Divinely Dissatisfied

A few months ago, I heard Downhere's song, "My Last Amen," on the radio and immediately fell in love with it. It’s not new; in fact, it’s been on Downhere’s VEVO for seven years already! How had I never heard it before?! Musically, this group reminded me of a Christian version of Queen: the vocal stylings, the tight harmonies, the unexpected chord progressions, and the sudden contrasts of instrumental layerings to create dramatic crescendos and decrescendos. But while I delighted in the music, I deeply resonated with the lyrics.

“Somewhere in the grand design
It’s good to be unsatisfied.
It keeps the faith and hope a little more…
                                                                   ALIVE.”

Do you find yourself continually struggling to make life work in this broken, fallen world? Of course you do. If you don’t, you’re either in denial or depression. Life is hard. Granted, it’s harder for some than others, but the Fall affects every life on this planet. No one escapes untouched.

I was reminded of this the other day, when a dear friend expressed a worry that poignantly echoed my own heart’s cry, although it surprised me to hear it coming from her. She is such an amazing soul. Brilliant and energetic, she ties together life as a stage and theatre director, actor, and writer; an artist in residence; a film actor; a teaching artist; a homeschool mama; a tutor and a scholar; and probably so much more of which I’m not even aware! Me--I think I have it hard bouncing back and forth between York and Philly like a ping-pong ball.  But she--she’s more like a pinball machine’s dizzying whiz between York, Baltimore, New York City, and beyond! And she manages to keep everything straight, even down to the details of our sons’ mutual basketball commitments in three different locations this past weekend, when I called her in a panic to ask where I should be going. Of course, she knew. This friend is one amazing lady, and she seems to “have it all together,” however impossible “it” seems to me.

So when this friend’s eyes gave me a slight glimpse into her soul’s struggle, sharing a deeply emotional worry whether she was spending enough time with her precious family, I realized: Hey! My own struggles in this area—of feeling stretched in too many directions, of never being enough, never having enough time to spread between the necessities of life (e.g. making an income) and the purposes of life (e.g. loving our children)—these are not just “single mom” issues; they are larger than that! I think I assign the blame for the brokenness of my life far too often on the dysfunction of single motherhood. Truly, life’s struggles hit us all.

Life doesn’t work.

I’m not just talking about being pressed for time. Certainly, busyness is an almost universal epidemic in our American culture. The hectic pace of life is mind-numbing and soul-crushing. But when I say, “Life doesn’t work,” I’m talking about something more mysterious than busyness. The tension between necessary activities and meaningful ones is slightly closer to what I’m getting at. God has set eternity in our hearts (Ecclesiastes 3:11) and so we reflect the image of our Creator in dreaming big dreams and seeking purpose and meaning.  But yet in this fallen world, the weeds of the mundane crowd out the glorious, and the thorns of the vicissitudes of life thwart our best efforts.  There’s just this persistent feeling that life isn’t supposed to be like “this.” Relationships, work, schedules, everything…when they’re at their worst, they crush and wound us; when they’re at their best, they still leave us with a nagging feeling of dissatisfaction.  We feel it deep in our spirits: we were made for so much more.

Is life even supposed to work?

There are beautiful questions, even moreso than beautiful answers, and I believe this is one of those beautiful questions, because of where it leads us.

Is there a divine reason for our dissatisfaction with life? What have great minds concluded on the subject? In “Making Sense of God: An Invitation to the Skeptical,” Tim Keller states that one of the greatest minds that ever lived, Saint Augustine, believed that our discontent has both a functional cause (“disordered loves”) and an ultimate source.

C.S. Lewis said:

“If I find in myself desires which nothing in this world can satisfy, the only logical explanation is that I was made for another world.” –Mere Christianity

And because I love the French language so much, I can’t resist quoting Albert Camus too:

“Ce monde, tel qu'il est fait, n'est pas supportable. J'ai donc besoin de la lune, ou du bonheur, ou de l'immortalité, de quelque chose qui soit dément peut-être, mais qui ne soit pas de ce monde.” –Caligula

(So much of the beauty of Camus' words is lost in translation, but here is the English version, prosaic thought it may be:

"This world, as it is, is not bearable. So I need the moon, or happiness, or immortality, something that is insane perhaps, but not of this world.")

