Sunday, March 30, 2014

"Unapologetic," "Wearable Coats," Cracks, and the Light

Thanks to David Zahl and Mockingbird, I bought Francis Spufford's "Unapologetic" a few months ago.  The book sounded so good that I ordered it from a British publisher before it made it to America.  However, I made the mistake of trying to read this book in bed before going to sleep each nite.  This book deserves my full attention in the light of day.

Now, I'm on vacation and reading "Unapologetic" since Spufford is going to speak at the Mockingbird Conference next week.  Spufford gets true Christianity like so few modern writers who supposedly are "Christian" writers.  (Many modern authors understand Christianity--it's just not usually the ones who claim to be Christians).  His writing courageously describes the human condition as HPtFtU, the "Human Propensity to F... Things Up."  He says that "we actually want the destructive things we do, that they are not just an accident that keeps happening to poor little us, but part of our nature: that we are truly cruel as well as truly tender, truly loving and at the same time likely to take a quick nasty little pleasure in wasting or breaking love, scorching it knowingly up as the fuel for some hotter or more exciting feeling."  Talk about nailing "original sin"--the inward war that we all encounter.

But there's more, because you can't stop with the diagnosis of the human condition, or we would all commit suicide.  He describes the main difference between Christianity and every other religion.  He says that every other religion prescribes a code of conduct--a "wearable coat,"  which if you follow means that you are a reasonably good person.  If you don't, you're not.  In contrast, Christianity sets the bar at perfection.  No one can love God with all of their heart.  No one can love their neighbor as themselves.  "But now notice the consequence of having an ideal behavior not sized for human lives: everyone fails.  Christianity maintains no register of clean and unclean."  This is Good News, wonderful news, the "best" news.  If we all fail, then we all realize that we need help from outside ourselves.  Spufford then quotes Leonard Cohen, "We do entirely agree that there's a crack in everything.  (That's how the light gets in?  Oh yes; that most of all.)"

Augustine said much the same thing: "Of felix culpa (oh felicitous sin)."  Augustine was pointing out that it is our realization of our fallenness, our inward 'kinkedness," that leads us to God.  But for the cracks, the light wouldn't get in.

I lived most of my life wearing the coat of a "good Southern Baptist."  Wait, that's not fair to Southern Baptists.  I lived most of my life wearing the coat "of a morally good person."  The problem with trying to be a "morally good person" is that:  a)you have to determine what is morally correct in every situation (which is challenging to say the least);  b)you have to try to do it (which is incredibly burdensome);  and c)half the time you feel self-righteous (thinking you're accomplishing it) and half the time you're despondent (when you realize that you aren't).  This is no way to run a life.

The burden of "living a good moral life" almost took my life (I thought about killing myself every day for about a year); almost cost me my family (Debbie--"if it weren't for the kids, I would leave you");  and kept me at a distance from God.  In contrast, acknowledging the "cracks" in one's life allows the "light" in.   Only through the power of the light have I been able to live a reasonably "moral" life without being either self-righteous or despondent all of the time.  Of course, both still creep in.  But, praise God, most of the time I'm just thankful to be a cracked vessel, relying upon the daily (even hourly) light of Christ.


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