Nothing Else Matters

For the last two issues now, we have been experiencing the ongoing saga otherwise known as the uncertain plans for the continuance of Eric’s higher education. I am pleased to report that a few more pieces have been added to that puzzle since last we spoke. To begin with, my scholarships went through without further incident. It would also seem that, much to my surprise and contrary to what I believed, I will not be graduating this semester after all. I was just getting ready to place a call to Debbie Jackson, the Graduate Program Coordinator for the Philosophy Department at the University of Arizona, to see if I could still squeeze under the wire in spite of being a few days past the deadline when I noticed that, according to my transcript, I was three classes short of graduation. I didn’t feel at all angered, anxious, or annoyed, but simply trusted that this was God’s leading. In fact, one of my friends said something to the effect that “it appears your steps are being ordered and not by you.” Given the fact that the scores I earned on the GRE yesterday were not nearly as promising as I’d hoped, it may be an even greater blessing that I’m sitting it out for another year. In any case, I have renewed my apartment lease for the upcoming twelve months and if I have not overlooked anything, I should be able to graduate in the spring of 2006 with a double major (philosophy and English literature), thereby increasing my chances considerably of getting into the University of Arizona’s Philosophy Ph.D. program (or any other philosophy program, for that matter).

So then, with that bit of news out of the way, I wish to revisit this idea of surrendering all of our cares and the plans for our lives over to the care of God. The day before I took the GRE, all the many things I needed to accomplish were pressing down on me and I was beginning to feel frazzled and anxious. But I suddenly realized that I was once again trying to micromanage my life instead of seeking God’s will and then accepting His answer. In that particular case, the student government association (SGA) provides free tickets with a student ID at a local movie theater on select Monday nights. There was a movie I was interested in seeing and accordingly made plans to do so after my usual Monday evening sessions at the dojo. Of course, I knew that I desperately needed to study for the GRE as well. As I prayed and asked God what He would have me do, it became clear that I was not to go the theater but instead stay home and study. Now granted, as I suggested, I did not perform as well on the GRE as I’d hoped. But I am not sorry that I obeyed God, for I have a peace in my heart that is worth more than the pleasure of a good movie. It is truly strange just how pleasurable it can be to surrender your life and your will to God, knowing the He loves you and that He knows far better than you what is best for your life.

In fact, there have been quite a few lessons lately about trust and surrender, two very vital ingredients if we wish to be obedient to the voice of God and experience that peace of mind that comes from such submission. One such lesson involved my rent payment, which was due last Monday. Ideally, I would charge my rent to the credit card, but the managing company that oversees the apartment complex in which I live is a stickler that rent must be paid via check or money order. I was sitting in church the Sunday prior with nearly enough money in my wallet to cover the check for rent, at least when added to the amount that was already in the bank. I have always endeavored to pay my tithe and often to give over and above when I can—if not to the church, to those in need—both as a way of being obedient as well as saying thanks to God for providing for me as He does. I realized that I had enough to catch up on my overdue tithe (that is “overdue tithe” on the generous gifts I’ve received as of late) with just a bit left to spare. Aware of the risk involved in sticking my neck out, it nonetheless felt good to loosen the proverbial purse strings.

The church that I attend also has a benevolence fund to help those in the local area with various needs like rent, groceries, and utility bills. Reluctant to approach the church—not because of false pride but because of genuine resignation about whether I really ought to or not—I had been praying for several weeks about whether I should talk with the individual who writes the checks. Feeling a release to do so, I sought him out at the end of the service and learned that at present, there simply were no funds in the account. He was genuinely sorry, but I was paradoxically pleased that I had received yet another tangible answer. There were tears in his eyes when we parted, for he was deeply affected by the sheer peacefulness I exuded in my utter trust and dependence in God’s provision. That evening, I filed my taxes online and was pleased to see that I would be getting more money back from the state than I had expected, arranging to have the money directly deposited into my bank account. In the morning, I went to class as usual and on my way back, stopped by the landlord’s office and wrote out a check in trust—for we’ve already learned that there was not enough money in the bank to cover it—and signed a rental agreement for the next twelve months, pleased that yet another answer had been provided in the form of the upcoming year’s plan for my higher education. Arriving home, I discovered a check in the mail, that, when added to the money currently in the bank and the direct deposit I was expecting from the state, would cover my rent with about two dollars to spare. That evening, I deposited the check in the bank on my way to the dojo.

