Disearning Between a Gift and a Cruse

I have to take a brief reprieve from writing about aging to writing about this issue of the curse Vs a gift. But it is related to my posting on aging.

I heard a Christian speaker say once, when referring to her cancer, that it was “A gift from God.” It seems like she had written a book with the same title but I couldn’t find it for this post. She was also struggling with some serious cancer, I think ether breast or ovarian. But it was life-threatening, and may have eventually taken her life.

So, I was thinking about this when it comes to my description of the “Curse of Aging.” Someone commented a couple of posts ago that aging is part of the Fall and I, whole heartedly, believe this.

But I think it is hard for society at large and especially for Christian society to be critical or complain about anything. It makes Christians very uncomfortable and I think it is part of this mantra that we must always be nice above all else. One of my Church history books (and I can’t look it up right now) referred to the Victorian age as the “Cult of Respectability, or Niceness.” I recently posted about the book I was reading, The Way of All Flesh, and how it was about a young man being saved from the hell of “niceness.”

An extreme example of this kind of niceness was in the little Missionary Baptist church, which I attended as a child. The Sunday school director, Jack, was chronically molesting young boys for decades. He never got a hold of me but he did my brother once. But it was a known fact. But when mothers, including my own, would complain that their little boys had been sexually molested (and this was in the sixties) they were told that they were “old women gossips” and for the sake of the church keep quiet. Everyone, especially the men of the church, turned a blind eye. After all, Jack was a clean-cut, hard working man who didn’t drink alcohol or say bad words. But it was this cult of niceness that gave Jack the freedom to have his way with the boys and fly beneath the radar.

My point is this; sometimes there is just shit . . . and no pony. There is often no sliver lining to a situation and that is the nature of the Fall of Adam.

I figured this out a long time ago when I was listening to a lecture by Francis Schaeffer (whom I refer to a lot). He made the comment that Christianity is the only belief system that allows us to shake our fists at pain, suffering, death and etc. without shaking our fists at God. The former is the CURSE and not a GIFT of the later.

It dawned on me that our purpose in this life isn’t to go around like Pollyanna putting a bright side and rainbow on everything. Indeed I see my Christian friends squirm if I, honestly, say something negative about Denise or my car won’t start, or something broke. I hope that Denise knows that she has the freedom to speak her mind about me. I’m not talking about being malicious. I’m taking about being honest. I’m full of failures which should piss her off.

So, aging is a curse and we don’t have to weave it into a “gift” to make sense of it. We were created for eternity and that eternity has had a great interruption . . . precisely growing old and dying. It really sucks!

So, I give anyone who is listening (as if they need to hear this from me) the permission to shake their fists at the curse. Cancer sucks! Pain sucks! Suffering sucks! Injustice in the world sucks! I honestly think that Jesus felt the suck-i-ness of the world more than anyone.

Now, gifts, that’s a different story. We can smile and thank God for them. I thank God that I’m not in much pain right now. I thank God for my children, for the beautiful place in which I live, for the thrill of gliding a kayak over Puget Sound, for the taste (and the means to purchase) the mocha that I’m enjoying or the thrill of climbing high on Mount Baker. I thank God for the 98% of compatibility and love that I share with my wife. I CAN paint rainbows all over those things. I thank God for my little grand son, Oliver and his big smile. Those things aren’t curses but gifts.

But back to the curses, to acknowledge that they are shit, pure and simple, in my opinion is to agree with God. There is nothing unspiritual about venting about those things.

Sure, we can try to make the best of suffering. That is really a no-brainer and not even a choice. Well, the only other choice is suicide. So to acknowledge the suffering doesn’t imply that we are not “trying to make the best of it.”

Sometimes I wonder if an additional church service or sacrament is lamenting. Can you imagine a (healthy) church service where the congregation screams, tears their clothes and curses their mother’s cancer, their son’s depression, their father’s death, their own rheumatoid arthritis and the injustice of their niece being rapped? It would be a good book-end to praise services when we give God thanks for His gifts.

I remember sitting in a church’s praise service once. It was during the time in my life that I was most depressed. I had been contemplating suicide. It was surreal to sit for an hour and hear people go on and on how wonderful life was. One young lady, who always had to be the center of attention during every church service, went on for 25 minutes about her new puppy. I was dying inside. I had tried to talk about my personal pain a few times and was quickly hushed.

Maybe it is because I work in a pain clinic and I am use to spending my entire day, every day, crying with people and listening quietly as they lament about their suffering. It feels natural. But they better not dare to raise their voice in the church setting.

So, I have no apologies for sounding negative at times. There is a place for frowning and complaining, even if it makes others uncomfortable. Shit happens.

