Kirkepiscatoid

Once again, I have to tip my hat to our dear Elizabeth. She's done it again.

I have many blog friends, and I continue to marvel at their brilliance, their insight, and their intimate views of their world, as well as their ability to share these gifts with no fear. But Elizabeth seems to have the unique ability to throw a post out there now and then that reaches through my chest wall, grabs my heart, and twists and squeezes till the tears come out. She managed to outline the paradox of "Christian values," She lays out several examples that illustrate the dichotomy that has permeated my own spiritual quest--the quest to become "fully human" in spite of all the seeming "opposites" that exist in our world, each flanked by its own moral value.

In fact, go read her post first (linked above) and THEN come back and read me. I won't mind.

Okay, you're back. Thanks for returning!

You know, we tend to think that each moral value we know as a "good" value stands alone, that the only opposing value to a "good" moral value would be an "evil" value. Alas, such is not the case. "Good" values can stand in opposition to each other.

For instance, one could argue that releasing the "Lockerbie bomber" on compassionate grounds so he can die of his metastatic prostate cancer in his homeland is a good and compassionate thing. However, to some of the families, this is an insult, to allow the man who killed their loved ones to roam freely, despite his sentence. Each of those positions is flanked by something we Christians would call a "Christian value." Compassion for a dying man, no matter what his sins, on one hand. The understanding of the need for victims to have a sense of safety and reconciliation on the other hand.

There's no way, unless we chose to live under a rock, and never think, that we can live without this paradox of values. To quote Mark Twain, "There's a little bit of larceny in all of us." Truly good people episodically do bad things. Good people bend on their taxes a little, they cheat on their spouses now and then, they become hard-hearted when they shouldn't, things can make them feel mean, spiteful, and jealous. The list is endless.

We do a constant dance between our woundedness and our own abilities to wound. But somewhere in the middle of that are all our best qualities...our compassion, our ability to love, empathy, mercy, forgiveness...this list is also endless.

Often, as Christians, we sense that we need to "become more like Jesus." But we tend to be thinking of that in terms of "we think we should become more like 'divine' Jesus." We sort of forget about "human" Jesus.

"Divine" Jesus would never speak a cross word, would heal everyone he saw, would always turn the other cheek, and would suffer all the slings and arrows dealt him without even a peep of disapproval and with all the composure of a true martyr. We start thinking we ought to be like that guy.

But we forget this is the same Jesus who wept at the grave of Lazarus one day and opened a can of whoopass on the moneychangers in the temple on another. "Human" Jesus was capable of being fully sad AND thoroughly pissed.

I am learning in my own life, as I plunge headlong into middle age, the answer is NOT to be this spiritual version of Mr. Spock--human on the "good" human parts, divine on the "good" divine parts. It denies the fullness of "me." It's about accepting ALL my humanness--warts and all, as well as accepting ALL of my "spark of the divine." I, like a lot of people, tend to think I am not worthy of my own divine spark. Well, that is such bull, isn't it? It's denying my greatest gift from God!

It doesn't make this labyrinth of our values any less convoluted, but what it does do is teach us to accept the dead ends, the dark corners, and the blind passageways, knowing God is in the mystery of it, and we are as much a part of that mystery as He is.