Just Splatters on the Wall

What is art?  Websters defines art as follows:

art (art) n. 1. a. The activity of using imagination and skill to create beautiful things.  b. Works, as paintings, that result from this creativity.  2. A field or category of artistic activity, as literature, music, or ballet.  ...  4. A trade or craft and the methods employed in it.  5. A practical skill: knack.   6. The quality of being cunning: artfulness.

So, basically, art is imagination, skill, beauty, creativity, multimedia, a craft/trade, a skill and cunning.  It is my opinion that these words describe very few works that are passed off as modern "art."  Perhaps this seems harsh.  But why should it seem harsh?  Consider a singer who wrote songs filled with words strung together without reason or meaning, yet because they were sung they could be called songs.  Imagine a poet who wrote a poem with words chosen at random that had no rhyme or reason, but because he had written it he could call it poetry.  If you can imagine these two situations then you will have idea of something resembling what a good majority of the pieces of modern art represent.  I have called them "pieces" because that is what they are: fragments, bearing little or no purpose or unity within themselves.

To illustrate, imagine any "work" of modern art.  Now, in your mind, cut that particular work in half in some semi-symmetrical fashion.  Do you not now have two pieces of art with as much meaning and wholeness as the first?  Only art that possesses some form of unity can pass this bisection test.  Unity comes in two forms: functional and relational.

Functional unity refers to the self-contained unity of some forms of art that prevent them from being bisected.  A chair, if bisected would cease to be a chair.  I would no longer be able to function as a chair because a chair requires all of its parts.  Relational unity refers to the unity that art derives from its relation to the viewer's conscious experience.  A sculpture of a female figure represents an object that we can relate to.  Because of this it can evoke certain emotions from a viewer and if part of the figure were missing it would demand attention because we know what a woman should look like.

Perhaps the inanity of modern art is best illustrated by a quote from a juror of an art show I attended in college.  In selecting the best work in the show, the juror remarked, "I responded to the sense of chaos restrained by geometry."  This was the revelation of a Master of Arts.  The silliness of this remark is revealed by relating it to another artistic field: music.  Could we not create a musical work consisting of a orchestra tuning up before a show and reflect, "I was struck by the chaos of the noise that was restrained by sound."  This is in essence what the art show juror had declared.  Every piece in the show was, by definition "restrained by geometry" just as every piece of music is restrained by sound.

It constantly amazes me how some areas of the visual arts are abused by society.  If a person were to flail around on a hardwood floor for twenty minutes would we be willing to call it a dance (perhaps, "Seizure")?  Yet in painting and sculpture the equivalent takes place and it is hailed as art.  No longer does art require skill or cunning.  We have lowered art to the level of a child's finger painting -- random splatters on the wall -- lacking unity or meaning.  Is it no wonder that so many pieces of modern art are "Untitled?"  There is no purpose to this "art" -- no function even within itself.  It exists purely for its own sake.  This is not surprising in a world filled with people existing for there own individual sakes.  It is also easy to see why people now accept "art" that is meaningless.  A world sprung from chance and evolution has no meaning.  Since we see our world as meaningless we are willing to accept our art as meaningless.  Selfish people in a meaningless world will produce selfish "pieces" of meaningless art.

By definition, art is supposed to be beautiful.  The beauty of it does not have to be an objective beauty such as colors that are in harmony.  It can also be a subjective beauty resting in the synthesis of shapes and images to communicate an idea, a thought or an emotion.  It takes no special skill or cunning to create chaos and hang it on a wall.  The "art" of a thing lies in its ability to communicate with humanity and the skill and cunning used by the artist in endowing his creation with this ability.  To communicate art must have relational and functional unity.  Our emotions can be activated by images that we can relate to.  Images that have meaning and that function together like the words of a song, the lines of a poem or the movements of a dance.

Perhaps my objections to modern art stem from the fact that I am aware of the original Artist.  If you have ever stood on a mountainside and wondered at the soft hues of a day turning into night or stopped to stare a the infinite beauty of a brightly colored flower, then you have seen his work.  His work never was and is not now meaningless.  Neither does it exist for its own sake.  It whispers.  It cries.  It tries desperately to communicate to humanity that the Artist loves us.  This is what the original artist intended in his creation.  If this is not the case then there is no beauty, no art, in the universe, just splatters on the wall.

