I went to dinner with a friend the other night. I've known her for a few months, and she's a wonderful person. I always enjoy her company, and I respect and love her beyond words. I'm not really sure what she thinks of me.
We met through a mutual friend, and ended up spending a lot of time together when our mutual friend got a boyfriend. Since June, we've been through more than our share of broken rules, near-death car rides, and deeply spiritual conversations late into the night. The relationship we share is very special and I hope it lasts for a long time.
To me, she's one of two people I can really open up to. Of those two people, she's the one that is more likely to be in the same place I am. She's more likely to get in trouble with me than most of my other friends, and much more likely to have a candid conversation about personal and spiritual things than other people. On top of that, she just likes people -- by default, I don't have to earn her liking me. I've even done some stupid things that she probably didn't like, but she still likes me. So if I'm lonely, or confused, or depressed, or happy, or restless, I go to her. I see her as my best friend.
Like I said, though, I don't really know what she thinks of me. I know she likes me and mostly enjoys spending time with me, but I don't know the real, gritty relationship things. I don't know what I might sometimes do that really gets under her skin. I don't know what she silently wishes I would do or say or think. Most importantly, I don't know whether she seeks out my company or desires to be with me.
This is one of the difficulties in having a relationship with another human being. Both parties have distinct, separate lives. They may share any number of things in common, but neither can ever fully know the other or understand the other. It's just the nature of being human that we can't connect fully with another human. We all have fears and desires that we don't talk about. There are things in my life that I've never told anyone else about.
Having close friends, I always feel like I'm walking a tightrope, performing some balancing act. At my most relaxed I'm still self-conscious, afraid that I'll do or say something that someone else doesn't like and it will damage the relationship I have with them.
I have no concluding thoughts on this issue. I don't think I will this side of heaven. I'm sure, though, that I will become even more aware as time passes of the unbridgeable gap between myself and every other consciousness in the world...and of the implications that has for my relationship with God.
18 August 2008
17 August 2008
Conscience Decision
Underage drinking is a bad idea. I learned this the fun way, by trying it. This is not a story about the evils of underage drinking. This is a story about choices and perspective. Alcohol isn't really a big deal, the way I see it...but, like anything material, it can be problematic for the human soul.
Me and some friends were off work for the day, and decided we wanted to have some fun. A couple of us were twenty-one and the rest of us convinced them to proxy our plans. It was pretty simple and basically harmless. We wanted alcohol because we liked alcohol, and it wasn't going to hurt anybody and we weren't going to get drunk.
So I drove a friend's car to the liquor store and we all chipped in some cash so one of the older guys could go in and get us stuff. We got whiskey, vodka, whiskey, flavored whiskey, and some more whiskey -- enough liquor to knock out an army of overweight bikers. Then, since we wanted to have some girls join in on our fun, we went to Bi-Lo and picked up enough Smirnoff and Mojito to drown the U.S. Olympic swim team. With a trunk and back seat clinking with bottles of liquid happiness, we headed back towards home turf.
We didn't make it out of the Bi-Lo parking lot before we were stopped by a woman on foot. Given our present engagement in overtly illicit behavior, we were all somewhat nervous about people in general. We were all acting exactly like people who are up to no good act -- pretending we weren't doing anything at all, and constantly looking over our shoulders and hiding our faces. For some reason, acting nonchalant makes people act like paranoid schizophrenics rather than normal, law abiding citizens. Still, we stopped the car and rolled down a window.
The woman who stopped us wasn't a police officer, and she wasn't anyone any of us knew. She was just poor. She told us about her starving children and her desperate need of charity. She asked us to buy her a gallon of milk and some bread. Normally, I'd be happy to buy a poor lady milk and bread -- I'm devoting years of my life to studying community development, and I love poor people. My heart went out to that woman, whether or not she was being truthful. I knew I should help her. We all knew we should help her. So we all did the honorable thing and told her we'd love to help except none of us had any money at all, and we were sorry and would pray for her.
If you ever want to feel like a complete wretch, blow all your spending money on liquor and then tell a homeless woman you don't have any money to buy her milk and bread. That's morally on par with corrupt African government officials keeping foreign aid money for themselves. That's like embezzling in a charity organization. It's like stealing from a soup kitchen. Short of killing someone, there's not much you can do that's worse than what we all did. That's how I felt then, and it's how I feel now.