So far this has been reading like the classic fairytale of answered prayer, a box of tissues sitting off to the side for those whose hearts easily overflow with gratitude. But the story doesn’t end here. No, the check didn’t exactly bounce, for I have overdraft protection on my account. But it did result in a finance charge, which, while negligible, nonetheless angered me. It seems the state didn’t exactly deposit the money in the account quite as quickly as I’d hoped. My cynicism suggested to me that the moral of the lesson was quite clear: “Don’t be a fool. Got the money to cover the check now? By all means do so and get back to God later.” I mean, think about it: all it would have taken was withholding the tithe for one more week and paying it the following week, one finance charge richer to boot. God is big enough to handle our criticism, and taking the Medieval mystic Fénelon’s advice, I told Him exactly how angry I felt with Him, though I will admit that even in my anger, there was a desire not to feel angry, something like a spouse feels when hurt by the other. If your husband (or wife) has hurt your feelings, you know that you’re not going to run right out and leave him, but when enough is enough, you nonetheless tell him how you feel on no uncertain terms. And, if you really love him, you will probably try to be diplomatic or recognize that you will regret your outburst later (melting in his arms once your temper—and perhaps his as well—has cooled). So then, I followed Fénelon’s advice, this time my complaint directed at God Himself, though as diplomatically as my anger allowed:

Of course, my anger cooled after a bit, it was just my (righteous?) indignation over the “principle” of the thing. Soon enough, however, a much deeper moral to the story began to emerge. I have never considered money to be a problem: I give freely, have few wants, and have long since been content living on the classic shoestring (though of course one must have a bit of money and/or resources to survive). But do you see the subtle lesson that was beginning to emerge? When the chips were down, money began taking priority over God, however understandable that might be from a human perspective. God chastens those He loves and He is not content to merely leave us outwardly presentable; He wants to stretch us to the point that we become better than ourselves. The problem is that in a world that teaches us that we deserve to be happy and prosperous all the time, we’re not used to spit and sandpaper. But if we are to truly shine from smoothly polished surfaces, spit and sandpaper is just what it takes. Character is not forged in the lap of luxury, but in the fires of affliction—disappointments, momentary setbacks, heartbreak, loss, and sorrow—these are the very implements that begin slowly to grow us beyond our merely adolescent selves into true men and women, sons and daughters of the King. In the end, a lesson purchased at the price of one small service charge reaps a return far richer than the paltry price that was paid for it. I can assure you that in the course of my lifetime, I have received lessons that cost me far more.

You know, society has not always viewed personal happiness as the ultimate goal as it does today. When personal happiness is the greatest good, it does not particularly matter how it is acquired, provided of course that we’re good little boys and girls who don’t trespass against our neighbor. Placing happiness as the greatest good sets a premium on how an experience feels—that is the value of any given thing. For example, what is the value of watching football? For those of us (like yours truly) who couldn’t care less about sports, we’d say that as far as we’re concerned, there is no value there at all. But there are many people—perhaps you are one of them—who find an evening spent watching football on television to be immensely pleasurable. Perhaps if you and I and a group of our pals were to go out on the turf, there would be an additional health value to the sport—perhaps sitting around the house with a bunch of guys further helps fulfill our need for acceptance and camaraderie—but in the end, those who enjoy sports, enjoy them because it brings them pleasure. Would there be any real intrinsic value to football if it gave no one pleasure? So then, people who like football, like it because it gives them pleasure in one form or another, not because it has any abiding value simply for its own sake.

In much the same way, our society values very little for its own sake simply because it is right and good. Rather, most of the things we value, we value to the degree that they bring us pleasure and we devalue them as soon as they stop performing, moving on to the next thing that will provide us pleasure. Thus, the pre-Modern values have been inverted: feeling now supplants being. But it hasn’t always been this way. The ancient Greeks and Hebrews once believed that it was far better to be something than to merely derive pleasure from being that thing. It was better to truly be a man of virtue, even if one was miserable, than to live an idyllic life without honor. But deference to the silver haired has been replaced by the cult of youth, middle aged men driving shiny red sports cars and fawning over girls half their age and middle aged women getting tummy tucks and liposuction. Is there anything wrong with red sports cars and tummy tucks? Not really, I don’t suppose. But it does say something about where our society places it values: outward façades encasing the threadbare ribs of inward poverty.