The heavens declare the glory of God;the skies proclaim the work of his hands. Day after day they pour forth speech; night after night they display knowledge.
There is no speech or language where their voice is not heard.
 Their voice goes out into all the earth, their words to the ends of the world. 
-- Psalm 19:1-4 (NIV)

Whatzit?

My last post got me reminiscing and so I dug up this essay I wrote as a college freshman.  I wrote this shortly after I started a six month regimen of Acutane (a severe prescription acne medication) for cystic acne.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Of my younger days -- if a man of eighteen can have "younger" days -- I recall a specific incident while working as a box-boy at a busy little small-town grocery store.  It wasn't a particularly bad day as I remember.  At least not until the dark spectre of childish ignorance cast its gloomy shadow upon me.  It was in the voice of a curious youngster.  "Hey, Mister, what's all them red spots all over yer' face?"  It seems that it is this one realization that has brought so much social despair to my young life: the realization that I have zits.

Zits.  Zits is a curious word; a slang substitute for that sick sounding term "pimple."  Personally, I'd much rather have a "zit" than a "pimple."  "Zit" just sounds more like what it stands for, whereas "pimple" brings to mind images of a midget who manages call girls.

Zits come in all shapes and sizes and even numbers.  Some people are fortunate enough to experience the glorious singular zit, while others, like myself, must be content to watch large herds of zits wander across their faces like homeless nomadic tribesman (white turbans included).  Sizes of zits range from the inconspicuous blackhead to that dreaded enemy of cosmetic perfection: the pustule.

Indeed I realize, and it has been rumored, that a few people out there have never had a zit in their life.  For those three people I would like to say that it is not a pleasant experience.  The fact is that getting rid of these colorful little monsters is an endeavor that consumes a good portion of adolescent lives and adult moneys.  It is estimated that to raise a child to the age of eighteen costs a mere $170,000; for those three zitless wonders mentioned above, probably only half that.  Get the picture?  Zits are good for the economy.

Definitely, this seems to be a very good way to explore the definition of "zit": What is a zit good for? For the average pubescent citizen the answer is usually a resounding, "NOTHING!"  I, on the other hand, like to think of myself as an optimistic functionalist.  If God permitted zits, they must serve some purpose besides diversifying the medical profession.

When I look in the mirror the thought that comes to mind is, "Gads, look at all those zits!"  Thoughts of my visible imperfection come to mind, and  I wonder how I will ever face my peers with any hope of love and acceptance.  I must realize, however, that everyone else (except those three people somewhere out there) has had zits and experienced these same insecurities.  It is as if God is saying, "Look in the mirror.  You're not perfect; neigher is Joe; neither is Mary.  No one is perfect!"

The truth of this realization is evident.  No one is perfect.  But this realization is not just of the human exterior, for inside we all have zits too: greed, envy, selfishness, etc.  Those elements of our personality that detract from our inner beauty to others, much like zits detract from our outer beauty.

The question comes to mind, if we are flawed on the inside, or in our souls, is there then a "mirror" to see these blemishes?  Perhaps, as some writers have suggested, writing is that mirror.  Putting yourself on paper could allow you to step back and look at yourself.  Writing, though, is more like a painting, a self-portrait if you will, than a true reflection, and most of us are terrible artists with biased perspectives.

Well then, perhaps meditation is the true mirror.  Meditation, however, can only allow us to reflect on those reactions and attitudes toward our own inner complexions.  The famous sociologist, George Herbert Mead, called this the "looking glass self" --see ourselves as others see us.  If meditation is the mirror then we must trust another's eyesight for their description of our inner-face.  Is there, then, any true mirror to reflect what is inside every man?  How do we see our spiritual ites without some sort of mirror?

It would seem that the answer would lie outside of our souls themselves, an objective surface which will reflect our subjective self.  I have found such a surface in the Bible.  "Wait!" you say, "That mirror's cracked and clouded at best.  You'll never get a good reflection from that!"  I say that your really haven't ever seen the mirror.  It is not cracked or clouded, but full of truth and clarity concerning the human condition: our condition.

