The Four Needs: Comfort

Comfort is a cow.  

You probably didn’t think of it as such before, did you?  Neither did i.  But it fits rather well.  Sleek, luxuriant, docile, idly chewing her cud and blandly watching the world go by.  Self-serving, irresistible in size, she just bulls her way into your thoughts and sits down on your lap, and moos, “i’m bored.”  “i’m hungry.”  “i’m lonely.”  “This is making me anxious, i just want to (fill in the blank).”  

Cuz that’s what comfort does.  It fills in the blanks.  The empty spaces we think God has not filled in our lives.  God didn’t give me a job i like so i need this to stay sane.  God didn’t give me a husband/wife who loves me so i need this to fend off the loneliness, to feel wanted.  God didn’t give me joy or peace today so i need this to feel full, satisfied, comfortable.  Everything and everyone are just things to be used to satiate our longings.  i had a rough day, i need this time to write and draw (oh cruel irony!), this drink, this porn, this gossip, this hobby, this teevee, this gym, this video game, this person, this child, this church service, to feel good, to feel right, to feel even, to feel WHOLE.  

Forty days Moe was up on Mount Sinai.  The people got anxious.  The people felt out of control.  Their shepherd had led them far from their masters.  And now their shepherd was gone.  They felt a gap, a blank in their lives.  “And the people saw that Moses delayed to come down from the mountain, and the people gathered opposite Aaron, and they said to him, “Come, make for us gods who will go before us, because this Moses, the man who brought us up from the land of Egypt, we do not know what has become of him.”

And Aaron said to them, “Take off the rings of gold that are on the ears of your wives, your sons, and your daughters, and bring it to me.” And all the people took off the rings of gold that were on their ears and brought it to Aaron. And he took from their hand, and he shaped it with a tool, and he made it a cast-image bull calf, and they said, “These are your gods, Israel, who brought you up from the land of Egypt.”

And Aaron saw, and he built an altar before it, and Aaron called, and he said, “A feast for Yahweh tomorrow.” And they started early the next day, and they offered burnt offerings, and they presented fellowship offerings, and the people sat to eat and drink, and they rose up to revel.” (Ex 32)

“Waiting for Moses, waiting for Yahweh, is too hard.  Putting off pleasures (that may never come!) is stupid.  This life is all you have,” Comfort lows to you, “look around, see what this place has to offer.  We can make a little heaven right here on earth.  Fasting is stupid.  You were made to eat.  You’re a sexual being, a human with needs, she doesn’t understand, he never even sees you anymore.  One more for the road, you can handle it.  It’s going to be legal everywhere soon and you need to unwind, you do a lot for people and they don’t appreciate it.  You need to love yourself too.  No one else is looking out for you.  You don’t want to read the Bible, it’s boring, you need sleep anyway.”

The problem starts with a perceived need.  A longing if you will.  And that is good because it’s true.  i will not deny your needs.  Your gaps.  Your blanks.  They exist.  Our problem isn’t that we need, it’s that we don’t need enough!  Ask the addict at the end of his rope, there is never enough!  Because you were made for infinity!  Infinite pleasure, infinite joy, infinite life, infinite love, an Infinite God!  As C.S. Lewis so eloquently put it, “If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.”  You are going to feel the lack and the longing for as long as you live in this world.  Even more of Him will only make you desire more of Him but the veil is torn!  Easter has come!  We know whom we serve and where He is. “‘Child, you are always with me, and everything I have belongs to you.” (Luke 15)  We can KNOW the Day is coming, when you will eat the bread and drink the wine in the presence of the only lover you have ever truly had!

And i don’t promise you, HE promises you, (quotes nearly the whole Bible) you will be satisfied.  

Weeds and warts.

So, if you read yesterday's post, you may very well be wondering, "what the flux was that?" And if you haven't read yesterday's post and you continue to read today's, you will definitely be wondering, "what the hole is this???" For those of you who read it though and are sticking with me, i doubt your sanity but i appreciate the company. It is my sincere but dubious desire that this be of some benefit to y'all and not just gratuitous introspection on my part.

For me, it's not enough to identify bad habits and catalog undesirable personality quirks. i have to dig at the reasons for them, the roots if you will. There's an element of compulsion to this that i get from my mother (a topic for another day, foreshadowing!) but there is also a rationality to it. Weeds and warts don't die if you just lop off the tops. They just sprout up again and again. You have to get down to the ugly and the painful. True change don't come easy or without dirt and blood under the fingernails. So roll up the sleeves and cauterize the razor knife, we're going in!

It's well documented, add some nauseum here, about how i hate my work. Many of my frequent bouts of despair come from the pointless toil i find myself about day after day. i don't think i'm unique in this, only in the fell depths of desperation, the dank, dark dungeon of depression over this topic do i find myself often the lone, barely animated corpse chained to the wall. Others seem more adapted to it. More able to cope, to self medicate, to find relief in American Idol, solace in video games, palliation in pubs and live more or less contented lives. Again, the diagnosis of "thinking too much" rears its head. Is this the solution? Do i somehow learn how to turn off my mind? Put a bottle in my head and pull the trigger? (foreshadow again) Are those my only choices, thunkard or drunkard? Is self destruction the only road and the only true choice the mode of transport?

Yes, yes it is. That, in a nutshell, is life as i see it.

But. The shell is a peanut shell. There are two nuts in it. A bleak nut AND a "but" nut. We'll get to the butnut later. i think an explanation for yesterday is in order. That description of my childhood is not all encompassing. i have plenty more of sizzling summer days on the front porch, playing quietly in my room, saturday morning cartoons in feety pajamas that i could cough up upon a cross examiner's pinstripes should the need arise. My life is not a sorry tale of misery and woe, i just play Woe in the upcoming teevee series. i showed you that exhibit because it flashes before my mind often. A smell, a sound or a distinct lack of sound will dredge it up and i'm there again. Trapped. Stifled. Able to see home but not touch it.

That, i think, is a large part of why i hate my existence as i know it. So much of my time is spent in places i don't wanna be, doing things i don't wanna do because i have to, putting off who i want to be because other's expect it, because society as a whole says this is how it is. It may be why i prefer to work outside. It may be why i have to have a radio on while i'm working. Why i love books, fiction only please. Why i can't concentrate on my job. Why i won't concentrate on my job. Why i get so violently angry when someone or something reminds me of it when i'm not there. Why i feel so powerless. Why i love motorcycles and backpacking. Why i love open spaces but my art is confined and small. There are so many sprouts coming out of this one root that i dunno where to begin.

Which brings us back to the butnut. See, left to my own devices, in a world without a loving God who desires not just life for me but fuller life; in a world devoid of the Spirit living and working in me, i would collapse. i would eat a bullet or a bottle because i can see no point to any of this. If all life is, is doing what you have to do to survive and finding a suitable coping mechanism to forget about it afterwards and on weekends, looking forward to the next meal, next drink, next party, next vacation to get you through then thanks but no thanks, check please, forget my coat, i'm out of here. It's all meaningless, vapor, a chasing after the wind.

But. But there is grace. Grace is what unties my stomach. Grace says God don't make no junk. That He will not waste my life. i may waste some time in gratuitous introspection but He'll get me back on track if i let Him. He'll turn my ingrown love and infected gifts, my weeds and warts, into a garden. i don't know how, i just know it's true. Yes, Virginia, there is a resurrection but the Living Water is flowing now. The seed is already in you. God will make it grow. All He asks of you is that you believe.

And many days, that's pretty much all i can handle.