Living Absolutely…

Yesterday I was looking at some stuff that I had in a ‘saved’ folder in an old email account that I no longer use. I found a blog post that I’d written just a few weeks after the attacks on September 11. Not surprisingly, it was a very long and involved essay – and I enjoyed reading it. It was a very fascinating glimpse into the mind of Mikey circa 2001… If you ever get the opportunity to read something you wrote a long time ago, you should take advantage of it… it’s quite enlightening.

At one point in the essay, I asked this question: “When did faith become so completely internal, so thoroughly independent from our minds?”

I had listed a few ideas, but one of them jumped out at me: the death of the absolute. To be more precise, I referred to the fact that relativism has gone a long way toward supplanting absolutism in western culture – so really, I was talking about the death of society’s awareness of the absolute, not the absolute itself.

It seemed to me at the time (and I suppose it still seems to me) that when absolutes died in the western mind, it had a drastic impact on the world’s perception of those of us who still believe in them. At best, those who embrace the existence of absolutes are considered quaint throwbacks to an earlier, more naïve time – the sociological equivalent of someone who cooks popcorn without a microwave, or pays bills by sending checks via the US postal system. At worst, these folks are dangerous fanatics willing to kill or destroy to validate their opinion.

This change has even altered the lexicon – a ‘fundamentalist’ used to mean just what it looks like… someone who believes in the simplified, fundamental truth of a concept. Now the word is a synonym for ‘extremist’ – someone who clings tightly to narrow, radical, dangerous, volatile ideas or opinions.

In one sense, I suppose, this new thinking is correct – absolutes are dangerous. If one accepts the possibility that there might be something that is absolutely true, then one must recognize the possibility that one can be absolutely wrong. That’s a terrifying thought – a thought that today would be considered patently un-American.

Unfortunately, to bring this back to the question I asked back in 2001, many of us have reacted to this shift in the zeitgeist by turning off our minds. Many of us have decided that not only must we fight to defend the existence of absolutes, we must always declare to everyone around that we are correctly aligned with these absolutes. We have added a Beatitude to the list in Matthew 5:

“Blessed are you who are so totally, completely certain that you know everything that you refuse to even listen to another opinion, for you shall feel victorious.”

Here’s an example of being unwilling to listen. This just happened a few days ago:

On one level, at least, this is about politics, not faith – but of course it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see just how deeply faith is embedded in every aspect of politics.

For the sake of this post, it doesn’t matter what side you happen to support in the DADT discussion (and yes, I’m being unbelievably lenient by using the word ‘discussion’ here). The point here is Senator McCain’s behavior. I suspect that he’s acting this way because he knows that he’s wrong, and he doesn’t want to talk about it.

But let’s assume for the sake of argument that he really believes what he’s saying. Let’s assume that he genuinely believes that the military always behaves in accordance with their stated policy. I have to admit that it’s hard for me to even pretend that – since no non-divine person or group in all of human history has ever lived totally in accordance with their stated policy/beliefs/ethics/guidelines – but for the sake of rhetoric, let’s make that assumption: Senator McCain believes that the military does not conduct investigations with the goal of discovering homosexuals for the purpose of discharging them.

Even believing that, what does it take to refuse to admit even the possibility that he is wrong? At what point can you ever believe honestly that evidence to the contrary of your opinion cannot possibly exist? Of course I am stacking the deck here – in this particular case, evidence does exist that proves that the military has upon occasion acted in a way that is contrary to their stated policy. Again, this is not a surprise – the human condition literally requires that at some point someone will slip up.

The point is that he refuses to consider the remote possibility that there might be a chance that somehow, maybe, there might be a situation that could conceivably be different than his current belief.

Guess what?

This is an axiom for humanity: we cannot know everything.

Guess what else?

That’s actually the reason that faith exists in the first place.

One definition of faith that is popular among us Jesus-folk is that faith is being sure of things that are hoped for and being certain of things that are unseen. Upon first glance, that may seem to be a contradiction to my point, but it’s not. The difference is simple – where does our faith rest?

In our little video parable, McCain’s faith rested in his knowledge and personal experience with all things military. As we all know, he’s a war hero and former POW and all that… so his knowledge and personal experience is quite vast.

There’s the rub. That is exactly the trap that most of us fall into. We place our faith in ourselves. We have faith in our knowledge, our personal experience, our understanding of what the Bible says, our perception of right and wrong, our idea of what is fair or just or worthwhile or natural or correct or healthy or legitimate or American or whatever. It’s a devious – and incredibly effective – trap.

I’m not unseen… and I seriously doubt that I’m hoped for.

For us Jesus-folk, our faith is supposed to be in God. For those of us who believe that God is who he says he is, if we remove our faith from ourselves and put it in him, we don’t have to turn off our brains. Truth is no longer our enemy. Evidence is no longer something to fear or avoid. If someone shows me evidence that proves that my understanding of the Bible was incomplete or lacking, I don’t have to behave like a cornered animal – because my faith isn’t in my understanding of the Bible… it’s in the one who inspired it.

This is a pretty big deal. This means that I no longer have to be so suspicious or terrified of people who disagree with me. This means that I don’t have to condemn ‘others’ just for being ‘others’. If I recognize the fact that it’s entirely possible that I could learn something from anyone, I might actually begin to act toward my neighbor the way I claim to believe I should.

Let me make something clear… I’m definitely not saying that I think we should change our beliefs with every new (or old) idea that flashes across our mental in-box. I specifically mentioned the words evidence and proof because they’re important to this process. Ideas need to be more than just charming or trendy or sweet or egalitarian or whatever… they need to be true if they’re going to make the cut. Throughout the Bible we are encouraged to study, to discern, to work our stuff out, to work and persevere and pray and meditate… This is work, folks. This is the very opposite of accepting something at face value the very first time you hear it.

So – what am I saying?

If we believe that we are done learning… if we believe that we can’t be wrong about anything… if we believe that we already know everything that there is to know about any subject… we’re wrong.

But even that’s not the point. This is America… and for better or for worse, we’re allowed to think what we want – even if it’s wrong. And in fact, our Constitution pretty much says we can say what we want – even if it’s wrong (a quick peek at many of our popular media outlets makes it appear that we get to say what we want especially if it’s wrong).

I’d be happy if we just acted like we believe in the possibility that we might be wrong. Those of us who believe in all that “do unto others” stuff should be the last ones to act like we know everything. I’d be thrilled if we would act like we’re meek and humble and gentle and willing to put others before ourselves… rather than what I currently see so much: folks saying that we’re all these things, but acting like we are the only ones who really know anything.

Wow. This is kinda heavy. I actually prefer to write funny blog posts. Maybe this bit of unloading will clear out my system and let me get back to the silly stuff I usually write… Hope so! For now, it’s time to sleep… if you made it to the end, thanks for reading – and peace be all over you!