For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks at his natural face in a mirror; for once he has looked at himself and gone away, he has immediately forgotten what kind of person he was. -- James 1:23, 24 (NASB)

  The Bible is a mirror for our souls.  It exposes the zits of our inner-face.  Without it we may feel our zits and even the pain they bring, but we cannot see the ugliness of our spirits.  Without seeing ourselves as we really are we will not seek help for our zit-ridden condition.  It was not the careless comment of an ingnorant child that caused me to seek a doctor for my zits, it was looking in a mirror day after day and seeing my acne in painful detail.  The best thing about the spiritual mirror, though, is not the clarity of its reflection but the fact that it is engraved with the name of the only dermatologist in town.

Missing the Point

I suppose that it is high time that I recorded for posterity how I wound up here, at this point.  I'm not talking geography, I'm talking spirituality.  For me, it really started in a tiny little Conservative Baptist Church in Eastern Oregon.  Not a particularly exciting place, as I remember it, and certainly not a church experience that I would wish on anyone except the narcoleptic.  Still the Bible was taught and the pastor and parishioners did their best.  Despite the hard wooden pews and the equally unrelentingly boring and stiff messages, God used it to call a little boy of around age 6.

I remember few things from my early childhood, but I do remember the how I felt that one Sunday morning as the pastor issued his usual alter-call.  I was a shy kid and not one to seek attention, so I was amazed as I found myself asking permission from my mom, side-stepping out of the pew, turning down the center aisle and marching down to the front of the Church.  Somehow I had suddenly needed to be baptized.  My parents had not pushed me.  My friends and siblings did not bring any pressure to bare.  In fact, my older brother decided to get baptized out of sheer jealousy of me.  I didn't even fully understand what I was doing, all I knew is that I needed to do it.  As I look back on it, I can only explain it like this:  God had called to me.

This was not some bright light experience.  No angels sang, and I didn't set out for the remotest parts of the earth to convert the heathens.  I was six years old.  God knew that, and for the next seven years he just let me be a kid.  A kid that began to love knowledge and the pride of knowing things other people didn't.  Starting in fifth grade, I began bringing home straight A's.  When a teacher would ask a question my hand was usually the first to shoot up.  Shy as I was, I loved having the right answer.

It wasn't until I turned 13 that I really started to care about spiritual things.  I began examining my life and the things I was doing and thinking.  It was at this time that I became convicted about the amount of time and money that I was spending on Dungeons & Dragons (let alone the subject matter it represented).  Much to my brother's dismay, I tossed into the trash over $100 worth of D&D books and manuals.  That summer, before my freshman year of high school, a friend from church gave me some cassette tapes of a man named Josh McDowell.  For the first time I heard someone talking about the reasons for faith in the God of the Bible.  Real reasons.  Solid logic.  Rational answers.  I had found the truth, and I was hooked. 

I bought Josh McDowell's book, Evidence That Demands a Verdict.  I not only read it, I wrote a book report on it for English class.  When asked by my atheist teacher to choose a fiction book for my next report, I chose John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress.  I read Josh's follow-up book, More Evidence That Demands a Verdict.  I picked up books describing the errors of various cults like Jehovah's Witnesses or The Mormons.  I never passed up a chance to bring my findings to the attention a classmate whose families belonged to these groups.  I delivered apologetic speeches in Speech & Debate class.  For the most part, my attempts to educate my teachers and peers fell on deaf (and highly annoyed) ears.  But while I wanted to be loved and accepted by my peers, I wanted to be right even more.

Many years later I look back and think about how wrong I actually was.  Not my doctrine, but my attitudes.  You see, I didn't love my classmates or teachers.  I loved being right.  Maybe, if I had spent less time reading apologetics and more time reading my Bible, I would have come across these verses:

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.  -- 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 (NASB)

My classmates were longing to be loved, and to them I was just a harsh noise.  My message was certainly worthwhile, but my delivery was devoid of love.  Not just my own love, but God's.  I was testifying to the validity of the resurrection, the veracity of the scriptures and the weight of fulfilled prophecy. Big deal! God's love is the focus of the Gospel.  Like someone standing in the way while extolling the exquisite frame surrounding a Rembrandt, I had missed the point.

