Christian Life 22 - An Aside

    I want to take a short break from our examination of The Problem of Wineskins to once again address and, one hopes, clarify my position on pride.  There are several reasons for doing so here:

(1) the subject has come up in at least three separate conversations I've had in the last week.

(2) I have gathered from these conversations that my main points on previous posts have not been clear.

(3) If I am successful in the following clarification, it speaks to what I see as the single flaw in Snyder's otherwise brilliant work.

(4) Starting with the next chapter under scrutiny, the tone of Wineskins changes and the subjects yet to be discussed can be interpreted as mysticism if the points I am about to attempt to make are not crystal clear.

    I cannot say that this effort will be successful.  It is possible that the idea I'm trying to express is one of those that simply transcends words altogether. However, if clarification is to be made, I must reiterate the single most important point of everything I have typed since March 31 of this year: EVERYTHING ABOUT WESTERN THOUGHT IS WRONG!  We can proceed no further until this is clearly understood and accepted.  Everything you have been taught stems either directly or indirectly from a society rooted inextricably in Ancient Roman ideology with its skepticism, stoicism, epicureanism, patriarchalism, and nationalism.  In the Book of Revelation, John of Patmos was urgent in his call to the first century church to avoid allowing any sense of Romanism to permeate their thinking.  This seems to have worked fairly well for 300 years or so, until the Roman Emperor Constantine declared himself the head of the Christian church.  In the intervening millennium and a half, the Romanism that John so dreaded has become such a basic part of everything we think, say and do in the West (including our religious beliefs) that its extraction is impossible until we are willing to simply throw away the whole thing and start over, which can't be done until we're willing to accept that everything about Western thought is wrong.

    Several days ago, I was chatting with a young man and, in the course of that chat, I basically quoted my own words printed here on Sept 12, 2023 in a post entitled "How to be Perfect (in 10 Easy Steps)."  In that post, I speak at length on the subject of pride and its danger in our thought process.  The young man responded, saying that he had tried getting rid of his pride and he ended up being depressed.  All I could do was smile and say, "How very Western of you."

    I am willing to accept, from a grammatical perspective, that "pride" is the opposite of "humility."  However, if we define pride as "too much ego," I don't agree that the definition of humility is "too little ego."  That's Western thinking at its worse.  I would even argue that depression and self-deprecation are nothing more than a reverse form of pride; it still puts the focus on oneself (we're not here discussing clinical depression, which is actually caused by biochemical imbalances and requires a medical diagnosis and treatment).

    In 1930, a newly-converted C.S. Lewis wrote the following in a letter to Arthur Greeves: "During my afternoon 'meditations' - which I at least attempt quite regularly now - I have found out ludicrous and terrible things about my own character.  Sitting by, watching the rising thoughts to break their necks as they pop up, one learns to know the sort of thoughts that do come.

    "And, will you believe it, one out of every three is the thought of self-admiration: when everything else fails, having had its neck broken, up comes the thought 'what an admirable man I am for having broken their necks!'  I catch myself posturing before the mirror, so to speak, all day long.  I pretend I am carefully thinking out what to say to the next pupil (for his good, of course) and then suddenly realize I am really thinking how frightfully clever I'm going to be and how much he will admire me...

    "And then when you force yourself to stop it, you admire yourself for doing that.  It is like fighting the hydra...There seems to be no end to it.  Depths under depths of self-love and self-admiration."

    In the 1740's, Johnathon Edwards found much the same thing.  In Religious Affections, Edwards foreshadows Lewis: "If on the proposal of the question [Are you humble?], you answer, 'No, it seems to me, none are so bad as I,' don't let the matter pass off so; but examine again, whether or no you don't think yourself better than others on this very account, because you imagine you think so meanly of yourself.  Haven't you a high opinion of this humility?  And if you answer again, 'No; I have not a high opinion of my humility; it seems to me I am as proud as the devil'; yet examine again, whether self-conceit don't rise up under this cover; whether on this very account, that you think yourself as proud as the devil, you don't think yourself to be very humble."

    Humility doesn't mean "too little ego," as these two quotes point out.  It really means "no ego at all." We've mentioned several times now Jesus' edict to his followers to be perfect.  This is not possible for egos because an ego is, by definition, self-centered, either in what we would consider a positive way or a negative way.  What I'm trying to say is that the very idea of ego - a word that was invented in the West - is always negative.  Perfection - enlightenment - begins by stripping ourselves of ego altogether, to simply move out of the house and let the Holy Spirit move in and take over the living arrangements.

    Perhaps a different approach: if "pride" is to mean "thinking too highly of oneself" and "humility" is to mean "thinking too lowly of oneself," I am not here advocating for a spiritual balance between these bipolar extremes.  I am here looking at a concept that doesn't belong on this spectrum.  So we insert a new word, that of "emptiness," and assign it the definition of "simply not thinking of oneself at all."  The goal is not to control one's ego; the goal is to not even have an ego to control in the first place.  And this really makes sense when one ponders it carefully.  You would never consider a chap humble because he thinks himself so, or because he appears to be trying so hard at it.  You would think him humble only if he seemed to only be interested in what you're interested in, only discusses topics of your passion, never his own.  In short, you would find him humble if he seemed to not give himself any thought at all.

    Perhaps we can make this clearer with a parable.  Let us imagine that it is a hot and sunny day, and we have just spent the last few hours outside doing yard work.  Upon coming back into the house, we find that someone has thoughtfully left out a big pitcher of ice cold lemonade for our consumption.  How long shall we consider the pitcher before pouring out the lemonade?  Think about that for a minute before proceeding to the next paragraph.  I'm sure you'll laugh and say, "not at all!  Gimme some d**n lemonade!"

    The world is full of hot, sweaty, thirsty men and women, and God is anxious to pour out the lemonade of the Holy Spirit.  We are asked to serve as pitchers.  We need concern ourselves with neither the pride of being fine Italian crystal ewers nor the shame of being old tea-stained plastic jugs nor the shortsightedness of comparing ourselves to the other pitchers available in the hutch, just so long as we willingly submit ourselves to the task of containing and dispensing the lemonade.  The lemonade is all that matters.

    For about a year following my retirement from the theatre, I worked as the manager of a food pantry, a job for which I was woefully under qualified.  I was terrified of this job.  From day one, I started a habitual prayer with which I began each workday.  Upon waking up, I would quickly pray, "Jesus, I'm supposed to go run the food pantry today, and I can guarantee that I'll screw it up.  I'm pretty sure you can do it, though, so here's the deal:  I'm going to stay in bed today.  You go run the pantry."  This seemed to work well except on the days that I forgot the deal and showed up for work anyway.

       I believe this addresses my young friend's issue.  If we can actually die to self, if we can simply learn to give our whole selves over and let the Holy Spirit breathe through us (as opposed to the lip service Westerns so commonly pay to this idea), there will be nothing to be depressed about because the ego that drives the depression will no longer exist.  The fact that I can find no Western teachers who know the depth of the meaning of this is why I've started advocating seeking out Eastern teachers, specifically Buddhists.  They seem to understand the principle I'm attempting to describe.  The handful of practicing Buddhists I have known appear to be among the most truly humble and most well-adjusted people I've ever met.  And I've noticed that they tend to laugh.  A lot!

    When we get back to Wineskins, Snyder is going to discuss some ideas that rub against the grain of many Western Christians.  If we read the work with this Eastern eye of humility or emptiness, they'll seem a lot less scary.  And, it also amplifies the one flaw I find in Snyder's amazing work: at no point does he mention this idea of individual enlightenment, of abject emptiness, although it seems obvious to me that this and this alone can make the Renewed Church viable.

Pax