Recalling the opening chapters of the Bible that set the stage for everything to come, after Adam and Eve sinned by eating of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, there was another mysterious tree that became forbidden to them.

"Then the Lord God said, 'Behold, the man has become like one of us in knowing good and evil. Now, lest he reach out his hand and take also of the tree of life and eat, and live forever—' therefore the Lord God sent him out from the garden of Eden to work the ground from which he was taken. He drove out the man, and at the east of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim and a flaming sword that turned every way to guard the way to the tree of life."  (Genesis 3:22-24)

Was this prohibition from the tree of life another aspect of punishment? No! It was actually a loving protection! Can you imagine how horrific it would be for Adam and Eve to live forever in a fallen, sinful state? And yet, when we expect life to “work” in this fallen world, are we not expecting something similar? Are we not expecting the temporal and imperfect to be the eternal and perfect? How horrible would it be if this life, such as it is, did not leave us dissatisfied?

I have heard it said that the goal of classical education is to learn to love what is lovely. If that is true, what is the goal of life? What is the most lovely of all? Jesus. And yet our natural hearts turn to so many lesser loves, because we don’t yet know better. I think this world is a training ground, where God uses the pain to forge us into jewels for Him, purging us of lesser loves until we do truly love what is altogether lovely: Him. And this brings us full circle, back to Saint Augustine and a wonderful quote of his:

"You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you."

Our lives are not supposed to “work” because this world is the Protestant’s “purgatory.” Life in this world is supposed to train our souls for their eternal destiny with God. But yet, celebrating Christ’s incarnation this Advent season reminds me that our Emmanuel is already with us.  Jesus has come, so that little foretastes of Heaven break through into the present, even now. In one sense, we shall not be whole, not be healed, not be purged of our sins until Heaven, but in another sense, Jesus has already accomplished it all.  He has already come, already lived a sinless life on behalf of the elect, already died in propitiation, and already defeated sin and death by His resurrection. Through His Holy Spirit living in our hearts, we can, EVEN NOW, live in the fullness of joy and in His peace. Because God has not left us alone, we have hope. God has a purpose for our dissatisfying lives in this world, and this world shall not have the final word. The Word made flesh will.

Life shall not always be like "this."

Of Geometry And Worldviews

Believe it or not, mathematics is a gateway for some pretty wild stuff.  Oh, it’s true that every mathematical system has order to it, and, therefore, predictability.  In fact, that’s what draws folks like me to it: the orderly aesthetic of a world that makes sense.  (Now, if you saw my messy house, you might challenge my self-avowed love of order, so I should clarify that it’s mental order in which I dwell!  Physical order is indeed beautiful, too, although thus far it’s been an elusive goal for me.  But I digress…)

Anyway, if you dip your toe past the shallow waters of grade school arithmetic, you may be surprised at the other-worldly creatures you will find swimming in the deep end.  That’s why I called mathematics “wild.”

Mathematics must be built progressively, like a house.  Admittedly, I am no contractor, but even I can understand the basics: first you start by pouring a foundation.  You’ll need the right set of tools and some sturdy, consistent building materials.  You can’t just start haphazardly throwing down row after row of brick.  The angles and placement have to be just right, especially in the beginning, because that will set the shape of the structure that will result.  Mathematics is no different.

Merriam-Webster defines an axiom as “an unprovable rule or first principle accepted as true because it is self-evident or particularly useful.”  Also called a postulate, it is accepted without proof.  Once you lay down your axioms and definitions, you can then use them to prove theorems, and then you can use those theorems to prove other theorems.  And so the house is built.  Whole structures of mathematics start from these unprovable but self-evident axioms and definitions.