...we know that we all have knowledge.  Knowledge makes arrogant, but love edifies. If anyone supposes that he knows anything, he has not yet known as he ought to know; but if anyone loves God, he is known by Him.  -- 1 Corinthians 8:1-3 (NASB)

Do this day, I have never argued anyone into the Kingdom of God, nor argued anyone out of Mormonism or any other cult.  I sometimes cringe when I think about my high school years and how badly I went about it.  I still love apologetics and while it does result in a few people finding the Lord (Josh McDowell for one!),  the vast majority of people will not be impressed by long lists of reasons for believing.  There is a reason that they call it "defending the faith."  It was never meant to be an attack strategy, and when we try to use it as such it really does become offensive.  


I still like being right (and who doesn't?), but now I like being loved even better.  Not by those people who through ignorance consider my beliefs to be stupid, but loved by God Almighty who, in turn, loves these scoffers.  Although evidence and historical fact played a large part in my early spiritual life, it was clearly not the reason that I first came to God.  God chose me and called me to himself.  I came to him in ignorance as a little child.  I thank God that He did not call me to a brainless or blind faith.  But more than that, I thank Him that He called me in the first place.

No one can come to Me unless the Father who sent Me draws him; and I will raise him up on the last day. -- John 6:44 (NASB)

Clinging to Salvation

In Philip Yancey's book, What's So Amazing About Grace, he relates a story about a friend that decided to test the limits of God's forgiveness (pages 179-180).

The potential for "grace abuse" was brought home to me forcefully in a conversation with a friend I'll call Daniel.  Late one night I sat in a restaurant and listened as Daniel confided to me that he had decided to leave his wife after fifteen years of marriage. He had found someone younger and prettier, someone who "makes me feel alive, like I haven't felt in years."  He and his wife had no strong incompatibilities.  He simply wanted a change, like a man who gets an itch for a newer model car.

A  Christian, Daniel knew knew well the personal and moral consequences of what he was about to do.  His decision to leave would inflict permanent damage on his wife and three children.  Even so, he said, the force pulling him toward the younger woman, like a powerful magnet, was too strong to resist.

I listened to Daniel's story with sadness and grief, saying little as I tried to absorb the news.  Then, during the dessert course, he dropped the bombshell: "Actually, Philip, I have an agenda.  The reason I wanted to see you tonight was to ask you a question that's been bothering me.  You study the Bible. Do you think God can forgive something as awful as I am about to do?"

...

Here is what I told my friend Daniel, in a nutshell. "Can God forgive you?  Of course.  You know the Bible.  God uses murderers and adulterers.  For goodness' sake, a couple of scoundrels named Peter and Paul led the New Testament church.  Forgiveness is our problem, not God's.  What we have to go through to commit sin distances us from God--and there is no guarantee we will ever come back.  You ask me about forgiveness now, but will you even want it later, especially if it involves repentance?"

Yancey's explanation of our tenuous relationship to God's gift of grace was vividly illustrated for me as I watched the movie Cast Away with Tom Hanks.  In the movie, Hank's character,  Chuck Nolan, becomes marooned on a deserted island when the FedEx plane he is on crashes in the South Pacific.  Chuck survives alone on the island for four years.  As a result of his complete isolation, Chuck constructs an imaginary friend, that he names Wilson, from a volleyball that washes up from the plane's cargo.  Near the end of the movie, Chuck manages to build a raft and leave the island taking his only companion, Wilson, with him.

For days he floats on the vast ocean, waiting and hoping to cross paths with a ship and be saved.  One day, while Chuck sleeps exhausted from storms, exposure and hunger, Wilson quietly falls into the water and begins to slowly float away. By the time Chuck realizes what has happened, Wilson is already 20 yards away.  Grabbing a homemade rope tethered to the raft, Chuck leaps into the water and tries to swim to Wilson, all the while yelling desperately, "Wilson! come back! Wilson!"  As Chuck comes to the end of the rope he glances back to the raft and then to Wilson, both are about 30 yards away.  As he continues to cry out to Wilson, you see that he is wrestling with a gut-wrenching decision: let go of the rope and risk losing the raft, or return to the raft and lose Wilson.  In agony, Chuck makes his choice and returns to the raft, all the while crying Wilson's name.

As you watch Chuck, you can't help being affected by his agony and sense of loss.  And yet, the insanity of his predicament is also inescapable.  The line between real and imaginary blurred so much for Chuck that he considered risking his life to save Wilson, a construct of his own imagination.  As I thought about this touching scene, I realized how similar it was to Yancey's friend, Daniel.

