We take for granted, it appears to me, that when you see suds, you've got "clean". There is an entire industry out there in consumer-land, which is based (apparently) upon maximizing and enhancing the sudsing component to detergents. What "sells" is, "lots and lots of bubbles" which (very importantly!) "last". As such, we can get a kind of glimpse into the soul; and it's pretty vile, the soul I mean.
The concepts of "dirt" and "germs" are often linked, and (I think) wrongly so. There is a paranoid feature to much of the thing, and it is not too clear where facts leave off, and superstition jumps in. The outright fear of "germs" is often linked, (or so it is said) to "disease", at least this would be true in the minds of "germaphobes". And weirdly, the very fact of having "touched" a "germy" surface; while it was yet "dirty", is thought to (somehow) be "dangerous". It is almost as-if the skin was imagined here; to be a permeable membrane, specially designed to let microbial invaders in (!), a kind of one-way door, built to allow traffic "in" only? How weird is that? Furthermore, the bizarre connection drawn between "dangerous germs", and regular old grime, honest old dirt, is assumed to be "an issue", but has (as far as I can tell) no validity at all. Dirt per se, isn't "dirty"!
The ideal of "scrubbed clean" as opposed to "filthy dirty" is proposing for us then; a whacked out vision of reality. The key concepts here (I think) are "safe, healthy and clean". Clearly an idiotic grouping in any case, and in order to see why I say this; just think for a moment of little kids. Do we: A. Let the little scooters zoom around, "be kids", and get dirty? or do we, B. Place them in a "safe bubble" and keep them always and ever clean? (so to promote "health" you see...). The entire idea of "bubbles" (suds actually) is a defensive posture, a hauling back from the "danger" of germs, and the fear of "sickness". Uh, such is (not only) an impossible "goal", but not to put too fine a point on it; crazy as a loon!
Now see here young man! You; as a budding two year old, have two pathways before you. You may, ahem, either reside in a "safe" space, utterly cut-off from "germs", and so be "safe and healthy", or contrariwise, you may swing in trees, hoot like an ape, and have tons of fun. Howsome-ever, if you choose the latter option little man, you will (inevitably) "get sick", (I hate to break it to you this way). Now before you choose which you prefer, just recall that the "upside" to "getting sick", is that your immune system will be always getting stronger, savvier, and generally more able to fight off future invasions of "germs". Meanwhile, the (miserable) "upside" to living inside a sud, is that you won't have to touch anything "icky"... So then; which shall it be, short dude? Would you care to live in a "safe" bubble, or a "dangerous" real world?
Now, nobody that I have met, actually enjoys getting sick; yet likewise, on the other side of sickness, when you emerge, again feeling better, nobody would, at that time; reject the better, stronger immune resistance thus built-up within the body. Perhaps a bit like lifting weights here, we note that no one appears to (much) enjoy the work of lifting, while most desire the look and feel of a fit body. We would like (very much!) the results without having to pay the price involved. Likewise, nobody likes getting spanked, but almost everyone enjoys the resultant "feeling able" to control ourselves.
The LORD chastens, disciplines (spanks) them He receives as sons. The book of Hebrews goes further, and informs that if he does not "spank", it's because you have not (yet?) been received as a son! If you are not being disciplined, it's because you have not been adopted in the first place. Oops, and here I thought (all along) that it was because I didn't need it...
There is a kind of "flip" involved in suds and spanks. We (of ourselves), choose badly. We choose to be "safe" from "germs", which is about the most dangerous thing we could do, and likewise; we choose to avoid (like the plague) correction, which is a deeply incorrect choice... When we think of a "flip", we ordinarily might think of those champs at diving. Off of a seven or ten meter board (or so), they twist around, rotate, swivel, and then enter the water leaving barely a ripple. And that could prove to be be a fairly decent mental image here. What appears to us as "graceful", or "natural" is the result of years of grueling training, coaching, and work. We want the final product without doing the work in the mid-section, thanks just the same. So, using our diver as a model, let's investigate somewhat, over here.
Turn number one: You must "buy", you must accept within you; that getting "a love tap", or encountering a "germ", is for your long range good, and not for your destruction. In brief, quit taking everything so blasted "personally"! Not every comment in the free world is intended as an insult directed at your oh so fragile self image. Lighten up already, and grow a spine in your free time will ya? In brief, the universe is not out to "get you", nor is correction meant to crush your heart. Moreover getting a case of the sniffles is not a mortal blow, but you kinda already knew that, didn't you? Our diver has gone through move number one.
