surgery. “Minor surgery is the one you’re not having,” he said.
I think that egocentric perspective is part of being human. I certainly recognize it in myself. I am not nearly as surprised that young women get breast cancer as I was that I got it.
I work in an ER and it does not shock me to see sick people, but it sure throws me for a loop when I get sick.
I am quick to complain when I get the short end of the stick, but think nothing of it when things unexpectedly go my way.
My parents are happily married and I didn’t have to grow up in a broken home.
I got to go to college and even grad school.
I have an interesting job and great friends.
I love the church I go to.
I’ve been snorkeling in Mexico, Bermuda and Hawaii.
We often ask why bad things happen, but maybe that’s the wrong question. When we live in a world where entropy and the second law of thermodynamics are in effect, and everything seems to be in a process of disorganization and decay, maybe the real question is…why do good things happen to bad people? Why do good things happen to me?
The piano piece 4′33″ (Pronounced “Four minutes, thirty-three seconds”) was first performed at a piano recital in Woodstock, NY, in 1952.
Pianist David Tudor took the stage and performed the piece composed by John Cage. Tudor sat down at the piano…in complete silence. For four minutes and thirty-three seconds.
The piece is actually composed of three movements. Tudor opened and closed the keyboard lid to signify the end of a movement and the beginning of the next. By the time he closed the lid for the final time, many people in the audience had left – some were confused by the silence; others were enraged.
Cage’s point was that even what we consider silence, the absence of intentional sound, is composed of lots of incidental sounds that we notice only when we stop to be quiet and listen.
I haven’t posted anything on my blog in a few months, because I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, and I’ve been trying to do a lot of listening. It’s not easy for me. I’d rather be busy and verbose than still and silent. Silence takes discipline. Silence is awkward. Silence requires more being than doing. And, as Shakespeare would say, there’s the rub.
I am the A-est of Type A personalities. When I was twelve, I started going to informational meetings offered by medical schools so I could carefully research my educational options. When I was fourteen, my dad found me sitting on the porch steps one evening, watching the sun go down. He asked what I was thinking about, and I told him I was thinking about running for president – and I wasn’t kidding.
When I interviewed at Yale, the admissions committee asked why they should accept me into the program. I told them, because I was going to change the world, and they would have the chance to say they knew me when.
Then I finished Yale and got accepted into Columbia, and I thought, I knew it! I knew I was supposed to do something big!
My favorite motto was, “Attempt great things for God.” Not only was I attempting great things; I was succeeding at them.
I suppose I should have known that it wouldn’t last forever, but I didn’t. My mom told me, God made us human beings, not human do-ers. But it didn’t sink in.
Until I got sick and I lost everything I cared about, every opportunity I’d been working so hard to create. I left my job at Yale, left the journalism program at Columbia, and moved 3,000 miles away. I wasn’t trying to do anything noble; I was just trying not to let my sadness drive me insane.
I used to have an impressive list of degrees and accomplishments. For the past year, my big accomplishments have included getting out of bed in the mornings, making myself nutritious food, not getting chemo, managing my crazy curly hair, and staring at the ceiling, trying to figure out what’s next.
I’ve been plotting all the cool things I could do for God in Portland, telling Him what I think the new plan should be. As if I’ve been red shirted, and I’m waiting for the coach to look down the bench, point his finger at me, and sub me back into the game to score the game-winning shot.
But instead of cosmic enthusiasm, I have been met with silence. And reminders that I am a human being, not a human do-er.
I was thinking about this the other day when I was reading Luke 18. The rich young ruler asks Jesus what he’s supposed to do to become a follower of Christ. He tells Jesus he’s already kept the 10 Commandments, and asks what’s next. Jesus tells him to go sell everything he had, give the proceeds to the poor, and follow Him.
The rich young man went away sad, because he was wealthy and didn’t want to sacrifice that much to follow Jesus. And that’s how the Sunday School version of the story usually ends.
But if you read a little further, you see Peter telling Jesus, “We have left everything to follow you!” I think he and the other disciples saw Jesus’ interaction with the rich young man. And they realized that while the young man didn’t have the chutzpah to make the sacrifice, Peter and John and the rest of the disciples had done just that! When Jesus called them, they had dropped their nets, abandoned their boats, resigned their places on the fishing committees, and followed Jesus.
When I see Peter’s statement, I imagine he meant, “Jesus, you know how you said to that guy that to please you he just had to sell everything and follow you? Well, that’s exactly what we did. Remember that? Remember how we gave up everything you asked us to? We sacrificed everything we had to become your disciples, and we still don’t get you. We still don’t understand what you’re talking about. We still don’t understand you.”
The disciples, and many saints who have come after them, learned that what seemed to be the finish line was really the starting gate. Abandoning everything to follow Jesus wasn’t the goal; it was just the qualification for the next round. You don’t get the prize; you get the chance to contend for the prize.
What exactly are we contending for? I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. What’s the goal? What’s the point?
The best answer I can find is simply that we get the chance to know God, and to be known by Him. Which is weird and strangely unsatisfying, because personally I’d rather get the chance to do something hard for God. Like be a martyr. Or live on the streets with homeless people. Or run a non-profit organization. Or adopt orphans from Darfur. Or buy children out of the sex trade. Because at least when you do something hard, you have something to show for your troubles.
What does it matter if you know someone? That’s not a normal goal for an A-est of Type A personalities kind of person. But I think it’s true nonetheless.
Jeremiah wrote, “Let not the wise man boast of his wisdom or the strong man boast of his strength or the rich man boast of his riches, but let him who boasts boast about this: that he understands and knows me…” (Jeremiah 9:23,24, emphasis added.)
So I sit at the keyboard, long after the spotlight has dimmed and the audience has gone home, with my empty hands poised above the keys, trying to interpret God’s silence, and praying that He’ll interpret mine.