The Curse of Aging

While I'm waiting to get my feet back on the ground (after being out of town) I wanted to continue in this thought about again by posting a poem by Longfellow.

I visited my boyhood home last fall and felt much of what he writes. I hope to be back to continue my own thoughts soon.

My Lost Youth

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Often I think of the beautiful town
That is seated by the sea;
Often in thought go up and down
The pleasant streets of that dear old town,
And my youth comes back to me.
And a verse of a Lapland song
Is haunting my memory still:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I can see the shadowy lines of its trees,
And catch, in sudden gleams,
The sheen of the far-surrounding seas,
And islands that were the Hesperides
Of all my boyish dreams.
And the burden of that old song,
It murmurs and whispers still:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I remember the black wharves and the ships,
And the sea-tides tossing free;
And Spanish sailors with bearded lips,
And the beauty and mystery of the ships,
And the magic of the sea.
And the voice of that wayward song
Is singing and saying still:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I remember the bulwarks by the shore,
And the fort upon the hill;
The sunrise gun, with its hollow roar,
The drum-beat repeated o'er and o'er,
And the bugle wild and shrill.
And the music of that old song
Throbs in my memory still:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I remember the sea-fight far away,
How it thundered o'er the tide!
And the dead captains, as they lay
In their graves, o'erlooking the tranquil bay
Where they in battle died.
And the sound of that mournful song
Goes through me with a thrill:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I can see the breezy dome of groves,
The shadows of Deering's Woods;
And the friendships old and the early loves
Come back with a Sabbath sound, as of doves
In quiet neighborhoods.
And the verse of that sweet old song,
It flutters and murmurs still:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

I remember the gleams and glooms that dart
Across the school-boy's brain;
The song and the silence in the heart,
That in part are prophecies, and in part
Are longings wild and vain.
And the voice of that fitful song
Sings on, and is never still:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

There are things of which I may not speak;
There are dreams that cannot die;
There are thoughts that make the strong heart weak,
And bring a pallor into the cheek,
And a mist before the eye.
And the words of that fatal song
Come over me like a chill:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

Strange to me now are the forms I meet
When I visit the dear old town;
But the native air is pure and sweet,
And the trees that o'ershadow each well-known street,
As they balance up and down,
Are singing the beautiful song,
Are sighing and whispering still:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

And Deering's Woods are fresh and fair,
And with joy that is almost pain
My heart goes back to wander there,
And among the dreams of the days that were,
I find my lost youth again.
And the strange and beautiful song,
The groves are repeating it still:
"A boy's will is the wind's will,
And the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts."

Mere Churchianity Makes it Big Time

Okay, I will get back to my conversation about aging when I get the chance to put some serious thoughts down.

But I have to tell a story, albeit brief.

Yesterday I walked into the largest Barnes and Noble store I've ever seen. It was almost a full block and three stories high. It is also situated in one of the most media sensitive places on earth . . . in Hollywood (precisely in the "Farmers' Market" complex).

On the outside of the huge bookstore were huge posters of famous guest due in the coming week for book signings. First, it was Queen Latifah doing a book signing. Next was Kathy Griffin and her mother.

I walked through the big, glass automatic doors. There, right in the middle of the entrance was a shelve with the listing, "New Releases." At the center of that was Michael Spencer's Mere Churchianity. I had a warm feeling for Michael, since he is not here to experience it. He had "arrived" as an author. While I know that fame was not his goal . . . still I felt the warm and fuzzies for him. Way to go Mike!

The Curse of Aging--Part I - Narrowing Places

I described in my opening post, about the has-been movie star having an epiphany about being old. The experience was abrupt and final. Her life was defined as before and after the event of the epiphany.

I think my experience has been more typical, where a serious of events happen that brings home the truth of the loss of youth.

I can remember clearly the first time this type of event occurred in my life. It was when I was of the young age of 26. Denise and I were watching the 1984 winter Olympics (Sarajevo) on TV each night and I suddenly felt the loss of the fact that I would never be an Olympian. I know it sounds silly and Denise certainly thought so at the time, but it was very real.

It wasn’t like I had been in training for the Olympics. I had just taken up Nordic skiing, but I never, even in my wildest fantasies imagined that could even ski competitively even on a high school circuit. But it was the realization that doors were starting to close as I got older.

When you are a little boy (and probably the same applies to little girls) you are often taught that the whole world is yours for the taking. You can be a brain surgeon, if you so want. You can be a pilot, start the next Microsoft, be president of the United States . . . or you can be an Olympian athlete . . . only if you set your mind to it and work hard.

But for me, the very first time that I realized that aging meant the loosing of opportunities, seemed to be a profound event.

