An Ancient Affliction

We have been doing a series at church on our movement from slavery to freedom, and since this has been a “hot” topic of mine for quite some time, I had another revelation (or should I say a reminder of an “old” thought?). Allow me to qualify this as the following is not my attempt to “psychologize” the Bible in any way. Yet, there are many things about the ancient Israelites that reminds me of the affliction that I have struggled with for a long time, and I’m sure there are many who do as well (hopefully I”m not that unusual! — no comments out there!). Also, I would remind you that God has given us the capacity to discover the world around us including ourselves and our typical ways of growing, developing, and perceiving the world around us. Therefore I would simply make the observation and conclusion that this affliction is an ancient one, and impairs and impedes my relationship with God and has done so for many years. This affliction is that of … spiritual object permanence. I know that sounds very psychologist of me, but let me explain.

Object permanence is part of the developmental process for everyone, and shows itself most dramatically in young kids who experience separation anxiety. The basics are this: at one point in children’s development they are unable to understand that if a treasured toy were hidden behind a curtain or drape that it still existed, they just couldn’t see it. This is demonstrated by the fact that often the kids who experience this start to cry because their toy is “gone.” As they continue to mature cognitively in understanding how the world works, they begin to also understand that when a person hides their toy behind a curtain, all they have to do is pull the curtain back to reveal the toy. They realize that the toy exists even if they can’t see it — object permanence.

Another example of this is something we refer to as a “transitional object.” If your kids have ever had a blanket, or a favorite toy with which they sleep, you have just given your kids a transitional

object. From what is it transitioning them? It is allowing them to go from depending on their parents to put them to sleep, to using this transitional object to be a stand-in for the parent and transitions them to putting themselves asleep. It is one small or major (depending on the kid) movement from dependency to independence. Learning to care for one’s own needs versus looking to others to care for our needs. Therefore, when then get anxious, sad, or whatever other emotion that is beyond them, they go to this object to comfort them and regain some measure of self-control. So, if they’re mad, they go to this object and poke its eyes out instead of poking the eyes out of their siblings. If they’re afraid or anxious, they hang on for dear life to give them the comfort they need to overcome the anxiety or fear. Can the object actually do anything to remove the fear or anxiety? No, of course not. What it does do is stand-in for someone or something that has in the past. This particular example of object permanence (which it technically isn’t but it’s close enough for my purposes here) is especially poignant in terms of what we will see in the Israelites at the foot of Mt. Sinai.

What is interesting to take note of is that this object permanence also shows up in our spiritual development as well, and this is where this becomes an “ancient” affliction. It has afflicted mankind all the way back to the Garden of Eden. Of course, Adam and Eve had no need of developing object (the object here being God) permanence because He walked and talked with them in the garden. The moment that Adam and Eve succumbed to the lies of Satan and sin became a permanent, terminal spiritual condition of man, men struggled throughout history with this spiritual object permanence.

Now, let me use one Biblical illustration of this, and one personal one. First, allow me to start with the Biblical illustration. What we were looking at last night was when the Israelites were encamped at the foot of Mount Sinai. Moses has already ascended the mountain to receive the ten commandments, and all the other laws that set forth how to live as a society and community of people. At this point point, let me take a short bunny trail to put this in context. Remember, these people had been slaves all their lives. They didn’t know anything about living together other than what they saw in Egyptian culture. It’s one thing to observe culture, it’s entirely another thing to become a society that is knit together by the culture that sets it apart from all the others. Therefore, God went out of His way to be as specific as He could so that they would have the foundational principles of becoming a community of people. Okay… bunny trail ended.

So, Moses is gone, and slowly the realization begins to grow in the Israelites that because he was gone, he was not coming back, and their anger begins to grow at “this man Moses.” (Ex. 32:1) He’s not only gone, he has abandoned them when they needed him most just when things were most bleak at the foot of a mountain in a wilderness. Moses, like kids’ parents when they leave them in children’s ministries, not only went away but was as good as gone forever. So, the Israelites begin to growl, cry, and wail because they had been abandoned. Now, notice what they do next. They go to Aaron, surround him, and demand a substitute god, or a “transitional object.”

