A thought has occurred to me. Good is not very extreme. I guess there's a sense in which it is--"go all out for Jesus"--but there's an entire other sense in which good is not radical. Good is the everyday, normal side of things. Good doesn't want to come along and sweep everything away; it would really like to plod along, worship God, create gorgeous things, enjoy the dance of the seasons and the turns of the sky, and be happy, only this horrible twisted stuff comes along and causes problems and has to be dealt with.
I was talking to Kirsten about this tonight. It would be easier if good were always flashy and heroic, but it tends to be subdued and rather icky. Pip wanted to be a knight in shining armor to come rescue Estella, and he did so--through forgiving Estella and Miss Havisham, through cleaning the foul wedding cake from the table and putting out Miss Havisham when she caught on fire. Dr. Rieux and the guys talk about heroism, and would rather like it, but in the meantime they have to keep lancing plague victims and carting away the bodies for weeks and months on end.
Good is normal. The world is fallen, but it was not created so, and it will not always be so. Good is having a King in Gondor and hobbits in the Shire; the ring-quest is an aberration.
Query: if you follow this line of reasoning, does that mean there will be no adventure in heaven? I'm pretty sure there won't be any in Hell, but does adventure equal evil? God is the proper end for whom we are made, and He's far from boring. If anything, He's more exciting than we mortals are comfortable near. I guess I don't quite understand this mystery. Anyone able to clarify?
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3 comments:
Yes, your line of reasoning does hurt our heavenly chances of adventure.:) I would define adventure differently, though: "that which comes from attempt of conquest." The rock cliff or singletrack are not evil, but both are adventurous challenges that can be conquered.
Christ has made us more than conquerors. Thus, I think heaven will be thrilling enough for anyone.
Extreme, flashy, heroic ... all those terms are rather subjective. What one person considers to be wonderful and exciting another can consider boring and mundane.
Good is not always exciting to everyone. Sometimes it's simply fulfilling one's duty, living a normal day well, avoiding sins that seem exciting and extravagant, living without a hint of scandal.
But I think there is a sense in which the world associates sin with fun and excitement and makes the good seem long-faced and boring. Good should be more than a duty to us -- it should be a passion. We should see the wonder and the excitement and really the adventure in it. Living every day for God can be an adventure ... not meaning it will always be fun and exciting, but in an ultimate sense, if we view it rightly, we'll see the wonder of it.
Perhaps living in a fallen world tarnishes some of the excitement that would otherwise be ours in doing good. We can't reach the wonder of perfection here, and good is haunted by things like pain and persecution.
I do think heaven will be an adventure, wonderful, dazzling, beyond anything we can imagine -- an eternity of discovering and worshipping God. It won't be normal or common place.
Think also that evil is the absence or perversion of good ... in that sense it can't have any true excitement in it that good itself does not have more of.
OK, that was scattered and random I know ... gave me some good things to think about :).
Sort of along the lines of what Firinnteine said...some of the things you termed "mundane" are pretty amazing. I mean, no, treating plague victims is not necessarily GLAMOROUS...but it IS heroic in the sense that it takes a special person to deal with sickness day in and day out and treat it, even when hope is not apparent. It takes effort to be nice to that person who's always bugging you, or to respect that professor who's not quite what you'd have hoped for. These aren't necessarily things we'd talk about on the front page of the Medieval Gazette, but they're definitely good. When one does the right thing, however mundane it may seem, there is satisfaction in having done rightly.
It's sort of like Micah 6:8..."He has shown thee, o man, what is good and what the LORD requires of thee: but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God." There are so many different things one could be called to do--keeping a household, or mountainclimbing, or evangelizing Rwandan tribes, or managing multibillion-dollar corporations, or writing thought-provoking literature...there is a beauty in each of these things, no matter how simple or complex they may seem.
Also, in some ways, the small things in life can either be an adventure, or they can be "just the mundane things of life." In the same way, big things (like climbing Mount Everest or something) might seem like simple things to those who do them. I bet Bill Gates is used to running his company by now. Probably even King Arthur got used to ruling and didn't think anything of managing Camelot--or Lancelot, with all his escapades, probably thought of rescuing damsels in distress as "just another quest."
It seems like much of this question is a matter of perspective. Following God IS radical, compared to the way the rest of the world works. Even though following God is part of our telos, it's NOT necessarily something the majority of individuals DO see as being normal.
Haven't you ever thought of your mom as a hero for raising you? Or your dad, as a hero for standing uprightly in his job even if the people around him reject him because of his faith? Or your roommate, even, for putting up with your quirks and messes? These are small, simple, "normal" things--but at the same time, they're NOT normal because we DON'T naturally want to stand up and do what's right.
I don't know if that clarified things or made them fuzzier or just added a bunch of words to your blog. :) Pardon the intellectual bulemia, and I do hope it was helpful somehow.
~Twynkletoes
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