I'd like to write about how we all realized the error of our ways, returned our alcohol, and did penance at a local food bank, all the while with humble, penitent tears in our eyes. Unfortunately, that's not what happened. A few people bailed on the plan when we got back, just because they felt so guilty, but nobody did anything about it. Nobody even said anything about it. Me and some of the guys still drank the stuff we bought and had a good time. We enjoyed ourselves and put out of our minds any thought of the begging homeless woman in the Bi-Lo parking lot.
If only the worst thing I'd done was break the law. Broken rules I can handle. They don't really hurt much, you just have to deal with the consequences. It's the profound agony of having silenced your own conscience that is absolutely impossible to face. There's no slap on the wrist for that. In fact, there are no consequences at all. Just that gut-wrenching, empty feeling where you know you're the scum of the earth. Acting diametrically against what you know to be right and good, and following through to the end, doing exactly what you always wanted most not to do...becoming what you hate...that's what I did that day.
I say all this not to advertise my bad behavior, but as a warning to myself and to anyone who reads this. Do not play with darkness. Make wise choices that won't put you in morally and spiritually compromising situations.
And, above all, it's never too early or too late to change course and do what you know you should.
"No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it."
1 Corinthians 10:13
Me and some friends were off work for the day, and decided we wanted to have some fun. A couple of us were twenty-one and the rest of us convinced them to proxy our plans. It was pretty simple and basically harmless. We wanted alcohol because we liked alcohol, and it wasn't going to hurt anybody and we weren't going to get drunk.
So I drove a friend's car to the liquor store and we all chipped in some cash so one of the older guys could go in and get us stuff. We got whiskey, vodka, whiskey, flavored whiskey, and some more whiskey -- enough liquor to knock out an army of overweight bikers. Then, since we wanted to have some girls join in on our fun, we went to Bi-Lo and picked up enough Smirnoff and Mojito to drown the U.S. Olympic swim team. With a trunk and back seat clinking with bottles of liquid happiness, we headed back towards home turf.
We didn't make it out of the Bi-Lo parking lot before we were stopped by a woman on foot. Given our present engagement in overtly illicit behavior, we were all somewhat nervous about people in general. We were all acting exactly like people who are up to no good act -- pretending we weren't doing anything at all, and constantly looking over our shoulders and hiding our faces. For some reason, acting nonchalant makes people act like paranoid schizophrenics rather than normal, law abiding citizens. Still, we stopped the car and rolled down a window.
The woman who stopped us wasn't a police officer, and she wasn't anyone any of us knew. She was just poor. She told us about her starving children and her desperate need of charity. She asked us to buy her a gallon of milk and some bread. Normally, I'd be happy to buy a poor lady milk and bread -- I'm devoting years of my life to studying community development, and I love poor people. My heart went out to that woman, whether or not she was being truthful. I knew I should help her. We all knew we should help her. So we all did the honorable thing and told her we'd love to help except none of us had any money at all, and we were sorry and would pray for her.
If you ever want to feel like a complete wretch, blow all your spending money on liquor and then tell a homeless woman you don't have any money to buy her milk and bread. That's morally on par with corrupt African government officials keeping foreign aid money for themselves. That's like embezzling in a charity organization. It's like stealing from a soup kitchen. Short of killing someone, there's not much you can do that's worse than what we all did. That's how I felt then, and it's how I feel now.
I'd like to write about how we all realized the error of our ways, returned our alcohol, and did penance at a local food bank, all the while with humble, penitent tears in our eyes. Unfortunately, that's not what happened. A few people bailed on the plan when we got back, just because they felt so guilty, but nobody did anything about it. Nobody even said anything about it. Me and some of the guys still drank the stuff we bought and had a good time. We enjoyed ourselves and put out of our minds any thought of the begging homeless woman in the Bi-Lo parking lot.
