That's Why I Hold With All I Have

You’re at the grocery store and you’re making small talk with the cashier. As your items are being rung up, the bagger asks if you want paper or plastic. Initially, you want to go with paper. You are, after all, an environmentally conscientious person who knows that paper degrades easier than plastic, and you wouldn’t want to do anything to hurt the ozone. On top of that, these paper bags bring your mind to simpler days where your mom would pack your sack lunches which always included those kind notes that brightened your day. Yet you look at the items that you have just purchased and your eyes rest on the eggs. A paper bag has far more fragile handles than its plastic counterpart, and you are struck by the time you were carrying eggs into your house when these flimsy handles suddenly gave out. As the bag crashed to the grounds, you heard the popping explosions of 2 dozen eggs smashed simultaneously and see the yokes seeping through the bag, contaminating those Hostess cupcakes you were looking forward to enjoying. Though this has only happened once, once is enough to be traumatized forever. So what do you pick?

It has been a few months since you got that job folding clothing for Macy’s. Not the most prestigious of jobs but the hours are flexible and help you to work while you are making your way through school. However, a few months of JUST folding clothing is a long time. Already, you’re growing weary as you near the half-point of your shift, dreading the coming two and a half hours. You monotonously fold another shirt. Right sleeve, left sleeve, find the crease that falls in the center and then fold it in half, make sure the collar faces the top. Why should you be made this tired and this depressed (on top of the schoolwork that you have to do) only for a few extra dollars? College is only for a few years, so make the most of it. And how much are you really learning in college when you are just depressed and tired the whole time? Yet college is very (very) expensive. Unlike your friends who are squandering what little savings they have on partying, you are working to pay back your student loans and getting job experience that will put your resume ahead of your hedonistic counterparts. You think briefly about those whose parents are paying for their schooling, but you’re saddened in knowing that they are not learning about the value of money and are probably going to have to degrade themselves later in life by cheating and lying to acquire the lifestyle that they have become accustomed to, being slaves to their self-indulgence. You reflect on how true happiness comes from practicing virtue and how you will not be enslaved to anything, be it a paycheck or greedy and gluttonous desires. Maybe of your friends are having a better time now, but when you retire at fifty and begin to sail the world with your wife after your children leave for college, you know that you’ll be able to look back and not regret the sacrifices you had to make along the way. But not everyone is guaranteed to reach fifty. So what do you pick?

You stare out the window into your driveway, tears in your eyes. You see your distraught husband fumble with the keys and drop them beneath the car while he’s trying to unlock the door. As he slowly lowers himself to his knees so he can blindly grope around for them, you wonder if you are being too harsh. It’s not like he was having an affair. It was a moment of weakness for him; he was in a bad place because of work and you were too busy with your community outreach to be there for him that night. You thought that him seeing his friends would cheer him up, especially this Sarah that you’ve been hearing so much about. You never suspected that she might have feelings for him, and he insisted that he didn’t know anything about that. It was, after all, her fault. She took advantage of the place that he was in, and he never would have given in if she wasn’t trying to get him to drink more under the pretense of “feeling better.” Besides, if you could get through this, then your marriage would be that much stronger. Every marriage needs a wakeup call, and now you can begin to address the problems and watch as your relationship becomes ever better. To forgive is divine, and how romantic would it be to head out of the house last minute and tell him that you believe he can be a great and wonderful man, and that you are willing to walk with him through his change. Yet maybe you should have some more respect for yourself. He knew what he was doing when he went to a bar with only one girlfriend of his. He’s not an idiot. He didn’t need to invite her. Scott would have been more than happy to have gone with him instead. He broke his marital vows and he is paying the price that any unfaithful spouse deserves to pay. If he’s feeling so distraught, why not just go to Sarah to make himself feel better? He had no problem with it before. If he were to cheat once, what’s to guarantee that he would not do it again? You’d be basing your marital life under the belief that he will change, but no one can guarantee that things will get better. All you can do is hope, and you may just be a fool for hoping it. It is irrational to think that a sweeping gesture on your part will bring about any real change. Sure, it may bring about change for a few months, but what about when he has the stress of kids? The stress of losing a job? The stress of losing his parents? If he cannot be faithful just after a lousy day, what will he be like when his life gets even harder? But you love him. You really do love him. So what do you pick?

You knew that, at some point, it would come to this. You slowly make your way to the gallows, hearing each step creak along the way. You wonder if it was all worth it. You’ve had integrity, you fought for freedom. You spoke out publicly against the tyrant and garnered support. Too long have you been not allowed to make decisions, too long have you been enslaved. You want to be a real person, not just some idle worker who just does what they are told and nothing beyond that. Seeing the truth, you tried to help others. You tried to instill a sense of liberty in them so that you could all, at some point, be free. You worked in secret at first, but people were slow to listen and only spoke out when they felt safe. As it went well, more and more people wanted to resist. It was time to make a public stand, it was time for you to speak out against oppression! But they found out. Somehow, they found out. Someone must have talked, but you don’t know who. It doesn’t really matter. Yet as they place the noose around your neck, your executioner begs you to reconsider. “Just recant your stance. It’s not like you have much to lose. They even promised you a place of power if you did. Your life would be better than it ever could have been if you just recant now.” It’s true. Your life would be better. They are good to their people, and you would certainly become one of them. Perhaps you would even be in a better position. You would not be a rebel, but a convert. Someone who they could listen to in due time. Governments can change, and perhaps you should have faith in the system. It has been around for a while, and less people would have to suffer if you could work through the system. And what’s to guarantee that, after one tyrant is overthrown, another wouldn’t rise up in his place. So what do you pick?