Recently a study was published (and mentioned in the public media) that showed the lowest point in one’s life—in regards to happiness—is around age fifty. Oddly, it improves from that point until the end of someone’s life. The happiest people, so it seems, are those over seventy. The reason it was suggested that 50 is the most depressing age is because that is when the realization of the loss of dreams and fantasies . . . many will indeed go unfulfilled in this lifetime.

I know that I will be eventually relating this to evangelicalism; however, I once had a discussion like this on a secular, medical forum. I was a little surprised how disappointed in me some people were when I spoke this way. They quoted all kinds of modern clichés about “never stop dreaming,” (or was that a lyric to a song they were quoting?). But there is this motivational-speaker type of pop-psychology which gives society this false hope (if you wonder what I’m referring to, go back and watch Little Miss Sunshine again and listen carefully to Olive’s dad.)

I remember specifically saying on that forum that I had given up and dream of climbing Mount Everest but I did still have a dream of reaching base camp. This one gal lectured me how “You will always be a failure because you don’t dream for the top.” So secular thinking is a farce on this topic as well. At a time like this I would love to share a beer or coffee with either Solomon or Caulfield. But I did, to my surprise, almost reach Everest base camp last year fare before I thought I ever would (Nepal wasn’t even on my radar when I had that original discussion).

A number of years ago, when I first started to enter the mid-life crises phase of my life, I attempted to write a novel that captured what this struggle is like for men. It was about two friends, one verbally distressed about growing older and the other was the stoic guy who seemed to have no concerns about anything, yet deeply he was much more distressed. For their one last attempt of fulfill a juvenile fantasy, they attempted (on a shoestring budget) be the first to fly a balloon around the world. The only balloon that they could afford was an old “Underdog” balloon from the Macy’s Thanksgiving Parade, which they bought off of E bay. Anyway, that manuscript fell into the trash bin of along with my many other writings.

The point is, when I tried to come up with the title for this novel, I chose “Narrowing Places” because this best reflects this process of growing older and seeing your options growing more and more limited. So the first point of growing older is the loss of opportunities. I think that is significant. It means, a point will come when you realize that you will never do X, or be Y or see Z. Somehow all of this fits into the concept of the fall. We are not living the way we were designed to live. We were created for eternity, yet we must live in the temporal and that is where the tension (a polite word for “shit”) exist.

This first area is probably the lessor of pains associated with aging.

The Hell of Niceness - "The Way of All Flesh"

I know that I'm jumping around a bit, but tonight I had to post on an impulse. I will get back to my thoughts on aging later.

Tonight I had a glorious time sitting out in the warm sun up on the top food deck at Westfield Mall in Century City. I was hungry of stomach while being full of mind. I spent the entire day sitting in meetings about brain research. I was so consumed with the meetings that I had not eaten anything but an apple all day.

Denise and Ramsey walked over (about 8 miles) to Hollywood and I knew that they would not be back to the hotel until dark.

So I sat there alone, enjoying a wonderful spinach calzone, an iced tea--under the warm California sun--and the last pages of Samuel Butler's book. It is his autobiography--by proxy.

In one regard, I'm a bit surprised to find the book as number eleven on the list of top English novels of all time. The flow of thought seems broken and clumsy at times. The story also develops so slowly that I'm sure that many of readers gave up after first thirty (of eighty-six) chapters. The word craftsmanship doesn't rival Dickens at all, in my humble opinion.

However the book moved me in a very deep way. There is no way I can put it into words. It moved me because it expressed so clearly and deeply what I rant and rave about on this blog so often (speaking of writing clumsily).

The message can not be put into words so clearly. The point could easily be lost with a causal reading. It wasn't subliminal . . . more like supra-liminal . . . beyond what words could ever express.

But it brings up a question about hellish "niceness."

I remember my first exposure to human hell was the movie, The Days of Wine and Roses. I saw it at the theater with my folks. Looking up the date of release tells me that I was only six, but I remember it like it was yesterday.

I really didn't know that life on this earth could be so bad until I saw Joe Clay's complete psychological meltdown, dragging his beloved wife with him down the neck of a bottle. I was more scared then than when dad took me to see The Creature from the Black Lagoon. Through Jack Lemon's brilliance (being beat out from winning an Oscar by Greggory Peck in To Kill a Mocking Bird) I knew that their world was real, somewhere.

But now I know a greater human-created hell. That is the hell of Christian niceness as portrayed in the book. It is a place where the white-washed walls are only painted with the two-dimensional images of emotionally-frigid family. Where smiles eternally don the faces of people who hurt so deeply that they are not even cognizant of the pain. Fortunately Earnest Pontiflex (the main character) found a way out of the hell by going deeper into it, like on the back of Dante, until he met his total demise. He was taken to this deeper hell on the silver tongue of a 1840 equivalent of the modern TV Evangelists/con man.

