Jiminy Cricket

I have never read the children’s book, Pinocchio, by Carlo Collodi but have seen the Disney film on more that one occasion.  Please don't judge me... My knowledge of the story, therefore, is from the derivative and not the original.  But the derivative, at least, has some interesting features.  It is the story of someone becoming real - overcoming his wooden and later beastly nature and letting the new man (or boy in this case) have ascendency.  As such it is an interesting picture of the Christian life.  Pinocchio, like perhaps Pilgrim in Bunyan’s classic, encounters much that looks attractive but ultimately enslaves, and ultimately overcomes.

There in another part that I also find interesting.  As a puppet, Pinocchio has no conscience and is given one by the Blue Fairy in the person of Jiminy Cricket.  The cricket character does appear in the original book, by the way. “Jiminy Cricket” is one of those phrases, minced oaths we call them, that are uttered when our conscience prevents us from using the name of Jesus inappropriately.  The more common minced oath here in Vermont is "Jeezum Crow" - initial letters say it all.  It rather makes me wonder, what with Jiminy’s initials, if this was not intended at the outset and that the creators were making some assertion about the conscience and its connection to Jesus.  But that is mere speculation, and I don’t think that Christian catechesis was Walt Disney’s intention in making the film (although it is a perhaps unintended result).

But what is conscience anyway?  It is that inner voice that tells us that something is right or wrong.  Typically I think of it more as the voice that warns against the wrong.  But what does the word mean?  I asked this question in reading the word in Hebrews recently.  In speaking of the shortcomings of the law and existing sacrificial system compared to the sacrifice of Jesus, the writer says:

According to this arrangement, gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper, but deal only with food and drink and various washings, regulations for the body imposed until the time of reformation.

(Hebrews 9:9-10 ESV)

The English word is a compound word from Latin; con- meaning together or with and science meaning knowledge.  The Greek work used in the Hebrews text is nearly exactly the same, a derivative of sun-eido, which means to see or know together.  So to have a conscience is to know something about oneself together with someone else - to agree with someone else about one’s actions. But to see or know together with WHOM?

The ancient Greeks invented the word, which is used by the writer to the Hebrews.  I do not know whom their WHOM was.  But I suspect, as I recall my Plato and other ancient philosophers, that they may have intended it to mean agreement or knowledge with the known moral order of the universe, or an expression of just or appropriate sentiments in light of same moral order.

Christians would agree with this, but add something more.  Because our WHOM is actually a person.  God in Jesus Christ and through the Holy Spirit IS the inner voice.  To have a conscience is to know together and agree with Him what is good and what is bad. 

So in the end, Jiminy Cricket, or rather the One for whom he stands in the story, is our conscience. 

Hope

Some bright and cheerful soul (Benjamin Franklin) once said, “In this world nothing can be said to be certain, except death and taxes.”[1]  He was not the first to utter such thoughts.  Daniel Defoe, most famous for his book Robinson Crusoe, once wrote, “Things as certain as death and taxes, can be more firmly believed.”[2]  The uncertain thing that cannot be firmly believed to which Defoe is comparing death and taxes is the belief that the Devil has a cloven hoof and leaves behind the smell of brimstone.  But this is not about cloven hooves either in a physical manifestation of the evil one or as a characteristic of kosher animals (both are mentioned on the Wikipedia page on “Cloven hoof” if you care.)

I am hoping (and I use the word advisedly) that there is more to life that is certain than just death and taxes.  Of what may we be certain beyond these two?  Can we be certain of people’s commitments?  Not really.  Case in point: I have committed to transport gear for my daughter’s ski and board club at school every Friday night.  But this Friday she is unable to go herself, so I thought I would just stay home.  No one would blame me.  On reflection I have decided I will live up to my commitment and go anyway.  I might easily have not, and, as I said, no one would blame me, give me a hard time or even mention it.

Our promises are not always kept.  But God’s are.  I think we can be certain of that to which God commits.  They are things in which we can hope.  My promise that I will “try to make your party on Friday” is iffy at best (especially since I am already committed to transporting gear…)  But God’s oath and promise is different.  The writer of Hebrews puts it this way:

So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek.

(Hebrews 6:17-20 ESV)

 Promise and oath are big here, as is the assertion that God cannot lie (contrasted with me or you, for example).  I am particularly fond of the image in the line, “a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain.”  Without even considering what the inner place or curtain is it is a compelling picture of hope entering hidden and inaccessible places like, perhaps, my cynical heart.

But knowing what the inner place and curtain are makes it even better.  Written to the Hebrews, the letter assumes a solid knowledge of first-century Jewish temple architecture and worship.  The curtain (or veil as the KJV describes it) is the heavy fabric that closes off the holy of holies (the inner place) from the rest of the temple.  The holy of holies is where God dwells, behind the curtain, in the inner place.

So thinking this through, hope enters the place where God is.  Hope or certainty in his promise lives where God is.  As someone less jaded than Franklin (Alexander Pope) once said, “hope springs eternal”[3].  Where God is, there is the eternal.  Hope in the presence of God is certain and eternal.  

And it is better than both death and taxes.

---

[1] Benjamin Franklin in a letter to Jean-Baptiste Leroy, 1789

[2] Daniel Defoe in The Political History of the Devil, 1726

[3] Alexander Pope in An Essay on Man.

Paying close attention

Humphrey Bogart is often misquoted as having said, "Play it again, Sam" in Casablanca.  Apparently (and I can only say apparently because as a uncultured bohemian, I have never seen the film myself) he never says this, but Ingrid Bergman does say, "Play it, Sam."  All hearsay for me.  One wonders what the magical "it" tune is.   Perhaps some more cultured cinephile might know.