In turn two, we note that the higher the diving platform, the more crucial it becomes for you to enter the water with no splash. Shall I translate for you then? If you do not actually want, I mean inside your soul, if you do not WANT to be friendly with the "low", then you will have no true friends at all! Deal with it. This is what spanking is all about. Be nice to your sister! Share your toys! If the "stuff" of life is more important to you than the people who exist inside the real reality, then you will be alone, ever alone...in your damnably "safe" sud! And turn three builds off of this base.
The third turn to our super diver's performance is the dizzy looking head-over-heels gig. How can he even tell which way is up with all that spin? To value people ahead of "stuff", is something we must learn by painful, repetitive lessons. If you are blessed enough in this sad cold world to have a few real friends, people who love you with your warts and all the lessor charming features of the "magic" called "you", then you are dimly aware that the more "success" you experience, the faster and furious-er you must give! Yes, I am afraid to mention it, but you might even be in position to give "correction" (God forbid!), and yell at a loved one, or even spread (horrors!) a cold, (or flu) to your own family! To refuse categorically, to "give" (germs and yelling in this case), is to die. It's about that complex. This brings us to the hard part of the dive...
Do you get this? There are no "good options" down here. You either take the "high probable" or the "high risk", but recall that in the end, both choices suck. We all die, and promptly give an account to the High King. Or to rephrase somewhat here; bad option number one is to do the loafer drill. Just don't try! After all, failure is "all there is"; and everybody knows that "the deck was stacked against you", plus you had a "really bad childhood", and other such-like drivel, til I puke in my sock over here. Bad option number two, is to do the "on time, hard working sucker" drill. You know this one all too well, as I do, you work your ass off for forty years, and what you get is...sore! As you muddle through; for "your forty", each day you are aware that your "best" ain't really all that hot. You just "do your best", and just kind of perpetually "wish" that things could be better? So much for the "high probable". The "high risk" appears even worse! Bad option three here, is to "Try really really hard", have some "good breaks", and shine! Excel at what you do. Here, the risk is tremendous, it's a regular minefield! Your very soul is in the offing.
Did you catch that diver's twist? To grow "great" you become a mere "user" of others, and thus have no true friends at all, only perpetually to look "down" on others. Sheer toxin for the soul, and so, somehow we desire to remain "a regular guy", and also simultaneously become "a tycoon"? So, if we could find some way to combine bad options one and three, we would find a millionaire philanthropist, who in his spare time was a janitor? Further, his co-workers and neighbors would never know of his "true identity"? Short of this miracle of duplicity, we could just sit around and read old Superman comic books maybe? But seriously, having the "ultimate dead-end job" would be the only "safe place" for us! Wealth will ruin you, it makes you "forget" way too much! The "sud" must live amid "dirt", or it becomes downright unhealthy! The germ must be encountered and battled, prior to you becoming "strong". Our proposed "secret millionaire janitor" would (doubtless) run a charitable foundation, in which the goal was to bail faster than the vessel is sinking. Excess money is deeply unwholesome for your soul, and as it floods the boat of your life, you must rid yourself of it, or go down with the vessel. Newsflash, this just in: The "goal" of life is giving, not receiving, and to "miss" this twist in the dive; is to belly flop from 40 feet. Painful and embarrassing at minimum, fatal perhaps?
There is nothing "worse" for you than "success", likewise, there is nothing "unhealthier" than to live inside a "clean" sud. There is no real love from the father, if he always refuses to correct the son. So then, if you find that you are unable to be generous to the poor, it is because you are no longer "one of them", and that is a truly awful place to be! If you find that you "just cannot" be generous to the needy, who then can you be generous to? Further, if there be no generosity within you, your heart is well nigh dead...and is that what you really wanted in life?
Those little love taps, those nasty viruses teach us, they remind us...to right here, and right now, (today) while I feel like crap, to thank! We thank the good LORD God Almighty for His indescribable gift to us sad, sick filthy wretches. Spanks and germs are those little reminders which we require, in this lonesome pilgrimage. He has heard my cry for help, yet even now, today; I cannot, I dare not, trust mine own heart. If it, my heart I mean, finally turns from You Sir, if I finally value "the stuff" above You; "the stuff-Builder", put me out of Your misery I pray! I cannot, I refuse to live without You at the center. And if I love my own "cleanness, safeness, and wealth" more than I do You, then please (!), would YOU pound me into the soil? I just can't live that way! And how precisely do I know this? He spanked me, and I began to learn the gospel; by heart!
No comments:
Post a Comment