So for the 3 of you that read my blog I’m sure you’ve tired of hearing me talk about not getting work done and slacking off. Okay. I hear ya. Sorry. But here’s the deal. I worked my arse off the last couple of weeks. Really. I worked sometimes for 12+ hours a day. I saw no one, hung out with no one, and even, at times, slept very little. And then, miraculously, by God’s grace, I got my draft in for my Harvard class paper. And then, even more miraculously, my professor liked my draft. I only have a few changes to make. I only need to give it about 12 more hours to make it great. And I had 4 days to give those 12 hours. Sweet.
But have I diligently worked 3 hours a day? Certainly not. What have I done instead? Truthfully, I have no idea. I checked blogs a lot, watched movies, went to the pub next door and drank cider, read more blogs, sat on my ass and stared into space, and read for fun, but mainly I just checked blogs and my email over and over for 3 ½ days now. So now, I’ll need to do the 12 hours of work tomorrow. Or do 7 hours work and have a less good paper.
Okay. And so. I literally did nothing all day. So what am I doing now? Eating Ramen noodles. I’m not even kidding. I had a lot of Ramen noodles in college, and I thought that that was enough for a lifetime. I don’t even like Ramen noodles anymore. But for some reason, on days when I do nothing-like today-it reminds me of college and like Pavlov’s dog I want Ramen noodles. So I bought two packages and hid one from my husband and ate the other. I mainly just hid it to be funny because he’s going to read this blog and see that I ate Ramen noodles, and when he does he is going to say “Baaaaaabe, What were you thinking? I don’t want you to get______________.” (Fill in blank with either “a migraine,” or “cancer,” or “sclerosis of the stomach” or all three). And, you know, he’s right. It is bad for me. And Procrastination is bad for me. So here’s my question: Why do we do things that are bad for us? I’m not exactly asking this from a purely theological perspective… (well, I sorta think everything is a theological perspective)…but what I mean is that I know about original sin. I’ve written essays about the fall. But what I’m saying is that this thing we all do-this doing stuff we know is bad for us thing-on some fundamental level is crazy. Completely insane. It’s like walking into a wall over and over again or hitting our hand with a hammer. It damages us.
Here is the great irony. You know what my paper is on? Ethical choices in eating. I’ve written 25 pages on how to eat and I celebrate by eating Ramen noodles. And I know that there is freedom for us. There is freedom to occasionally do nothing in a day and eat Ramen noodles (I don’t actually feel bad about the Ramen). But what if it isn’t occasional? What about when these things we do to ourselves form patterns in our lives? Procrastination, putting things off, and laziness are certainly patterns in my life. And what about things more profound than Ramen noodles- things like our love life or our sex life? We shan’t occasionally indulge in idolatry, adultery, tax invasion, fornication or hurting the people we love. That isn’t what freedom means. Yet, we all do these things all the time. I mean maybe your thing isn’t tax evasion, fornication, or adultery, but we all do things all the time that we know aren’t good. And on some level we even know that they aren’t good FOR US. We know that they don’t bring joy or nourishment (with the noodles this is literal) into our lives and instead bring eventual pain, but we spend lots of energy convincing ourselves that what we are doing is okay until our foreheads are all bloody and the wall has a big hole in it (and we often bruise and bloody some other people in the process). How many of us know (or have been) the girl who knows deep down that a relationship isn’t good for us but spends so much energy trying to convince herself that it is right? How many of us have something in our lives that we know is wrong and yet we elaborately justify? We are all very crazy. What can I say? I don’t even like Ramen noodles. I don’t even like sin or unbelief or blind selfishness or self-delusion.
God, give us repentance and faith. Some of Martin Luther’s final words: “Weir Sein Pettlers. Hoc Est Verum. ----We are beggars. This is true.” He was right. Crazy and malnourished. But there is a feast much better than Ramen noodles.
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2 comments:
Thanks for sharing. This is good stuff. Actually, John's sermon last Sunday kind of reminded me of what you are talking about here. He was preaching on the verse in Mark where Jesus touches the blind man's eyes and asks if he can see, to which the blind man responds that he can see people, but they look like trees walking around. So, Jesus touches his eyes again and he can see. How many of us just kinda see, but not really? He spread this out to the poor, how many of us know there are poor, but we don't KNOW. Sure there are poor, but I'll just continue about my life. How many of us know smoking is bad for us, but we don't KNOW. We keep smoking until we are shocked, and really see. Etc. It's too easy and comfortable to continue a behavior. It's the way we are wired.
I think your post also touches on not trusting God. Especially with the "staying in relationships" thing (happens to guys too, ya know). We see our own end and we force our way through. I've learned a lot lately about paying attention to the doors God is closing and if they're closed, finding an open one. Unfortunately, I all too often kick open the closed one, hurting myself and everyone around me in the process. The problem is we don't think God cares enough and think that He won't possibly follow through, and life is short, so we should just do it ourselves or it won't get done. This is especially true in our own culture.
Sorry for the long response, but these are subjects that have had me thinking lately. My life is really changing right now and God has been showing me things. Praise Him that He's removed the scales from my eyes long enough to see them.
Good luck on your revisions. I know you'll get them done. I say buckle down, finish up the paper, and celebrate with a big bowl of Ramen...unless, God closes that door, of course :)
I agree with Matt. While I was reading this post I was thinking about Plato, how he said that we don't do evil knowing it's evil; we ascribe some good to it, and even though we are often wrong about that good - whether the good we're ascribing is not actually good, or if it is actually good, it's outweighed by the evil - we still choose it.
I tell myself nightly that I know I shouldn't watch three hours of television when I have work to do, but I also tell myself, "No, this is good. This is restful and helpful and will recharge my brain," but it so rarely does. The Ramen tastes good, and brings back fond memories of college, but yeah, you might get a migraine, or Ramen-cancer.
I think this is where we need the Spirit, every.single.moment, because we always have these choices, these tiny little doors opening and closing, opening and closing, like Matt said, and sometimes the situations we get in aren't ones that are covered by the "rules" we've learned. Dating, eating, having pets, having mothers, sex, work, faith - everything in our lives seems to be constantly presenting us with choices, and they're not usually the big (to use a Greg Farrand term) "Technicolor" choices whose answers are always obvious. And even when they are, we occasionally "kick open the door" anyway, because we're fallen, and greedy, and so, so hungry.
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