What Mr. Bogart did or did not say in a film made 60 years ago probably has little effect on me philosophically.  It is a misquote or a lack of attention to detail that matters little.  But that is not always the case.  It is good to pay close attention to what some people actually do say.

Here are some examples from the New Testament.  There are dozens if not hundreds of others, but I humbly offer but two.

St. Paul did not say "It's all good" (or "It is what it is" for that matter).  There exists a denial-tinged optimism in some Christians that adamantly insists that everything is good.  And that our response to all things should be "Praise the Lord." I actually kind of agree with that, but without insisting that all things that happen are good.  What St. Paul actually said is that "all things work together for good for them that love God and are called according to his purpose." (Romans 8:28)  Splitting hairs perhaps, but it saves me the inauthenticity of manufacturing joy over things that are patently bad.  I am very poor at that.  St. Paul's statement is an affirmation of the sovereignty of God and implies that all things, good and bad, are used by him and woven into his perfect purpose.  That I can get behind.  Because, frankly, it's not all good.

Second example.  Same theme of sovereignty, but with more subtlety.  I was reading this earlier this week:
Now in putting everything in subjection to him (Jesus), he (God) left nothing outside his control. (Hebrews 2:8, items in parentheses are mine for clarification.)

The problem with this one is not that we misread it, but that we stop reading it and miss its context.  This statement alone is challenging to reconcile with my own experience for, if only in the unruly devices and desires of my own heart, it does not seem that Jesus has control of everything.  The assertion that God is in control, a common proclamatory tidbit of American Christianity, is hard to swallow in the face of real and apparently meaningless tragedy.  But the writer to the Hebrews goes on and acknowledges what is obvious to us all:
At present, we do not yet see everything in subjection to him.
(Hebrews 2:8 also, but without clarifying parentheses).

This makes sense in light of what I see and experience.  But he also does not go on to say, we will, at such and such a time, see everything in subjection to him. His "yet" confirms that we will at some point see it, but he discloses no timeline for it.  And the writer, I suspect knows that, as Proverbs 13:12 says, Hope deferred makes the heart sick.  So he goes on further.  We do not yet see everything in subjection to him, but we see him.  Please note the present and not future (or past tense).  It is not, we will see him, or we have seen him, but we see him.  We are seeing him now.

Both of these texts were written to Christians struggling with difficulty, affliction and persecution.  That which sustains us most in those times is Jesus himself.  The remembrance of what was and the promise of what will yet be help us, but they cannot hold a candle to him.  Himself seen, loved and adored.

Anxiety

The BCP lectionary has us reading I Kings 19.  In this chapter Elijah finds himself threatened by Jezebel and flees in fear for his life.  And this hot on the heels of a nearly swaggering Elijah and his showdown with the prophets of Baal on Mount Carmel in chapter 18.  There he is taunting the prophets suggesting their god is asleep or on vacation.  In chapter 19 he is cowering in fear.  What's up with that?

Jezebel has promised to kill him within 24 hours and Elijah flees, fearing for his life.  He goes a day's journey into the desert and "asked that he might die, saying, 'it is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life for I am no better than my fathers.'" (I Kings 19:4)  Oddly enough, had he but stayed where he was, Jezebel would have gladly granted him his wish.

Afraid and anxious, Elijah complains to God.  But if Elijah just had more faith in God, he would not be anxious.  Right?  Wrong.  Faith in the goodness and power of God is not a defect in Elijah.  Read chapter 18 again.  His boldness is not that of a faithless man.  He is just simply afraid of what might happen.  He is anxious.

We are anxiety avoiders mostly because, I think, it is a form of suffering and suffering we can do without.  Elijah seeks to avoid the suffering of anxiety about his future at the hands of Jezebel by wishing he were dead.  The desire to die here is perhaps an attempt to avoid the uncertainty of what is going to happen.

Our avoidance of the suffering of anxiety is perhaps less spectacular than wishing to die (only perhaps, though).  We work hard at talking ourselves out of anxiety - and piously so.  Repeatedly we remind ourselves that God is in control - quite true - and exhort ourselves to more faith in his goodness and sovereignty.  And we do this not to honor his Name (that would be good and right) but to dispel our own feelings of discomfort.  Or at least I do.

I understand that there are levels of anxiety which are truly debilitating for people.  That there are anxiety disorders that people struggle with.  I am not speaking of this here.  I am speaking of the usual, every day anxieties that most of us experience and wish we didn't.

I read this by C.S. Lewis this week:

"Some people feel guilty about their anxieties and regard them as a defect of faith.  I don't agree at all.  They are afflictions, not sins.  Like all afflictions, they are, if we can so take them, our share in the Passion of Christ."  (from Letters to Malcolm)

Rather than trying to avoid the reality of suffering and anxiety, I wonder if we would be better advised to suffer with Jesus - as he did in the garden of Gethsemane, with tears and bloody sweat.  There was no defect of faith in Jesus either.  He is eternally convinced of the goodness of God - and yet he was fearful and anxious of what was before him, the unknown of the suffering of the cross.  And sufficiently anxious that he asked for the cup to be taken away, adding "not my will but thy will be done."

I do not assume that Jesus' submission to the will of the Father removed all fear and anxiety.  That is part of his Passion.  But that fear and anxiety is experienced with courage, grace and resolution.  We see the action on the outside.  We do not see the internal affliction of soul.

God's response to Elijah in his desire to die is not to reassure him of His power and goodness.  Nor is it to promise that Jezebel won't kill him.   God sends an angel and provides food for him.  "Arise and eat for the journey is too great for you." (I Kings 19:7)  And he sets more work before Elijah.  In the midst of your anxiety, there is work to be done.