Adam of the Amazon

Standing on the peak of a South American mountain, overlooking the Amazon, I felt the same feeling as when I viewed the source of the Nile in Africa, the one Mark Twain writes about as he stands in the ancient city of Tangier, Morocco, in The Innocents Abroad.  I was too modern to juxtapose myself with this place.  My blue jeans, faded by manufacturers more than wear, clashed with the endless jungle.

Longing to be Adam, to be a part of the pristine world, I removed my clothing.  My attempt to be a part of a fall-less world was impaired, however, by the trail behind me.  Someone might come, might laugh, might feel embarrassed.  Someone might see me.  I took a quick glance around and slipped my legs back into my pants.  I couldn't stand there in "all my glory," because I was no longer glorious.  I was not Adam of the Amazon; I was a tourist from a broken world.

The desire to regain that place, to stand in Adam's steps, is one I feel no shame in possessing.  But the shame itself is another thing.  Meditating on this experience, I am forced to see that my own humiliation is nothing compared to the Incarnation, let alone the Crucifixion.  And because of that, a brighter glory is ahead, one with white robes to wear, with a more pristine world to stand proudly in.

"A Lover is like Narcissus"

A lover is like Narcissus

Or Eros to Psyche.

In offering his love the best,

He says, "The best is me!"

But how can man this justify

If first he loves his brother?

One cannot love a plural first

Unless the self is other.

Disgusted at lovers' conceits,

We leave them to our loss.

But self-love finds a selfless place

In the Man Upon the Cross.

Augustine

I was reading through the old saint's Confessions this morning, and I came upon an interesting little section. I'd quote it and let you love it, but I left it at home, so I'll just paraphrase.

Basically, Augustine was talking about how it's not wrong to love "corporeal objects." Rather, our love of all worldly things is good, because it makes us love the Giver more. Only in our self-deception can we ever love the object without giving glory to its Maker, and so, Augustine says, go on and love the world appropriately.

I usually just can't do that. I really like a lot of things. I love backpacking, but half the time, I only love it because it makes me feel cool. I like writing, even writing about how wonderful God is, but I often turn to scholarship or style instead of the Author of all things good.

I read a little Decartes the other day, and he was talking about purging himself of all things that are doubtable so he can start over fresh. I'd sometimes like to purge myself of all loves that are empty on their own and be made new. But I've already been made new. Weird.

"The Healing Pool of Belcedare"

I raised my king to his riding chair,
And the destination, far from there,
Was the Healing Pool of Belcedare.

My king, who once looked bright and fair,
Had caught the gorgon's diseased stare.
He now sat tethered to his chair
Till he reached the Pool of Belcedare.

In all Creation, nothing's so rare
As the Gift that springs to acrid air,
The water from that ancient lair
Of life. And every bather will Heaven spare
In the Healing Pool of Belcedare.

The monarch bearing with much care,
I crossed through plains and deserts bare;
We took straight paths, climbed each steep stair.
At last arrived, we caught a glare
Making red the water flowing there
In the Healing Pool of Belcedare.

The deep maroon gave me a scare,
But the king he bade me to prepare
For his descent from the riding chair.
Toward the flow, like colt to mare,
The king he crawled. His robes did tear,
And in he fell, broke body bare,
To the Healing Pool of Belcedare.

My heart could burst; my king was where?
Had to his death I led him there?
Then I heard laughter in a blare
Of royal noise, and I gave up care.
"Come, friend," spake king, "wherefore despair?
Just scrub your face and wash your hair
In the blood that makes the foulest fair.
I am healed at the Pool of Belcedare!"

You can figure out the allegory.

Some Pleasurable Snippets

I thought I'd entertain with a few words from my students.  Grammatical errors have been corrected.  These come from tests, papers, and class discussions:

From an extra-credit assignment:  

"The War of 1812 was fought between two well-known countries which had fought several times before:  the United States of America and Great Britain."  

For those of you who are unaware of this, the US had only fought Britain in the Revolution.

From a paper on the Second Great Awakening:  

"A refunding disposition was in progress."

I simply have no idea what that could possibly mean.

From a Bible Quiz:

Q:  Do Jesus and Nicodemus discuss any of the "Ultimate Questions" of Origin, Identity, Meaning, Morality, or Destiny?  Explain.

A (Student 1):  You are a Spirit of God.  

A (Student 2):  They discuss that Christianity is real.

While I do appreciate that one of my students thinks I am a Spirit of God, and although I am willing to admit that my students might use phrases (like "refunding disposition") that I am unfamiliar with, I must say, these kids make me feel pretty smart sometimes.

Servants Indentured and Beggars Relieved

"Each man is a slave to his own spirit."

During the days of Thomas Edison and Henry Ford, hard work was the high moral, the principle behind the Greatest Commandment of the spirit of the age.  The Classical Era has been cited as a time when beauty was held in highest reverence.  Tolerance and equality command the pens of today's historians, and we think in terms of ourselves.  And how could we not?  

The great issue of all time has been personal liberty, and it has never been achieved, nor (praise Heaven) will it be, in the modern sense.  The list of totalistic libertarians stretches from Adam to Judas to me, and yet each man (including my students, with little prompting) can recognize the fact that he is enslaved.  The high vocabulary includes "success" and "adventure" and "love," but each of these has taken on a personal meaning and lost its value.  Should I be a slave to any of these things, as many are, indeed, my life will be an enslavement to my own selfish spirit.

When I discussed this with my students, they said that we choose our masters.  I didn't bring up God's sovereignty with them, because they mostly aren't Christians and are being evangelized to.  That'd be like saying, "Become a Christian; you might do it anyway."  However, I feel that a short mention of it is appropriate here.  Will we indeed be slaves to God of His choosing?  I certainly believe so!  For I cannot change my blemished spirt for His Holy Spirit.  The desire to do so doesn't even originate in me.  But I am an indentured servant to the Man of the Cross, doing His work and set free to exist as is right.  

Mundane?

What a gift it is to be a Christian, to be saved, to be free!  To live out a story of infinite adventure among people of infinite value wherein the real Protagonist is infinitely good, that is what I want to be a part of.  And I am!  Hemingway covers the idea this way:  "All good books have one thing in common - they are truer than if they had really happened."

Now, I don't think that ol' Ernest is being postmodern or is executing historical philosophy here, but I do think he's saying something about the reality presented in the great stories.  These are the ones where we feel deep connection, where we long for the ultimate defeat of the bad guy, and where we stand alongside the hero.  When we admire Beowulf, when we despise Voldemort, when we observe the heroic end of Arthur, we are seeking deeper realities than mundane, scheduled life.

Today, in Life of Christ, I was introducing my students to the calling of the disciples.  If only they could see that these stories are just colorful blips on the radar of our stories, what then? Going on from there, if we'd realize that our stories are just pixels on the IMAX screen of God's story, how much more joyful, more essential, more alive would each of our actions be!