Now before you get too harsh with the Israelites, just remember that these folks had never had much experience with caring for their own needs. This is where slavery is so comfortable and convenient. Their masters did that for them. It may not have been a fun, or “comfortable” plight to be in, but they were valuable to their masters for the work they could do for their taskmasters. Therefore, it behooved their masters for provide the basics for them — food, water, and a some measure of safety and shelter. It wasn’t because they were worthy of such treatment, it was simply caring for their property like we would do in washing our cars.

Back to our story… What has always caught my attention in this passage is the question, why didn’t Aaron oppose their efforts and remind them of God’s faithfulness up to that point in their journey? Perhaps, he too, was feeling much like they were so he acquiesced to their demands and crafted a golden calf (an idol and an object they could touch and experience) as a “stand-in” god. After all a god of my making is far more controllable and conforming to my demands than a God who loves me so much that He will do what I need not what I might capriciously want any given moment in my day. So, the calf is an object that made it appear that god was near when they didn’t feel that he was. The emphasis here is on our feelings of abandonment. At that moment of experiencing those feelings, they/we/I honestly believe something that just isn’t trye – God has abandoned me and he really isn’t who He says He is. This is where two “kinds” of truth war with one another. The big “T” truth is that God is good, trustworthy, and loving and would never abandon me; the small “t” truth is that I feel abandoned and lost and God is responsible. In this example, the Israelites feelings of abandonment veer them away from the truth that God is still with them in spite of the fact that they don’t feel that way.

Now for the personal story… I know this process and state so well because it has been a lurking shadow for most of my life. In my deepest moments of depression and despair, I have been just like the Israelites. The big “T” truth of God’s love, steadfast mercy and grace, and presence with me just didn’t matter. All I knew was that I was “alone” and God had “set his jaw” against me. I was living in nothing but the small “t” realities of my existence at that time. With that as the backdrop, I was in a hole that there was no getting out. Yet, there was a way out that had presented itself in the form of the people around me, and a renewed vision of who God was that took me completely by surprise. In some respects, that what it seems to take. We can seem to build quite a fortress that protects our little devices of control which is what such transitional objects (can you say idols of our own?) are, or our variety of strategies to not feel the pain that we have meticulously developed and cultivated. It’s a little like the character in the Count of Monte Cristo who says, “If you ever loved me, don’t rob me of my hate. It’s all I have.”

In a another chapter of this struggle, I’m reminded again of the Count of Monte Cristo where Edmond Dantes(the Count) has this interchange with the old priest who breaks into his cell, and in so doing provides him with renewed hope and purpose:
“Abbe Faria: Here is your final lesson – do not commit the crime for which you now serve the sentence. God said, “Vengeance is mine.”
Edmond Dantes: I don’t believe in God.
Abbe Faria: It doesn’t matter. He believes in you.

The real rub of these illustrations and stories, at least in my mind, is: How do we come alongside others who are stuck in such places? The key lies in how we handle the big “T” truth and how we respond to the small “t” truths of their reality and existence. Often, when we are confronted with people who are stuck in such a hole, our tendency is to spout off the big “T” truths in order to get them to come to their senses, accept the truth, and move in another direction. Often our thinking displays our disdain or indifference to the small “t” realities in which they live. What we must do is find a way to journey with them in their small “t” realities, and in due time we might have opportunities to offer up the big “T” truth of God’s love, mercy, and faithfulness. It’s important to remember as one who was in that hole, you might be speaking more big “T” truth to a wanderer as I was just by journeying with me than if you were to articulate the most profound truths of God!

Inconvenient Freedom

Something triggered these thoughts last weekend as I listened to the sermon at our church about slavery or freedom. We are a fortunate people who are blessed to live in a country that values freedom. We only need to look at the news each night to find

Gustave Boulanger's painting The Slave Market.

evidence that across the world that isn’t so. With that truth as a backdrop, we Americans have a perspective about freedom that many around the world do not. Yet, in spite of the stark differences between humans that are found across the world and across time (as sketched out in the account of the Hebrews moving from slavery to freedom as they crossed the Red Sea), we all seem to suffer from the same problem – the allure of slavery. As a matter of fact, freedom can be extremely inconvenient. Particularly when we desire order and predictability in our lives. Let’s examine for a minute the “benefits” of slavery. I know, it sounds a little crazy (which it is as our own unique form of insanity), but from one particular perspective there are indeed benefits of slavery.