Harvard professor of philosophy Robert Nozick wrote a seminal essay entitled “The Experience Machine,” first published in 1974 in Anarchy, State, and Utopia. By setting up a thought experiment, he helps us examine the not so readily obvious assumptions of utilitarianism with its “greatest happiness for the greatest number” that preponderates in most societies today. Nozik begins:

Maybe our squeamishness is simply at the thought of floating in a tank—for you Matrix fans out there, is Nozick the real Architect? But what if we replace the tank with a comfortable armchair or a soft bed, all the while plugged into the experience machine? Are we simply concerned with muscular dystrophy? Or are our initial misgivings less taken with such practical considerations and much more the result of some jarring notions that we value more than simply pleasurable experience? The ancients would suggest to us that the greatest pleasures in life are the fruits of a virtuous life. But for most of us, we seek the fruit of a different tree altogether and we hope that by plugging into God (if we do), we’ll be plugged in to the ultimate experience machine. Quite frankly, I for one cannot conceive what it would be like to be on the outside of the box looking in. It is difficult for me to imagine loving something—particularly something unseen—if I derived no pleasure from it whatsoever. However, as we mentioned in Because It Lies So Low, To It All Things Flow, all of us must approach God with whatever level of understanding we currently possess and with whatever mixture of motives that goes along with it, before we can ever hope to begin to see God as He is in utter actuality.

There is an interesting paradox here as well. God is indeed the greatest pleasure, but in order to enjoy Him to the fullest, we have to learn a higher, purer form of love that places more value on essence than on feeling. I don’t claim to understand it myself, but every now and again I catch a little glimpse of it and I know that it is of far greater value than anything that could be described in words. As it turns out, it is better than happiness or pleasure, deeper, richer, fuller, infinitely more satisfying. God is the essence we were created to enjoy but before we can do so fully, He has to slowly remake us outwardly as well as inwardly, sometimes with words of affection and sometimes with spit and sandpaper but always with a patience and love that is purer than any concepts that have yet entered our minds. The fact is, we simply do not know what we do not know nor can we know what we do not know until we actually know it. “We love Him because He first loved us” (1 John 4:19).

You see, my friend, we could spend hours pontificating about all the many faults of post-Modern society, reminiscing about the days of old before we were even born. But after a while it all becomes so tiresome, a mere chasing after the wind. The simple fact is that there is only one solution worth anything at all. That solution is one I really don’t know that much about, save that little by little I am realizing more and more that there simply is no other answer, nothing else worth pursuing to any great length. Of course there are sometimes material goods included in the package “for to every man to whom God has given riches and wealth, He has also empowered him to eat from them and to receive his reward and rejoice in his labor; this is the gift of God” (Ecclesiastes 5:19). But the satisfaction is not found in the riches and wealth, but rather in the God who has provided both the riches as well as the means to their enjoyment (for many are those who fail to find pleasure in opulence and wealth). But if we do not turn to this answer (in response to the question of what matters most), perhaps far sooner than we expect the evil days will come and the years will draw nigh when we say, “I take no delight in them.” This tiresomeness may well fall upon us long before the years in which the grinding ones stand idle because they are few, and those who peer through the windows grow dim. That is why, of course, the Preacher advises us to remember our Creator in the days of our youth, long before the silver cord is broken and the golden bowl is crushed and the pitcher at the well is shattered as the dust returns to the earth from whence it came and the spirit returns to the God who gave it life. The conclusion of the matter, when all has been heard, is simply this: fear God and keep His commandments, because in the end, nothing else matters whatsoever; without God, life is merely a chasing after the wind.

“The words of the wise are as goads, and as nails fastened by the masters of assemblies, which are given from one Shepherd. And further, by these, my son, be admonished: of making many books there is no end; and much study is a weariness of the flesh. Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God, and keep His commandments: for this is the whole duty of man. For God shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing, whether it be good, or whether it be evil. . . . Christ is the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by Him, and the world knew Him not. He came unto His own, and His own received Him not. But as many as received Him, to them gave He power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on His name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth. . . . If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”

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