Who knew Ryan Adams could be so encouraging? I picked up Cardinology for barely a song the other day (Music Spree 2009 is well on its way, although plans are underway to give myself a monthly music allowance since truly I can't live without the stuff), and I love this one too:
For everything that's wrong
there is a worried man
There is a reason why
We just don't understand, but will:
You gotta keep the faith
Be patient, oh, the past is just a memory,
and heal -- heal your vines,
you'll heal inside eventually
We born into a light
We were born of light
We were born into a light
For everyone alone
I wish you faith and hope
and the strength to cope,
to be your own best friend:
Have confidence and keep the faith
Be patient, oh, the past is just a memory
and heal -- heal your vines,
you'll heal inside eventually
We were born into a light
We were born into a light
We were born of light
We were born into the light
"Born into a Light"
Quite possibly I sound severely unbalanced with this constant flux of ups and downs, but isn't that life? Something makes you feel horrible, but just for a little while, and then you bounce back for a little while. I can't say that I'm ever truly happy with a lack of particular companionship; all my happiness comes in spite of it; but there is happiness to be found nonetheless.
Today my resilience finds a helpful source in the rejuvenation of the whole world, the continual cycle of birth from death, the baby greening of the trees. The temperature hovers at around 55 and it's sunny, a quintessential Mid-Atlantic spring day, and I've dressed for the occasion in a flouncy brown skirt that ruffles out at the knees, little brown ankle boots, a sleek lime green tanktop and a shimmery burnt orange half-sleeved shrug with beaded sequensing down the neckline which ties below the breast. Big matching jewelry and loose curled hair completes the ensemble, and, for no good reason, especially because I suck at it, I want to go dancing. Form dancing -- like contra. Someplace where this skirt can fly out around my knees and do my pale calves some justice. I want to get caught up in some lively motion.
A few nagging existential dilemmas still gnaw like mice in the dark at my thoughts, but today it's not unbearable. I'm considering different approaches with a new mindset based on Thomas Jefferson's advice to his son that "the uprightness, and not the rightness of a decision is what matters." Which I think I love: So many decisions over which we agonize, trying to discern the "right" decision from the "wrong" one, have none of the good-vs.-evil implications or consequences with which we imbue them; important as they are, the different paths we might take do not lead to divine approval or indictment, and in these then, particularly as they involve other people, the question is not one of right and wrong, but of uprightness, of which decision is better -- which encompasses a host of moral considerations that keep a person on the path of integrity.
I think that oftentimes, as Christians, we fall into a black-and-white mentality of right and wrong, and approach decisions in terms of reward and punishment: Which choice leads to God's favor? Which choice will incur His wrath? How will I answer for this decision on Judgment Day? Unfortunately this approach, when it encompasses most of our decision-making processes, leads to paranoia, the fear that we are morally accountable for everything, and in the end we run the risk of paralyzing ourselves because we can identify a thousand ways in which God could judge us for any choice we might make, since we are never truly selfless, never live perfectly in love.
But we miss out on so much of life's richness, on the possibilities of love and the glowing strength of living in faith and the gloriousness of walking free of fear, when we reduce everything to its eternal consequences to ourselves. Christ came that we may "have [life] to the full," not to the minimum, and a life lived in fear of taking a wrong step and falling into a pit of fire isn't exactly living life to the fullest.
And honestly, uprightness is more commendable than correctness. Most of the time there is no correct answer, anyway. I'm not talking about choices that are clearly between right and wrong, such as Do I cheat on my spouse or not? but rather choices such as whether to express words of love, or how to approach human relationships, or which career to pursue in which part of the world. There's no blueprint for these things, just a foundation of agape love. How we build on that is up to us, and the structure gets to be our own. The love and the lives we build won't look like anyone else's; we're not talking manufactured homes here. Someone's might have three stories and turrets, someone else's might be built into a hillside with a vegetable garden on the roof, and someone else's still might sprawl in a single story with flowers in windowboxes. God's not going to say that one of these mansions is better than another; as He made the extent universe in dizzying variety, so He made us, and so He made us to love: uniquely, individually, personally, powerfully. The only thing we don't get is praise for trying to copy our neighbor brick for brick, or praise for building International-style, trying to make everything the same from the fear of incorrectness and winding up without beauty or soul.
To consider uprightness, the full effect of a decision less upon the self than upon others, leads to better decisions. Ironically when we stop focusing on how the decision will affect us eternally, we make choices that will actually lead to a "Well done, good and faithful servant!" If we choose based purely on our own interest (yes, thinking only of whether or not God will be happy with us displays even greater self-interest than a lot of decisions based on sensory impulses) we live and love in a miserly way: We become the servant who buries his talent in a corner of the garden and does nothing for anyone: We become inorganic.
We spend so much time worrying about what God wants. He's said pretty clearly what He wants from us: "To act justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God." The beginning of that verse -- "He has shown you, O man, what is good" -- implies the question we ask so often: What is right? What is the good decision? And the answer: He has shown you. Act justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly with your God. These are matters of uprightness. Justice, mercy, humility; action, love and progress.
Most of the time we only let ourselves get mired down in wondering what God wants because it lets us dither our way into paranoid inaction, which gives us a secret sense of relief because the decision we probably ought to make involves risks that scare us. And we can get away with that if we obsess, and prioritize, the rightness of a thing. We can deconstruct every possibility until it reverberates to meaninglessness, and thereby justify our failure to act. But when we prioritize uprightness, we seek to bring good to, and to bless the Other, and we pursue the fullest richness of life. And in contemplating uprightness we have no excuse for failing to bring good to another.
The spotlight of uprightness shows our decisions for what they often are: selfish and cowardly, small and fearful. Uprightness brings every shade of goodness and love to counter all the shades of uncertainty we use to excuse ourselves.
And how much more fun it is to celebrate each other! How much happier to tell people what they mean to us, to encourage their strengths and forgive their weaknesses, to look for things to love about others and express appreciation for them!
As Sufjan writes:
We celebrate our sense of each other:
We have a lot to give one another.
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