Moon-like

This morning I find myself disposed to a short survey of the moon, the one heavenly body which besides moving also changes, in classic literature.  Happens to everyone, I know.

In Dante's vision of heaven, the circle of the moon is reserved for the blessed who, while in this life, were inconstant in their vows.  In short, they were changeable like the moon.  The moon here is a symbol or picture of that which grows and fades, sometimes repeatedly.  As an aside, this picture of Dante's is a firm reminder to us that blessedness, or salvation - to use a more evangelically Protestant vocabulary - is dependent not on our moral perfection but on something else.  The blessed in heaven were in life like us, imperfect.

The moon's chageable nature is famously reflected also in the Bard's work.  Juliet beseeches Romeo in the play bearing their names:

O, swear not by the moon, the inconstant moon,
That monthly changes in her circled orb,
Lest that thy love prove likewise variable.
(Act II, scene ii)

Again this orb is invoked as a picture of mutability.

A third, less well-known example from an anonymous 14th century poet whom I encountered in The New Oxford Book of Christian Verse.

Moon-like is all other love
First crescent, then decreasing, gain
Flower that buds, and soon goes off
A day that fleets away in rain

All other love bravely starts out,
But ends with torture, and in tears;
No love can salve the torment out
But that the King of heaven bears.

When I read the first lines of this poem I assumed that is was about us loving other things more that we love Jesus - about our idolatries and how they are insubstantial and unenduring compared to our true love of God.  This is a typical modern or post-modern response - it's all about me.

But as one reads the whole poem (it is short, only seven stanzas), one realizes that the author's point is that other loves (mine) are being compared to God's love, not mine for him.  Here the author understands something that Dante did as well.  Something that we understand theologically or in theory, but sometimes lose in practice - that we are saved not by our commitment and constancy but by his.

I remember thinking and feeling in the early flush of conversion that this love and devotion to Jesus will never fade - that it will carry me through.  But, alas, moon-like is all other love.  I have good days and bad days.  Fervent ones and indifferent ones.  My loves wax and wane.  In the end this is a warning against an idolatry - the idolatry of self which thinks that my commitment, actions or fervor is sufficient.  None of them are.

It is good to be reminded by Dante and this medieval poet that I am saved not by my love for or commitment to him, but by his for and to me.  I am relieved, in fact.  For my loves change - run hot and cold.  His does not.  As our anonymous friend says:

For ever springing, ever new,
For ever the full orb it is
A thing not thinned, from which accrue
Always new sweets, new centuries.
(emphasis mine)

The good old days

Some years ago I noted a clever ad published by the Episcopal Church. It was featured in Print magazine's annual review of excellent design. The ad featured a Rubens' painting of Daniel in the lion's den with the comment, "Some people think stress is a 20th century invention.". I thought it clever but find myself at a loss to remember how it was to induce me to attend an Episcopal Church. But that is not my point.

The insightful part of the ad was its naming of the "my life is harder" attitude that infects us frequently. It is good to be reminded that there are others who have suffered before us and in addition to us. Sometimes rather spectacularly.

I was reminded of this reading Psalm 3 this week. Verse 2 goes like this:
"How many there are who say of me,
'There is no help for him in his God.'"

To hear some people talk, you would think that it has only been in the last generation in America, as liberalism and secularism has gained ascendancy that there has been scorn for people who put their trust in God. Imagine my surprise to discover that the psalmist encountered this doubt and scorn thousands of years ago. Like stress, perhaps this brand of derision is not a 20th century invention. Perhaps we don't have it harder than those who have gone before us.

There is little to be gained by whining about the age of doubt in which we live. It does not encourage our own faith - it gives us a sense of entitlement to the good old days when people were not ridiculed for their faith. Those days, it would seem from the wisdom of the psalmist, never existed. The entitlement we feel for them, especially as American Christians, just makes us angry and bitter. And angry and bitter are NOT attractive and winsome to those who don't believe. Making them poor evangelistic strategies.

Psalm 3:2 is a great reminder that the voice that mocks and belittles believers is not exclusively a post-enlightenment or modern phenomenon. But what is more remarkable is not the centuries-long persistence of that voice, but rather the persistence of faith in spite of it.

Differences

I like to ask questions.  I am particularly fond of thought-provoking questions.  So it gets me into trouble sometimes.  Case in point.  Some years ago I started attending a church and went to the Bible study group that was offered on Sunday morning before the service.  I cannot remember the exact text we were studying but it was from St. Paul and it was about Christ being in us.  There are many to choose from.  It is important to remember here that I was NEW to this church.  So my question was: "How is this different from what people say about God being in all of us?"  From the impassioned reaction that followed I realized three things.  First, that it was assumed I was espousing the view that God is in all of us; second that my view and I were desperately wicked; and third that no one actually knew how it was different.  One and two amused me.  Three disturbed me.

Despite being assumed a pagan in their midst, I still think it a good question to ask.  How IS it different when Christians say God, or Christ or the Holy Spirit is in us from when others say that God is within us or that all has the spark of the divine?  Because it is very different.

The articulation that all has the spark of the divine is perhaps best understood as a pantheist notion.  Pantheists are those who would state that all is divine or that all is God.  And a lovely idea it is.  Makes be feel very happy about everything.

The problem is that it is ludicrous and does not deal with the facts.  Look around.  Not everything is divine.  The current violence in Syria falls short, for example.  I find it hard to think of the physical and sexual abuse of children as issuing from that divine "spark."  Even my own petty and cherished resentments are clearly sub-divine.  I'm just saying.

The Christian perspective articulated perhaps best by St. Paul in his epistles talks about the Spirit being within us (very good news) but at war with something else within us, the sinful nature, or as he calls it, the flesh.

"For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.  For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace."  Romans 8:5-6

And here is the difference:  The pantheist is saying that everything is God.  That means that I am god, as is the tree I see out my window.  The Christian saying quite the opposite.  The Christian is saying the God is totally Other than us or the creation.  The pantheist perspective, taken to its logical extreme might induce me to build a little shrine to myself in the front yard for folks to come and worship.  I expect a small bronze statue of me would draw mobs of people to worship...

In saying everything is God we cheapen and devalue Him.  The universe is not one big divine soup.  He is Other than us.  Holy, exalted, in light inaccessible.  And yet He that is Other has chosen to come and live in us, lifting us from our sinful and patently sub-divine nature, and making us new men and women.

The "divine spark" theory just tries to make me feel good about myself and my world.  The God of Jesus Christ, in his descent into me makes me new.  That is difference that makes a difference.