If only the worst thing I'd done was break the law. Broken rules I can handle. They don't really hurt much, you just have to deal with the consequences. It's the profound agony of having silenced your own conscience that is absolutely impossible to face. There's no slap on the wrist for that. In fact, there are no consequences at all. Just that gut-wrenching, empty feeling where you know you're the scum of the earth. Acting diametrically against what you know to be right and good, and following through to the end, doing exactly what you always wanted most not to do...becoming what you hate...that's what I did that day.
I say all this not to advertise my bad behavior, but as a warning to myself and to anyone who reads this. Do not play with darkness. Make wise choices that won't put you in morally and spiritually compromising situations.
And, above all, it's never too early or too late to change course and do what you know you should.
"No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can stand up under it."
1 Corinthians 10:13
08 April 2008
Preparation
The sun was rising in the east, it was Monday, and Jeremy's window was filled with the glowing light of morning. The light woke Jeremy up, and in a happily half-awakened daze he sat up and looked out the window. It was a beautiful day outside, and he couldn't wait to get out and enjoy it. He ran out of his room, slid down the banister on the stairs, and nearly smashed through the front door before his mother, who had discerned his intent, called to him.
"Jeremy Thomas Smith!" She called, in the way that scolding mothers do, "What do you think you're doing going outside with no shirt on?"
Reluctantly, Jeremy went back to his room to don the proper attire for going outside. He then repeated the last sentence of the first paragraph.
"Jeremy Thomas Smith!" Mrs. Smith yelled in a somewhat more scolding way, "You haven't even had breakfast yet! You can't go outside without having breakfast and doing your chores."
By the time Jeremy finished breakfast and chores, it was time to leave for school. That lasted from nine until three, and nothing noteworthy happened (that is, judging by Jeremy's lack of notes). Already, the day was mostly gone.
When Jeremy got home, he found out that he had forgotten some of his chores, and had to finish those, which took until 4. Then, his mother told him he couldn't go outside until he had put on sunscreen, of which there was none in the house. Jeremy and his mother went to the store to buy some, and by the time they got home it was almost 5.
Finally, Jeremy could go outside, but his mother demanded that he be back by dark. So Jeremy, his excitement blunted by the long day and his zeal murdered by the dark side of monotony, went outside to play.
The sun set around 6:30, and Jeremy had to go inside to eat dinner. What was a beautiful day lasted only an hour and a half for Jeremy, and he went inside -- not with a satisfied feeling of fatigue after a well-spent day, but with the feeling of unfinished business and disappointment at all of the proverbial hoops he'd been made to jump through before he got a little bit of what he wanted. The day ended all too soon, and Jeremy went to bed knowing he'd wasted almost the whole thing.
The world, he concluded, is a cruel place indeed.
-------------------------
Someone remind me why I'm in college again...
"Jeremy Thomas Smith!" She called, in the way that scolding mothers do, "What do you think you're doing going outside with no shirt on?"
Reluctantly, Jeremy went back to his room to don the proper attire for going outside. He then repeated the last sentence of the first paragraph.
"Jeremy Thomas Smith!" Mrs. Smith yelled in a somewhat more scolding way, "You haven't even had breakfast yet! You can't go outside without having breakfast and doing your chores."
By the time Jeremy finished breakfast and chores, it was time to leave for school. That lasted from nine until three, and nothing noteworthy happened (that is, judging by Jeremy's lack of notes). Already, the day was mostly gone.
When Jeremy got home, he found out that he had forgotten some of his chores, and had to finish those, which took until 4. Then, his mother told him he couldn't go outside until he had put on sunscreen, of which there was none in the house. Jeremy and his mother went to the store to buy some, and by the time they got home it was almost 5.
Finally, Jeremy could go outside, but his mother demanded that he be back by dark. So Jeremy, his excitement blunted by the long day and his zeal murdered by the dark side of monotony, went outside to play.
The sun set around 6:30, and Jeremy had to go inside to eat dinner. What was a beautiful day lasted only an hour and a half for Jeremy, and he went inside -- not with a satisfied feeling of fatigue after a well-spent day, but with the feeling of unfinished business and disappointment at all of the proverbial hoops he'd been made to jump through before he got a little bit of what he wanted. The day ended all too soon, and Jeremy went to bed knowing he'd wasted almost the whole thing.
The world, he concluded, is a cruel place indeed.
-------------------------
Someone remind me why I'm in college again...
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