Too often do we face decisions that have no clear outcome. Time is fleeting, and days are evil. Every moment leaves and never comes back, and whatever choice we made is what we have to live with. Most decisions are inconsequential and are easy to pick between. Clearly, it was a good option for me to wear shoes today and not cut up my feet on the ground. Clearly, getting cheesecake instead of ice cream was the right choice because I’ve been craving cheesecake all week. Yet even these decisions you can begin to play with to see how things could have been different. If I had gone barefoot and cut up my feet, maybe I could have struck up a good conversation with the cute nurse who is taking care of me. If I decided to get ice cream even though I was craving cheesecake, maybe I could have met my friend at the ice cream bar and been able to talk them through a tough situation that they are dealing with (after all, friends only get ice cream when they’re severely depressed). If you base your decisions on logic or emotions, you are sometimes forced into a situation where both the logical answer and the emotional ones are good answers. But time is short, and you will never have that moment again, so you have to pick well. Even choosing not to make a decision but just see what comes is a decision, and it affects you. So what do you do?

You know who you want to be, and what you should do for the world.

You are either a man who is willing to inconvenience himself for the ozone or a man who knows how important practicality and rational living is. You are either a person who fosters relationships or one who plans for the future. You are either a romantic who tries to inspire confidence at great personal cost or a realist who refuses to let anyone get away with abuse, injustice, and infidelity. You are either the hero who died for his ideals or the healer who sacrificed what he believed to try and save lives.

There is rarely such a thing as a clear-cut decision. But, if you know who you are and who you want to be (and that who you want to be is in fact a good thing) decisions will be more obvious to make. I’m not saying that life will be easier on you, in fact, the more you know about yourself the more emotionally difficult it is to make a decision and turn down something that is potentially good. I can promise one thing though. When you need to make a decision, you will straighten up, stand tall, and model, with authority, clarity, and conviction, who you are.

A Merciful Response to Mercy

“A gentleman is someone who tries to make everyone feel comfortable around him.” (This applies to gentlewomen too. A friend said this to me.)

A few months ago, a few days after Easter, I was in a comic book store. While I was there, I overheard a conversation that a 30-ish-year-old customer was having with the store owner about Easter at his house. Evidently, the two of them were on familiar terms (I was a bit jealous). But their conversation, which was mostly the 30-ish-year-old customer talking, piqued my interested. It went something like this:

“My mother always makes us pray before our meal on Easter and then spends some time talking about Easter. Every Easter. Knowing full well what I think. How could she be any more disrespectful? She knows full well that I do not agree with her. It's so aggravating!”

“Sounds like it.”

“So this year, I resolved to myself that she wouldn't be able to get away with her dogmatism. So, after she said her bit, I stood up, thanked my mom, and said ‘Now, a few of us don’t share this same belief, so I’ll go ahead and talk about what I find important about this holiday.’ I talked about peace and brotherhood and celebrating humanity (I forget the actually traits that he listed).”

“Good for you!”

“She just gets me so angry sometimes. It’s like ‘Hello? Some of us think differently than you. You don’t need to shove your views down our throats.’”

I’m not the best story teller, so thank you for reading through my rendition of the events. Hopefully, it can at least put an image in your mind. I think that it is a common image of children being frustrated with their parents'  beliefs and feeling an inability to express themselves. All-in-all, I understand a desire to wanting to be fully known, but I find what this 30-ish-year-old to have been very unmerciful in expressing his desire.

Most people think of mercy as withholding punishment from someone who deserves it, which is many times what it is. But there is a day-to-day mercy that looks different from this. It is the mercy that allows a person to do what is normal and what is good when they could be cruel with no ramifications.

When you are in a position of power and doing bad things because you can, you are called merciless. We praise rulers for doing good things with their power, but it is rare that we praise them for having restraint. Yet just letting people behave the way that they want when you can control them in certainly an act of mercy. In the instance of a conversation, it is merciful to behave well and try and share information with your fellow man instead of dominating a conversation with your own views. It is the difference between sharing yourself and forcing yourself upon others.

Perhaps the mother in the conversation above is a merciless tyrant. She rules her house with an iron-fist and does not let any view stand other than her religious convictions. Perhaps she ruthlessly condemns her atheist son for his sinful beliefs and tries to force piety upon him. This tyrannical picture is not uncommon, and herson is trying to strike a blow for liberty. But tyrants are often replaced by other tyrants.

But that isn’t how she sounded to me. She sounded like an aged lady with a warm glowing smile who grew up in her religion and accepts it to be true. The type of person who shares her religion out of a love for it, and who probably spends her nights with her Bible praying for her son because she believes that her God brings true happiness and contentment.

If that is the case, her son is merciless indeed.

How dare he try and confront and fix an old woman’s simple, deep, and time-honored religion. What he sees as being oppressive thought is her trying to share her joy, and she does this with no malice and with no sense of force. Out of her love, she wishes to share. Out of his selfishness and insecurity, he wishes to silence her. Her love shares power with him so he has permission to get up and speak in her home; he is a guest in her house and she, the host, has every right to not let him speak. Yet what he does with her gift is try and smash what was sacred to his mother because, like any insecure fool, any viewpoint that is clearly stated and opposite to his own is a threat.

He thinks he is clever because he got away with what he said, but it was his mother’s mercy that allowed him to say it. He responded mercilessly to the merciful.

After he gave his speech at dinner, this is how I imagine his mother’s reaction. She was probably just smiling and happy that she got to hear her son speak. She would lean over and talk to him, trying to find out more about why he loves Easter as an atheist. Having every right to pick a fight with him for his disrespectful tone, she would let him leave at the end of the day, smile, and sincerely tell him that he is welcome to come at any time. Then, when she is alone in her home, she would pray for him, saying something like this:

“Lord, thank you for my son, who is made in your image. Thank you that he can find joy in Easter, and I pray that his joy can become stronger by finding it in you.”