i’m trying to post more frequently and shorter (i’ll try). the idea for this post came up in a conversation i had today w/ a friend.
often when i chat with people, i listen “in between the lines” of what they say and i hear, though rarely explicitly said, this weird notion that having pain and suffering makes you good or makes you a better person or something like that. some of you might be like “what?! who would think something so stupid?” it’s there. i’ve heard it. ive heard it mainly in church settings though. maybe it’s only in some christian circles… christians are sometimes crazy and have things backwards. in christian-land i’ve heard things like “you should do A instead of B because you’ll have a harder time doing A” or something like, “if you’re doing something and you’re not suffering, you’re doing something wrong.” i say NONSENSE. there’s this weird “pursuit of pain” that seems so obviously stupid but is very real. maybe i’m a bit harsh here, suffering teaches us a lot. but who in their right mind goes after it? the first thing i thought of was this quote (which i had a hard time trying to remember exactly where it came from)…
from Weight of Glory by C.S. Lewis (emphasis mine):
If you asked twenty good men to-day what they thought the highest of the virtues, nineteen of them would reply, Unselfishness. But if you asked almost any of the great Christians of old he would have replied, Love. You see what has happened? A negative term has been substituted for a positive, and this is of more than philological importance. The negative ideal of Unselfishness carries with it the suggestion not primarily of securing good things for others, but of going without them ourselves, as if our abstinence and not their happiness was the important point. I do not think this is the Christian virtue of Love. The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ.
i’ll try to use a non-c.s. lewis quote in my next post but i think he puts it very well.
–edit–
right as i published this, simon sent me this post about mr. rogers. its related… somewhat. if not related just read it anyway. mr. rogers was a good man.
why i’m still at my church
March 24, 2009, 4:59 pm
parts of this post i started last summer after the ‘08 class graduated and i saw a lot of friends come back to NY after 4 years in college, abandon their home churches and begin the search for a new church that was a “better fit” for them. they were frustrated by the “lack of life” or “lack of real community” or some other shortcoming they found at their home church when comparing it to the experiences they had in college. i think i can definitely identify with that because i experienced that when i started college… the want to also “graduate” to a “better” church. that’s how i got to where i am now. looking back, i wish i didn’t change churches… not because of anything related to my current church… but just plainly because i should’ve stayed. i didn’t know better. anyway, i can’t change what i’ve done but i can move forward.
i have always had a love hate relationship with my church. i’ve had more than my fair share of criticizing my church (those that know me know this is a gross understatement): we make dumb decisions, sermons are often very… incoherent, sometimes “spirituality” feels forced, communication is pretty poor, and so on and so on. being from new york, i’ve always had many other churches to look at. i’ve seen how other churches function and i often wish my church functioned differently. the temptation to just jump ship has always been right there. my friends often jokingly–or maybe it’s really just half-jokingly–say i should probably go somewhere else. but i’ve stayed.
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Tags: church, commentary, commitment