If you’ve never taken a math class after high school, my guess is that the mere mention of the words “theorems” and “proofs” transports your mind back to geometry class.  Proofs and theorems are actually the building blocks for all kinds of different mathematical structures, including number theory and its simplification into the arithmetic with which we’re all so familiar.  But let’s hang out in our geometry house for a while and have a little fun.

Did you know that there is more than one kind of geometry?  The kind that you probably imagine, the kind typically taught in high school, is Euclidean geometry, named after the ancient Greek mathematician, Euclid.  In his mathematical treatise called “The Elements,” written circa 300 B.C., Euclid collected 23 definitions and 5 postulates, or axioms.  Euclids “Elements” rendered him the father of the most well-known geometry of the past two thousand years.  Take a look at his first four postulates, or axioms, and see if you agree that they are pretty straightforward and self-evident:

1. A straight line may be drawn between any two points.
2. A piece of straight line may be extended indefinitely.
3. A circle may be drawn with any given radius and an arbitrary center.
4. All right angles are equal.

The fifth postulate has an interesting history.  I’ll let curious readers research it for themselves.

So what kind of geometry can be constructed with these postulates and definitions?  Well, a Euclidean plane is flat.  It exists in two dimensions.  Think of length and width, or imagine a sheet of paper and then imagine it extending out infinitely in both directions.  As we have stated, Euclidean geometry is built on a certain set of axioms and definitions.  Euclid’s Definition 23 states, “Parallel straight lines are straight lines which, being in the same plane and being produced indefinitely in both directions, do not meet one another in either direction.”  Again, that seems pretty straightforward and familiar.  Parallel lines don’t intersect.  Okay.  Easy peasy.  Got it.

But now, haha (oh, yes!)…now let’s have a little fun.

What if we change our axioms and definitions so that “parallel” lines can intersect?

This will lead to a whole new animal.  Ready to meet one of those other-worldly creatures in the deep end?  Let’s try!  First, imagine a geometry where the shortest path between any two points is a curved line.  Imagine that there is actually more than one shortest path between those points!  Imagine a scenario where the sum of the interior angles of a triange exceeds 180 degrees.  Now, don’t get too excited (or freaked out, as the case may be).  We actually haven’t gone very far into the deep end, and we haven’t encountered a very exotic creature at all.  You see, all you have to do is imagine a globe.  Spherical geometry will illustrate my point quite sufficiently and yet still be familiar enough to feel rather comfortable.

Think of the lines of latitude and the lines of longitude.  

Would you consider lines of latitude to be parallel to each other?  How about lines of longitude—would they be parallel to one another?  Can you call these things lines at all?  It all depends on your definitions and axioms.  That’s my point.  It’s not hard to imagine parallel lines intersecting if we allow lines of longitude to qualify as parallel lines and consider that they intersect at the north and south poles.  Now, the punctilious mathematician will notice that I am not speaking strictly of standard spherical geometry, in which straight lines are replaced by geodiscs, parallel lines still cannot intersect, and there simply are no parallel lines.  Spherical geometry is indeed an interesting creature, one that turns out to be quite tamable and willing to harness its powers to benefit us with practical applications in navigation and astronomy.  But the purpose of this blog post is not to teach about spherical geometry, or even of exotic creatures like hyperbolic geometry, in which a line has two parallels and an infinite number of ultraparallels through a given point.  Rather, this blog post is about the consequences of choosing different axioms.  Your axioms will determine the entire structure that you can build using them.  Throw out Euclid’s parallel postulate and you have a whole new geometry!

So how does this relate to worldviews?

Looking at my word count, I see that this post already should take more than five minutes to read!  I’ve also run out of time to write the rest of it.  (Oops!)  So I’ll have to leave you hanging.  Please stay tuned for a continuation in the future!  But in the meantime, here’s a teaser for you, for your pondering pleasure:

On an intellectual level, what kind of axioms underlie the way you see the world?  How would your worldview change if you replaced one of those axioms?

On an emotional level, what are the axiomatic beliefs by which you live your life?

Feel free to comment below!