The logic of opposites
Christian doctrines, in fact, the entire basis of Christianity, defy commensensical human logic. It asks that you surrender, in order to have victory. It preaches that death to self, is the only way to eternal life. A violent death at the hands of angry men on the cross - the only way for peace to reign on earth. The sins of ALL, visited upon ONE, so that ALL may be reconciled, to The ONE.
Paul muses upon this dichotomy in Romans Chapter 7:
15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.
19For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.
-- The everlasting tussle between the sinful human nature, wrought with the inherent pain, temptations, and self-centredness of the world - and the purity of the higher calling demanded by a Holy God.
The call to surrender is clear and uncompromising. Wholehearted, unyielding surrender. To a point where you can assuage your own soul convincingly that you have died to your natural desires and turned your back for good on the things you clamoured to possess. It requires that you pry open your fists, finger by finger, and release all that you have always sought to control, and most importantly, yourself.
Our lives are unwittingly a deadweight. Though an overused analogy, our lives are perhaps most appropriately tied to the image of a kite. We long to soar free in our patch of clear blue skies, yet are tied down by the strings controlling us. But what we oft fail to see is that our own hands are grasping tightly onto the strings. The winds that come to carry us off to a better place can only push us gently along, but our world remains as limited as the radius of our control.
And so the tussle goes on - the winds urging us on to fly higher and further, and the strings pulling even tighter for fear of losing ourselves to the unknown, and the poor little kite jerks around violently, an unwilling party to this conundrum of conflicting emotions and warring desires. Until one day, either a strong jerk drags the kite unglamourously tumbling down to a warped sense of human reality, or the fingers slowly opening up one by one, the kite is finally set free to reach its ultimate potential, a journey into the vast rich azure of our destiny.
Only then, when we do what we naturally would not want to do, can we finally be, who we've always wanted to be.
Paul muses upon this dichotomy in Romans Chapter 7:
15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.
19For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.
-- The everlasting tussle between the sinful human nature, wrought with the inherent pain, temptations, and self-centredness of the world - and the purity of the higher calling demanded by a Holy God.
The call to surrender is clear and uncompromising. Wholehearted, unyielding surrender. To a point where you can assuage your own soul convincingly that you have died to your natural desires and turned your back for good on the things you clamoured to possess. It requires that you pry open your fists, finger by finger, and release all that you have always sought to control, and most importantly, yourself.
Our lives are unwittingly a deadweight. Though an overused analogy, our lives are perhaps most appropriately tied to the image of a kite. We long to soar free in our patch of clear blue skies, yet are tied down by the strings controlling us. But what we oft fail to see is that our own hands are grasping tightly onto the strings. The winds that come to carry us off to a better place can only push us gently along, but our world remains as limited as the radius of our control.
And so the tussle goes on - the winds urging us on to fly higher and further, and the strings pulling even tighter for fear of losing ourselves to the unknown, and the poor little kite jerks around violently, an unwilling party to this conundrum of conflicting emotions and warring desires. Until one day, either a strong jerk drags the kite unglamourously tumbling down to a warped sense of human reality, or the fingers slowly opening up one by one, the kite is finally set free to reach its ultimate potential, a journey into the vast rich azure of our destiny.
Only then, when we do what we naturally would not want to do, can we finally be, who we've always wanted to be.
posted by idea-expression dichotomy | 12:37 pm
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