Like Chuck, we ofter attach tremendous importance to an earthly relationship or thing that will, in the light of eternity, prove ultimately worthless.  We conjure our own Wilson's, things that we squander our time and affections on.  It doesn't matter to us if our Wilson is incapable of reciprocating our affections because Wilson is all about how Wilson makes us feel.  We face a dilemma: will we abandon salvation to chase our Wilson, or will we abandon Wilson and hold fast to our salvation?  These situations are often heart-wrenching because even though Wilson is imaginary, our affections are very real.  How much more heart-wrenching when we realize that we have chosen something worthless and imaginary over the priceless and eternal.

"Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs."
- Jonah 2:8 (NIV)

Forgiveness

"Pray, then, in this way: 'Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.  And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.'  For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions." - Matthew 6:9-15

Somewhat of an over-acheiver, I graduated college with a degree in math, computers and statistics and a GPA of 3.97. For the next 10 years I buried myself in 24 semi-annual actuarial exams while dragging my growing family back and forth across the country in pursuit of the highest bidder. Finally a full fledged Actuary, I thought I had acheived my dream when someone offered me ownership in a small  consulting practice. The temptation to work long and hard was now stronger than ever.  For the next 3 years I threw myself into my new job working hard building computer systems, websites and marketing materials for what I thought was MY business.  Only it wasn't.

The long promised and long delayed legal documents spelling out my stake in the firm would not be coming.  Ever.  The man I had counted as a partner became like Darth Vader when he said to Lando Calrision, "I'm altering the deal, pray that I don't alter it any further." I was furious! I had been betrayed and lied to! I began to spend my morning shower thinking and praying for justice.  For vengance. God should punish this man. I channelled my anger into more professional exams to beef up my resumé so I could leave, but no job offers came. My bitterness would grow and fester for almost three years, affectng my relationships and even my health.

At long last, I was ready to hear what God was trying to say. While sitting in a pew listening to a sermon on the last part of Ephesians chapter 4, verse 32 jumped out at me.

"...forgiving each other, just as God in Christ also has forgiven you."

Forgiveness was not the topic of the sermon that day, but God had a sermon just for me and I could feel Him tugging at my heart.  Desperately, I tried to find a loop-hole, an escape clause, but knew that there was none.  I had harbored my bitterness for so long that it had almost become a part of me.  Being a Christian from childhood I was no stranger to the concept of forgiveness.  When it's theoretical, when you can stand at a distance and coolly analyze it, forgiveness seems doable.  But when its up-close and personal you realize how truly difficult it can be.  As I sat in that pew, I could feel God trying to drag my bitterness from my clenched fists.  Like a selfish little child clings to a stolen toy I refused to let it go.  This was mine!  My rights had been violated!  I was owed.  Slowly, I could feel my grip loosening and I yielded to that holy tug of war.  I decided to forgive.  I cried.

What surprised me the most was how I felt.  As I made up my mind to forgive, I began to feel more forgiven.  I began to realize that by withholding forgiveness I had limited the power of Jesus blood. I wanted it to be just enough to cover my own sins but not those of my offender.  I wanted Jesus to be my personal savior in a bottle that I could pull out to blot out my own transgressions, but not the sins committed against me.  I had become like one of those men Paul had warned Timothy about.

"...holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power; Avoid such men as these." - 2 Timothy 3:5

But His forgiveness is infinite. His blood more powerful than we could ever imagine.  His blood was not just powerful enough to erase my sins, it was powerful enough to erase the sins of the world.  I felt clean like never before. By holding back my forgiveness I had been limiting God's forgiveness of my own sin.

"Pray, then, in this way: 'Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name. Your kingdom come Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread.  And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors. And do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil. For Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.'  For if you forgive others for their transgressions, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive others, then your Father will not forgive your transgressions." - Matthew 6:9-15

I had always interpreted the last line of this passage as a threat.  Now I saw it as more of an explanation of spiritual reality.  My lack of forgiveness was, at its core, a lack of faith.  Faith in the power of Jesus blood, but also faith in God.  These last two verses are not just a footnote to the Lord's prayer, they are its thesis and the Lord tries to gently lead me there.

I needed some perspective.

"Our Father who is in heaven, hallowed be Your name."

Why am I still here?

"Your kingdom come..."

Was God in control of what had happened to me?

"...Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven..."

Was God in charge of my welfare?