The narrator constantly refers to Earnest as "my hero." He was such because Earnest was the only one in the Pontiflex clan to escape the insatiable pull of the niceness black hole.

If you have even been disillusioned by modern Christianity, I highly recommend the book. I don't agree with Earnest's final resting place (or at least the resting place that the author wanted for him) and that is a dichotomy of reason and faith, with faith being little more than wishful thinking and reason holding all real hope. That reason, unbeknown by the author at the time of the writing, would be quickly crushed in the gas-filled trenches of Europe, the gas-filled showers of Auschwitz and the nuclear horrors of Hiroshima.

The Pain of Aging - The Unspoken Experience

The name of this painting is "Dancing and the Art of Growing Old Gracefully" by Paola Catizone in Dublin. Her web site is here.

This is a topic which has been endeared to my heart but which I have not spoken of much, until now. I'm sure this topic will take many postings to cover.

Before I begin I must make a couple of statements. While we attempt to paint aging it the most positive colors, I do believe that it is part of the curse of the immortality of humans. To deny that curse-ness I think is to live in denial. When I've attempted to discuss my feelings about aging with some of my Christian friends, immediately they see me as "just being negative" once again. Or, not having an eternal perspective or, lastly, just being self-consumed. I think this is why I've avoided talking about it until now. But it is part of the human experience. It is painful (both emotionally and physically) and I think it needs a microphone in which to speak and to speak candidly. I will cut to the chase. Getting older sucks. You can put lipstick on it, but is it not still swine?

I think I gave myself permission to speak of the pain of aging when, a few weeks ago, I heard an interview on NPR. I can't remember who was being interviewed but it was a "has-been" actress. She lives here in Beverly Hills (yeah, I'm sitting in Starbucks in Beverly Hills right now). Her entire life had been centered on her beauty. She got everything by her looks.

Like a mummification, the technicians here really know how to preserve age. As she grew older and older, her beauty was well preserved. Until one notorious day. She was driving her BMW convertible, at a high speed, down the Sana Monica Boulevard and a cop pulled her over. She says, up until that point, she had never gotten a ticket . . . just warnings. The cop would recognize her, or she would simply flirt (which she admits being an expert at) and he would blush and let her go. This time though, it didn't work. The young cop didn't recognize her nor did her flirting work (as she was approaching 50). He gave her a ticket. But far beyond the $150 fine, she was completely devastated. Her youth, her beauty was at that line of demarcation . . . gone forever. Of course it had been insidious . . . but this moment was the chief milestone.

She turned around, drove to her Beverly Hills mansion and got totally drunk. She stayed drunk for the next twenty years to dampen the pain.

She was on NPR because she had written a book about her coming to grips with getting older and losing her beauty.

I will be back. I have a meeting that I'm late for. I will try to correct any typos later . . . thanks for your patience.

Kids - Between Jacob and the Jelly Bean

The painting is titled Jacob Wrestling with the Angel by French Romantic artist Eugene Delacroix in 1861.

When I was in high school there was a local mega, Baptist church (before there were such a thing as "mega churches") who had all kinds of tricks for getting kids in church. They had a very large bus ministry. To lure kids to their Sunday school program, they often gave away bags of jelly beans or toys, like balloons or spinning tops.

The church had an assortment of entertainment to try and capture the kid's interest. They had clowns and cowboys. Once my dad was brought in (he was an archeologist) when they did a big program about Cherokee Indians.

I think if you polled most Evangelical parents and asked them to choose one of two paths for their kids, I know the one they would choose . . . path one.

Path one, the Jelly Bean path, is where they go to church faithfully, support the pastor and elders in everything they do, they dress well, never get tattoos, never use a long list of words esteemed by Evangelicals as being bad. They never drink alcohol in case they might offend some "weaker brother" somewhere. They are very, very nice. On this path they substitute dogma for thinking. They believe what they are told to believe and never doubt it. They suppress their raw human frailties deep out of sight and never, ever mention them outside their silent thoughts, alone in their beds in the middle of the dark night of winter.

The second path is messy. On this path, they think and think and think. They don't grasp the 1,2,3 answers to every problem but feel confused, lonely, angry, horny, frustrated . . . and in distress. They encounter God and a deep visceral, almost animal-istic place. They wrestle with God . . . not disrespectful, but in the honestly of emotions. They are known to cry out, "Oh, God where the hell are you! I'm hurting down here!" Yes, sometimes they use unapproved words.

But in the end of this earthly life, those on path two do come to peace with God, having borne the scars of their struggle.

But I would choose path two for all of my kids over path one. I wish I had taken that path much earlier in my life than I did. It is best to feel and to hurt than to not feel at all.