Notes From the Porch 9/20
September 20, 2008
Jeremiah 2:5-6,8,13
“What injustice did your fathers find in Me,
That they went far from me
And walked after emptiness and became empty?
And they did not say, ‘Where is the Lord,
Who brought us out of the land of Egypt…’”
“The priests did not say, ‘Where is the Lord?
For my people have committed two evils;
They have forsaken Me,
The fountain of living waters,
To hew for themselves cisterns,
Broken cisterns,
That can hold no water.’”
I’m going to shift gears from sticking to my Bible readings for the day to follow a theme [I hope this isn’t the effect of the drugs already spurring madness on], that has been on my mind, which is either a good or bad thing, since my conversation with my good friend Thursday morning. It brings up several important matters: the first is what is called in my circles the multigenerational projection process [the sins of the fathers], the second is the relentless human quest for self controlled security which no semiconscious person ever attains, and the third is an appalling lack of awareness about the absence of the good [the fountain of living waters] and the presence of the bad [empty cisterns of our own design]. I’m afraid the steroids have me biting off more than I can chew, but there is always tomorrow.
Man fell in Eden from safety, peace and fulfillment into neediness, aloneness, unmet dependency, vulnerability and an apparently irreconcilable longing for a lost intimacy with God the Father who provided for all these things. In the development of the personality these are the problems to be solved functionally. Trying to understand human development in terms of sin apart from these practical problems confuses things. We don’t know if God, in the symbolic provision of skins did any tinkering with the nervous system, but let’s assume without any evidence to the contrary that He didn’t.
Try to imagine the emotional change in Adam and Eve after the fall. Imagine a child plucked out of a safe home and tossed into the wilderness to make it on his or her own, and not allowed to go home. Let’s assume the same nervous system made for intimacy with God and the blessings that ensue, and a new hostile environment, utterly different. Eden to wilderness. Our fathers wandered away trying to find answers to their problems on their own. The nervous system is built for stability. It works very hard to keep us going, no matter how hard the going gets. In Eden there was only stability. Post-Eden there was none. So the nervous system and by extension the personality have to create a stability where none can exist except a fake one. You can see the desperate efforts at re-stabilizing in the sewing of fig leaves.
Let’s distract ourselves from the upsetting and focus on something that makes us feel in control whether we are or not. This is pathetic stabilization, heartbreaking, but stabilization nonetheless. Sound familiar? We have done this ever since and our fathers have taught us and we teach our children that this is the way of the world and you have to succeed in it. Our fathers didn’t say, “Where is the Lord?” for the most part because they were afraid to give up the chasing after emptiness that was all they knew. Some fathers knew the Lord and walked with Him and had blessed lives, but even a lot of their children failed to follow. How could Solomon, son of David, acquainted vividly with God in his younger years, have been the one to write the ultimate dissertation on emptiness, Ecclesiastes? At least he had recognized his empty cistern and repented. Something brought him to saying, “Where is the Lord?” And the other fathers, the priests, where were they? They were telling the people what they wanted to hear in order to be popular, the plague of the church today. [Isaiah 30:9-10] “For this is a rebellious people, false sons, sons who refuse to listen to the instruction of the Lord; who say to the seers, ‘You must not see visions’; and to the prophets, ‘You must not prophesy to us what is right, prophesy illusions.’”
Between what most of us have been taught and shown, showing being the more influential teaching, and given the way our nervous systems work, how do we keep from walking after emptiness and becoming empty? How could we not become preoccupied with digging cisterns that will never hold anything but emptiness? It is in our genes for coping with trouble. It is what we have been shown by our fathers and the world. It is probably how we have felt secure and successful, and is generally considered to be what sane, smart, and normal people do. And it keeps us so busy that we don’t feel the emptiness.
This helps to explain how God at times could find only one or two or a handful who honored Him with their lives. It makes the Noahs and the Davids and the Josephs seem so alien, and why Elijah would wonder if he were the only one left. We worry about what others think about us so much, the idea of being alienated and in danger from every direction is anathema. We’re more likely to think, “What do our friends and colleagues think?” than “Where is the Lord?” There are rivers of influence past and present pulling us inexorably toward a life of chasing after wind and emptiness.
There is so little around us helping us see what is really missing. There are two primary ways the grace of God hands us a lifeline, is, in fact, always holding out a lifeline if we are paying attention. One is trouble beyond our means that is sufficient to help us give up hope, not just in ourselves, but the world around us. This is where the real hope of 1 Cor: 5 can start to grow. God’s Hatteras is bringing me a fresh experience of the other. I much prefer a return to first love to serious trouble as the motivation for holding tight, but whatever gets us looking for the Lord is a great good ultimately. May you find this in your day in the best possible way.
September 23rd, 2008 at 10:27 am
Joe and Barb, your strength and faith are overwhelmingly inspiring . I can only tell you how much I wish for your continued courage as each day presents itself anew. Your wealth of support resources are with you in continuous prayer.