"Give us this day our daily bread."

Did my offender really have any power over my life for evil?

"...do not lead us into temptation, but deliver us from evil."

Forgiveness is the golden thread running through this passage (and the entire Bible).  By attempting to deny forgiveness, I had essentially denied who God is and ruled myself out of the Kingdom.  I felt like a fool for having lived so long and not understood. But, perhaps for the first time, I truly felt forgiven.

The End of My Rope

A close friend of our family in another state has been going through a painful divorce.  Her husband, who has chosen a self-destructive path, began the proceedings over a year ago and has been dragging the whole process out in the courts as he plays the part of the victim and slowly wears away what little money to which his wife has access. 

A couple of weeks ago I heard through the grapevine that a key hearing was approaching at which his lawyer was going to attempt to saddle my friend with a myriad of court costs, liabilities and as little spousal/child support as possible.  Through it all, our friend has continued to cling to God's word and lean on Him in prayer.  I too have prayed fervently that God would protect her and her children and give them justice.

As the time for the hearing came and went, I found myself wondering what God had done for my friend.  My mind wandered to the story of Daniel in the lions' den.  I couldn't help but wonder if I was feeling a little of what King Darius had felt:

When he had come near the den to Daniel, he cried out with a troubled voice. The king spoke and said to Daniel, "Daniel, servant of the living God, has your God, whom you constantly serve, been able to deliver you from the lions?" - Daniel 6:20

As I pondered the story, it occurred to me that Daniel (and his friends) had probably prayed like crazy for some legal loop-hole,  some Perry Mason worthy last minute surprise witness, that would save him.  But then I thought how lame the story would have been if Daniel had merely won his day in court.  No, the whole point of the story was that God didn't save him from the lions den.  God saved him from the lions.  And in order to do that, Daniel's prayers of not getting tossed in had to go unanswered. 

Perhaps my friend's case will fall on the ears of a ruthless judge who has had a bad day.  Maybe her counsel will screw up.  It might be that all of her hopes for a modicum of financial security will be crushed.   Just as I am sure many saw Daniel's descent into the pit as evidence of either God's impotence or His callousness, so do many today view their own unanswered prayers.  Ironically, in Daniel's case, God's supposed weakness was merely a setup for an even greater display of power.  There is a point where mere mortals declare, "Oh, it's definitely over.  They're toast!"  But God delights in breaking our paradigms.  And then I think of Jesus, and it occurs to me that God has used this M.O. before. 

How often do I draw a line in the sand and declare that God must do something before things get to there?  How small is my God?  In doing so I set myself up for disappointment.  God is not constrained by my concept of the end.  When I've come to "the end of my rope" He makes more rope.

Weakness

I knew that I would eventually need one, but crossing that line was a lot harder than I thought.  Over the past month my legs had felt more and more unsteady and I found myself browsing cane sellers on the internet.  Although they did their best to try to make them fashionable, none of them really got past pathetic.  It actually took me about a week of back-and-forth before I finally pulled the trigger and ordered one. 

Up till this point Multiple Sclerosis was my secret to keep.  Because most of the disease's symptoms were not completely obvious, I had had the luxury of informing only the people I thought had a need to know.  The cane would change all that.  Total strangers would know that something was wrong with me.  That I was weak.  But as an embarrassing spill on a public sidewalk slowly shifted from possibility to probability out came the cane.

All the years I had spent trying to fit in went up in smoke in an instant.  I could feel the stares.  I could hear the questioning thoughts:  "What's wrong with him?  Why is he using a cane?"  Suddenly I found myself in an etiquette no-man's land.  Women didn't know whether they should get off the elevator first or let me open doors for them.  I shared their uncertainty.  Should I play the part and walk slower?  Would people think I was faking?  Was the weakness in my legs really just in my head?

All of this brought back memories of adolescence.  Why was I so worried about what other people were thinking about me?  These weren't even people I cared about or who cared about me, they were total strangers.  People who played no roll whatsoever in my life and yet somehow I still craved their approval.  It wasn't my need for a cane that was pathetic, it was my need for approval.   My legs might feel weak, but clearly my character wasn't much stronger.  If this is how I cowered over a stupid walking stick, how would I act over something more important and more controversial?  My cane may have exposed my physical weakness to the world, but it was certainly revealing a deeper weakness in me. 

Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong. - 1 Corinthians 16:13

Diagnosis

I had no idea how difficult it was to come up with a title for a blog that has not already been taken. This difficulty is partly responsible for the above title, the other part is more complicated.

When it was "discovered," the Platypus baffled the scientific establishment.  Reports of the existence of an egg-laying, venomous, duck-billed, beaver-tailed, otter-footed mammal were deemed as sensationalistic or even fraudulent.  Who could blame them?  The animal looks like an accidental mishmash of parts that shouldn't belong to it.  A mistake in God's creature-lab.  Precisely the kind of mascot I needed for my blog.

Sometimes that is what a life feels like.  Certainly that is what my life felt like four years ago.  My career had taken an unexpected turn for the worse and so had my health.  Bitter and stressed out, I began to experience a numbness and tingling in my left hand that wouldn't go away.  The first doctor I visited declared it Carpel-Tunnel Syndrome (CTS) and prescribed a wrist brace.

After doing a little research on the web, I discovered that CTS was the lesser of two evils.  My other option was not nearly as palatable.  Two weeks went by and my numbness hadn't improved, instead it had spread to my right hand as well.  A second doctor performed a nerve conduction test that ruled out CTS.  Hoping it was simply a pinched nerve, he suggested I improve my posture and sent me off to a physical therapist.

When I started getting electric like shocks up my spinal cord, followed by brief immobility on my right side, I knew what my diagnosis was: Multiple-Sclerosis.  The first Neurologist I went to was incredulous, declaring me too old (I was 38) to have developed the disease.  Two days and ten-thousand dollars worth of MRIs later he apologized profusely as he confirmed my own diagnosis.  I promptly switched doctors.

As I pondered the vast landscape of possible paths to eventual disability (MS progression is anything but predictable), I questioned God's affection and His intentions.  I had been an outspoken Christian since grade-school.  Growing up on a steady diet of "God's wonderful plan for your life" and "Jesus, your personal Savior," it became suddenly hard-to-swallow.  I didn't feel wonderful and God didn't feel very personal, rather I felt like a discarded pawn in a cosmic chess game.  I took the view that God cared more about His grand plan than my pathetic hopes and dreams.

During this period I found a measure of comfort in C.S. Lewis' short autobiographical A Grief Observed.  Like Lewis, I was in mourning.  He over the loss of his wife, I over the loss of a future without disability.  I didn't stop going to church, or reading my Bible.  Instead I approached them both with new suspicions, looking for confirmation of my nascent views that God was an impersonal deity who cared only for the greater good and not for the individual. 

Unfortunately, no confirmation was forthcoming and slowly, as Lewis described in his book it was like Winter turning to Spring, my icy view of God began to melt and give way.  There was never a pivotal moment, just a slow thawing.  I had no explanation, nothing to which I could point to and say, "that's why I have M.S."  Somehow I felt that even though I didn't comprehend how this might be for my good, I couldn't shake the feeling that it was.

As I struggled with these thoughts, our little dog, Max, developed painful stones in his bladder and had to have surgery.  After the surgery came the obligatory little head cone to stop him from chewing on his stitches.  The cone was big enough that it made it difficult for him to walk in the grass, so we would remove it when he went outside.  At first he would resist having the cone put back on when he came back inside, but eventually he would just give you a sad look and obediently stick his head into the cone.  He'd accepted his new lot in life and was moving on.  He even learned how to use the cone to catch treats that were tossed his way (he's a horrible catch). 

As I thought about poor Max and all he was going through, it occurred to me that this whole process must seem like some cruel torture routine.  He had no way of connecting the pain in his stomach to the surgery or the cone on his head, and we had no way explain it to his little doggy brain.  The analogy was obvious.  Maybe there was a reason for my incurable disease, but one my finite mind could not possibly understand.  My lack of understanding had led me to dismiss God as uncaring and impersonal.  Instead I should have dismissed my own ability to understand my circumstances.

Like some people's reaction to the platypus, my initial reaction to my unfortunate turn was to declare God's plan for my life a haux and His love a lie.  Surely nothing this obviously accidental could really have been planned, could it?   And even if it had been planned it was clearly not to my benefit, was it?  Although I still have no solid evidence to the contrary, I am beginning to believe in both.

"And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose."   - Romans 8:28