A Biting Truth

"YEOWCH!"
I winced as I felt my teeth sink hard upon the inside of my cheek, showering my head with burning pain—I had just witnessed, all-too-firsthand, the dangers of eating a bagel too quickly. I immediately adjusted my manner of eating. A moment ago, my highest priority had been chewing the bagel before all the delectable cinnamon-sugar melted away; now I shifted to the more practical goal of not chewing up the inside of my mouth.

As the pain and my reactive wince subsided, I began contemplating what had just happened. I had not bitten myself of my own accord; for whatever reason, God willed that seemingly unfortunate event. I began to gaze warily at my surroundings. What else could God will at this moment? Might the roof come tumbling down upon my unsuspecting head? Or, perhaps, would the lake outside the window, in roaring tsunamic rampage, surge forward and wipe away the building in which I dined? Pondering such potential pains (all of which outweighed my bitten mouth by serious degrees), I finally began to understand what "fear of the Lord" means.

My rather macabre reveries revealed an underlying assumption which I'd never truly faced before: God has the power to do whatever He wants to us. Truly, the concept of an all-powerful deity, taken alone, contains some frightful implications. If God so chose, He could fly us up to the stratosphere, spin us around 18 times, then drop us like skydivers without parachutes. He could cause a rainstorm of rocks to thunder upon us—indoors. Dare I mention it, He could even cause the song "Thriller" to play, in a sort of eternal repeat mode, unceasingly through the maddened corridors of our own minds.

There is quite literally nothing that He could not do to us, if He so chose. Now thankfully, our religion tells us that He will most likely not do any of this. God loves us, and His actions in Scripture make that resoundingly clear. But the fact remains, and the story of Job stands out as an unsettling reminder of this, that God has the power to do whatsoever He wants.

Now a moment's reflection on this fact ought not result in fearful frenzy or dead-eyed depression. Quite the contrary, in fact—because such a solid conviction of God's power results in an equally-solid conviction of our own powerlessness.

At any moment, we could be rendered deaf and dumb for the rest of our days. Why should that scare us? It should just shock us into the realization that we aren't here for our own fulfillment. We are so powerless that we can't possibly fulfill ourselves, no matter how hard we try. Everything temporal that we've worked for and continue to work for—it could all be wiped away in a second. If that were to happen, what would remain? Self-fulfillment is not our job.

It comes as a surprise to remember this, every now and then. We are not here to fulfill our own desires, but to obey the Will of He Who made us. It's a simple but foundational change in perspective, a true inversion of our priorities. And it helps a lot. Of course, the greatest paradox arrives when we learn that God's Will is to fulfill us, but that fulfillment will only come when we submit ourselves to Him, cutting every string, surrendering every cheap battle, and embracing every human spirit with an open heart and a thankful soul.

Who knew that biting yourself could be so great?

Fearing the Lord (in a good way),
Joezilla

Battle Plans

I set out here to gain the world
And pleasure that it brings,
And I became a boyish man,
Doing boyish things.

I longed for lofty destiny,
Ambitions fit for kings,
And I was humbled as a fool,
Forced to ponder things.

I swore to Heaven then and there
I'd strive to earn my wings,
To sing with joy the song within
That true to this day rings.

I sent my forces out to fight,
Endured ensuing stings,
And then discovered how it felt
To live for higher things.

I strove for vict'ry not for Man,
But God, for Whom Man sings,
And I became a little boy,
Doing manly things.

Sighting the Blind

What sort of sinner is more dangerous to society? He who sins knowingly, understanding the evil of his act, or he who sins and assumes his action is not sinful? Certainly it is the latter, because the former reflects an unchangeable fact about man—namely, that he always has and will continue to voluntarily do evil sometimes. The latter, on the other hand, is always more hazardous to a good society, because as the generations advance, certain attitudes can take hold and become dominant within a society. If an attitude takes hold which is permissive toward some sinful behavior, this sin will gradually become more widespread, until it is seen as reprehensible by only a small and ineffectual minority.

Such seems to be the present course of our society with regards to sexuality.

"Back in the day," premarital sex was, as they say, taboo. Single mothers were frowned upon by the societal eye, because their circumstances trumpeted an irresponsible and irrevocable choice. Now, it is true that choices are merely notches in the timeline of life, and the choice of one day can be regretted on the next. It is the present intentions and attitudes that count, not past ones. Thus, ostracism is not a just societal response to single motherhood. HOWEVER…we must not throw out the baby with the bathwater (please forgive my use of a metaphor that is quite confusing in this context). The ostracism, though wrong, came from a perfectly righteous and upright attitude, ingrained deeply in society's fabric: Premarital sex was simply unacceptable.

Over the course of the 19^th and 20^th centuries, this tectonic plate has all but disappeared from the crust of contemporary society (if I may switch to a completely different metaphor for society). Although premarital sex is not necessarily encouraged by media at large (although in certain public school sex-ed curricula, it certainly is), it is most definitely not discouraged like it used to be. While the act of premarital sex used to be prohibited on moral grounds (i.e. "The decision is just plain wrong"), with STDs seen as the unfortunate consequence of the sin, modern society instead focuses on STDs as the primary evil of premarital sex. As usual, society has sacrificed the eternal, spiritual concern in favor of the temporal and physical one.

Thus, the ideal of protection has replaced the ideal of chastity. St. Augustine says that a man can order his life wisely by adhering to three principles: subordinating the inferior to the superior, joining like to like, and giving everything its due. Modern society has failed on the first count. Rather than focus on the effect premarital sex has on the institution of marriage and the individual soul, we choose to focus on the lesser concern of physical well-being. And built without a foundation, the building will crumble. Our generation must get to work on transforming society's vision of sexuality, restoring to it the respect and discretion it rightly once had.

I would wager that those who misuse sex have no concept of what it really is, what they are really doing when they make that choice. And here we return to the opening sentiments: those who have no knowledge of their sin are far more dangerous to society than those who knowingly do evil. There will always be sinners; there always have been. But sinners are self-aware, and can repent. A sighted man can open his eyes any time he chooses. A blind man, on the other hand, can only rely on the guidance of those around him.

Hopefully,

Joezilla