Slavery offers a number of things that freedom simply does not. Among them are the prospects of predictability and control. We often read the account of the Hebrew odyssey through the desert and wonder how the Hebrews would ever have wished for the slavery of Egypt. Yet, they voiced it time and again on this journey. They groused about their food, the conditions of the journey, the water they had or didn’t have to such a degree that Moses cried out to God regarding them (Ex. 17:4), and got incredibly exasperated with them. It seemed that every time they got disgruntled or irritated with their circumstances, they wished for Egypt. It is important to remember though the picture of the grinding poverty and harsh labor they experienced in Egypt, and yet they wished for it and the slavery they were caught in for 400 years. Yet, there is one thing that is enticing about slavery to us and to them. It is predictable and the “rules of engagement” are always known. There is the master, and there is the slave. The slave’s desires are always secondary to the master’s. If you did something wrong there was always harsh punishment, sometimes even death. In spite of the cruelty of it all, it was always the same; always predictable.

Another aspect of slavery is that your environment was always controlled for you. In essence, someone was always making decisions for you. Your life wasn’t your own, and neither was the decisions you made about yourself. So to some degree, there is a certain amount of perverse security in that because he who makes the decisions has the responsibility. Therefore, being a slave was relatively simple, straightforward, and free of responsibility outside of what you had to do for your master. If you were lucky enough to have a reasonably kind master, you were assured safety, food and water, and protection of his household. Think for a minute about the story of Joseph. He greatly benefited from being in his master’s house — he had the security he didn’t have as he was traveling with the slave traders, he had protection, a steady diet, and eventually was seen so positively by his master that he managed his entire household. Now, granted, the one thing his masters couldn’t control was how he thought or how he framed his world and circumstances, and because of this he rose in honor in the eyes of those who met him. At the same time, there were always limits to what he could do — he was still a slave.

So, given the above ideas, why is it that freedom is so inconvenient? Just do a comparison between the controlled and predictable environment of slavery, and the unpredictable, sometimes chaotic, and uncontrolled conditions of freedom. Suddenly freedom doesn’t look so “cool.” Let me illustrate further. Take decision-making for example. Under slavery, there is little decisions to be made. Whatever to which you are enslaved makes the decisions for you. Therefore, there isn’t a risk of doing something right or wrong. On the other hand, freedom allows you to choose, and of course with that choice, the risk of doing it wrong with the consequences that come with that choice. So, for those who never want to experience disappointment with themselves or anyone else for that matter, slavery is to be preferred since you don’t have any decisions to make and therefore, can’t be or do anything wrong.

Another less obvious consequence of freedom that makes is so inconvenient is the specter of trust. When I’m free I have to make choices, and I have a decision to make about who to trust in making such decisions. For most, the only people to trust is ourselves since placing the outcome into anyone else’s hands seems foolish. The alternative, of course, is the same for us as it was for the Hebrews — trusting God and His provisions for us. Of course, the ultimate choice here is between trust or control. As I have said in other blog entries, control and trust do not play well together. Either I control my environment including choosing enslavement, or I live a life of freedom which God risked giving me, and learning the intimacy and power of trust. Now, don’t get me wrong. “learning the intimacy and and power of trust” doesn’t translate into rainbows and butterflies for the rest of our lives. This development of intimate trust didn’t turn out that way for the ancient Hebrews, and it doesn’t for us.

But, I guess the big question of the day is: which would you prefer? Slavery or freedom? Before you answer that question, though, I would challenge each of us to examine our behavior first and then answer. One philosopher once remarked that if you want to know a man’s philosophy of life just watch his conduct. Our behavior and how we conduct our relationships with people tell all too clearly which we prefer. It is the ageless struggle of being human. For many, including me at various points in my life, I have much preferred the relative safety of my enslavement (the negative consequences of this enslavement were only a minor technicality in trade for my safety) than the riskiness of freedom. What are you choosing? Freedom and trust, or slavery and control?