In my house, my children are lucky enough to be afflicted with parents who are always challenging them to think about everything. The question they have learned to dread hearing is, “So what did you learn?” The reason they dread this is because it always follows a mistake they have made or else a mistake they didn’t even realize they made. Either way, bad things happened.
For instance, just this morning, Ethan (my four-year-old) was climbing on top of their fort, stretching to reach something at the top of the closet. (For those without boys, yes, this is pretty normal behavior.) Well, as I watch him, sure enough, he loses his footing and falls in that slow-motion way monkeys learn to do. When he’s reached his landing (one leg on the fort, one on the floor, and his head laying on some boxes in the bottom of the closet), I first ask him if he’s okay.
“Yes,” he replies.
“And what did you learn?” I asked, anticipating a safety breakthrough.
“Not to fall.”
Indeed it is important to remember to think about what we’ve learned from a mistake. However, it’s also important we succeed at identifying the right lesson.
There's nothing "merely" about it.
One of the great modern lies is that sex is just another bodily appetite to be satisfied however one pleases. “We eat when we’re hungry, we sleep when we’re tired, and we have sex when we feel like it.” Ignoring the obvious fact that even mere bodily appetites entail ethics (nutrition differentiates between good and bad eating and there are many situations where sleep is not an acceptable course of action), there’s something much more profoundly inaccurate here.
See, the view of sex as a bodily appetite is inherently degrading to sex, reducing it to something “merely” bodily. And yet, everyone knows that there is nothing “merely” about an activity which has inspired millions of works of art from poems to songs to paintings to sculpture to novels to movies. Someone may dislike being hungry or tired, but healthy people don’t weep in agony over a bad lasagna or a missed nap. Yet, emotions strong to the point of artistic expression are precisely the normal result of sexual fulfillment or frustration.
Thus, it is precisely because this human endeavor is so uniquely powerful that it must be treated so carefully and protected so vigilantly. We do no one a service when we encourage them to believe that something this precious may be treated with such casual contempt.
See, the view of sex as a bodily appetite is inherently degrading to sex, reducing it to something “merely” bodily. And yet, everyone knows that there is nothing “merely” about an activity which has inspired millions of works of art from poems to songs to paintings to sculpture to novels to movies. Someone may dislike being hungry or tired, but healthy people don’t weep in agony over a bad lasagna or a missed nap. Yet, emotions strong to the point of artistic expression are precisely the normal result of sexual fulfillment or frustration.
Thus, it is precisely because this human endeavor is so uniquely powerful that it must be treated so carefully and protected so vigilantly. We do no one a service when we encourage them to believe that something this precious may be treated with such casual contempt.
What a good director does.
I love to watch movies. Unfortunately, one of the problems of having watched a lot of movies is that it becomes harder and harder to surprise me. This difficulty is compounded by the fact that I generally want a movie to end in a satisfying way, which of course further limits the options a filmmaker has when creating his art for me.
A good movie thus manages to do several different things. It identifies a character with whom I can bond and vicariously live through. This character will then have some significant struggles which create tension and the hope of a final triumph to overcome them. Most importantly, the means of this triumph need to be plausible after the fact but so unforeseeable in advance that you actually start to worry it won’t turn out right. When all of these factors come together properly, we say that a movie “pays off” in giving you what you really want from it.
And when you find a director who can consistently do this, it’s a real joy to experience his movies. Of course, the real question is whether I believe God is as clever and reliable at directing my life as these men are in making their films.
A good movie thus manages to do several different things. It identifies a character with whom I can bond and vicariously live through. This character will then have some significant struggles which create tension and the hope of a final triumph to overcome them. Most importantly, the means of this triumph need to be plausible after the fact but so unforeseeable in advance that you actually start to worry it won’t turn out right. When all of these factors come together properly, we say that a movie “pays off” in giving you what you really want from it.
And when you find a director who can consistently do this, it’s a real joy to experience his movies. Of course, the real question is whether I believe God is as clever and reliable at directing my life as these men are in making their films.
On missing pieces.
I grew up doing lots of jigsaw puzzles. In fact, I believe it’s one of the things that trained my mind to work as it does.
One common experience in doing a jigsaw puzzle is to become irritated over not being able to find a particular piece. As you scour for it in the pile, it’s easy to get so frustrated that you actually come to believe it’s simply missing. Obviously, in a used puzzle this can happen, but not so much in a new one. Nevertheless, what you do is you keep going with the rest of the puzzle. And a funny thing happens.
When you work on the bits you can do, you make progress. Then when you get to the end, somehow the piece you were absolutely sure was missing just suddenly appears. Of course it was there the whole time. You just couldn’t see it for whatever reason. And you feel a bit sheepish for having been so sure it wouldn’t work out in the end.
So if I can rationally learn to have faith in a puzzle manufacturer, why do I so often still struggle to believe my heavenly Father will make sure my life has all the pieces it needs to be finished properly?
One common experience in doing a jigsaw puzzle is to become irritated over not being able to find a particular piece. As you scour for it in the pile, it’s easy to get so frustrated that you actually come to believe it’s simply missing. Obviously, in a used puzzle this can happen, but not so much in a new one. Nevertheless, what you do is you keep going with the rest of the puzzle. And a funny thing happens.
When you work on the bits you can do, you make progress. Then when you get to the end, somehow the piece you were absolutely sure was missing just suddenly appears. Of course it was there the whole time. You just couldn’t see it for whatever reason. And you feel a bit sheepish for having been so sure it wouldn’t work out in the end.
So if I can rationally learn to have faith in a puzzle manufacturer, why do I so often still struggle to believe my heavenly Father will make sure my life has all the pieces it needs to be finished properly?
On artistic license.
Having been asked to preach several times recently, I’ve had more reason than normal to consult Bible commentaries. In the process, I noticed that they all say things such as, “Matthew likely rearranged the material in this section to suit his purpose in writing the Gospel.” This initially bothered me because it implied the Bible’s authors were playing fast and loose with the facts, an assessment which seems to undermine the reliability of my beloved Scriptures. But these commentators were really serious about the Bible’s authenticity and its authority. They were not liberals. So how could this be?
I finally figured it out. As a modern American, I presume truth to be a matter of chronological fact correspondence. But this is a huge bias. The artist in me knows better than to think that truth can only be communicated or even best be communicated in such a realist style. The Gospel writers, under the influence of the greatest Muse of all, were revealing truth that a merely chronological account would have left hidden.
This is why their portraits of the same Person are all so distinct. But far from being evidence of fraud or forgery or even error, this is simply the natural result of men overcome with Beauty wanting to share that rapture effectively with others.
I finally figured it out. As a modern American, I presume truth to be a matter of chronological fact correspondence. But this is a huge bias. The artist in me knows better than to think that truth can only be communicated or even best be communicated in such a realist style. The Gospel writers, under the influence of the greatest Muse of all, were revealing truth that a merely chronological account would have left hidden.
This is why their portraits of the same Person are all so distinct. But far from being evidence of fraud or forgery or even error, this is simply the natural result of men overcome with Beauty wanting to share that rapture effectively with others.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
