Noli Me Tangere

peeves no. 583 and 584

The older I get, the more I find beauty in simplicity. Simple isn't always beautiful, but excess is usually ugly. I noticed this recently because my generous and well-dressed friend Bouncing Innocence gave me a new necktie. I expressed my gratitude by complaining that I had nothing to wear with it, so it would sit in my closet unused. As it turns out, this was the wrong response.

Neverthelesss, it was a clear sign to me that I have a need to control my environment, and that can best be achieved by keeping things simple. Even as (or perhaps because) my worldview has grown more complex and shaded with greys, I find that clean lines and clear space are all the more irresistable. I love to straighten, streamline, and most of all, consolidate. Nothing is more quietly annoying to me than having three umbrellas when I only need one. Call me old-fashioned, but I'll take a phone that works well over one with 6,000 ringtones. Finances are hard enough to track without superfluous accounts and cards. I want it all in one place. I believe in K.I.S.S.: keep it simple, stupid.

Which is why I can't understand people who include their email address in their email signature. Some of these signatures are longer than the email body, but that doesn't stop them. Is there any conceivable scenario in which this qualifies as useful information? Any conceivable purpose for this extra line?

While we're at it, can someone explain to me why hotmail requires you to type in your whole email address as a login? Why can't they do it like yahoo, where you only have to enter your username? Isn't the part about "@hotmail.com" sort of a given? It's only a few extra letters, but as far as I can tell this is just another reason to hate Microsoft.

on family

When courting a young lady, it is difficult to account for the power her family holds over you. This power is a two-headed beast: not only must you demonstrate your worth to her as a potential mate, but you also need to make an above-average impression on her family (see Focker, Greg), and remain in good graces with anyone who might one day become an in-law.

Which is why I paid attention when my friend (and potential brother-in-law) Jostling Innocence called me on the eve of New Year's eve, sounding distracted and out-of-breath. His younger brother, visiting for the holidays and car-less, had fallen quite ill and needed someone to deliver him to a 24-hr medical facility. I smelled an opportunity to score some points.

"Since you're almost like part of the family, do you think you can find someplace to take him?"

It wasn't particularly convenient for me, but it was clear a challenge had been issued: since you're almost like part of the family. What the heck does that mean? How could I refuse? And also, how many points are we talking about?

And so it was that a few hours later, Bouncing Innocence and I found ourselves in a seedy midtown emergency waiting room with the afflicted sibling, whom I have no choice but to call "Sick Innocence". This was a waiting room of the purest sort, where you can really do nothing but waaaaaaiiit. Larry King Live featuring the winners/tabloid couple of The Biggest Loser aired several times during our wait, and by morning we almost had it memorized, especially the awkward part where she learns on-air that their relationship is not as exclusive as she thought.

This being an urban waiting room, many of the "customers" seemed to be in no hurry to see a doctor. In fact, some seemed to be doing nothing more but adding new drool stains to the upholstery, and they were remarkably resourceful in finding ways to fit their entire bodies into the small, uncomfortable chairs. But people were mostly nice, except for the little kid who held me hostage by pretend gun and kept barking orders at me.

Around 4am, I began to feel the urge to relieve myself, and decided not to deny myself the pleasure, since there was no telling how much longer we'd be there. As I walked into the bathroom, I glanced into the mirror and jumped when I noticed a body on the floor in the last stall. It was a black male, disheveled but motionless. He was lying across the stall floor, so that his feet were up against the wall and his head behind the toilet of the next stall. I fully expected there to be a puddle of fresh blood under his head.

"Are you okay?"

The body remained motionless. But it did make a sound.

"...uhnnnn. uhhhhnnn jus restin...mmmmmmmmhhhhh..."

"uh...ok. resting is ok. just checking."

There were two stalls in this bathroom: the one he was in, and the one his head was in. I pondered how to best proceed. Certainly it would be considered poor taste to poop next to someone's head. On the other hand, you can only negotiate with the Call of Nature so long, so I may not have an option. Not to mention, my stall buddy didn't seem to be terribly aware of his surroundings. So with that thought, I took a deep, apologetic breath, undid my pants and sat down.

The man still didn't move or open his eyes, though his face was 12 inches below my bare right buttock. He never moved, but I was in the middle of taking care of business when he finally made a sound.

"[unintelligible]...mmhowsyer famihly..."

"uh, my family is good. how's yours?"

"mmhhmnnmm...deyaight...[unintelligible] "

"oh that's good."

After a few more moments of awkward silence punctuated by bathroom noises, I cleaned up, got up and wished him happy new year. And as I walked back down the hall, I couldn't help but think that this should be worth at least 150 points.

bad

As fate would have it, a dear friend, heretofore known by the cryptic pseudonym Bouncing Innocence, loaned me John Eldredge's book, Waking the Dead. As in his other melodramatically-titled books, Wild at Heart and The Sacred Romance, Eldredge is preoccupied with The Heart. But what is this Heart? These days it can refer to a bloody, pumping muscle, a display of naked emotion, or even the captain of a football team. Such an inexact word around which to write a book.

While I can't fully define it, I do have a Heart consciousness. I know that my inner self loves, hates, and craves. I have a sense that it is more than just my feelings. It interacts with my brain. It is not the burning in my loins, though it can sometimes cause indigestion. I can't say what it is, exactly, but there's something other than emotion, thought, and physiology at work in me. (I'm sure someone more historically astute could provide fascinating insights into how the ancients and other cultures divide up the whole person.)

If you check out Waking the Dead on Amazon.com and browse the customer comments for this book, you will see no shortage of angry reformed christians who have written in to warn of Eldredge's heretical humanist philosophy. The main point of contention: Eldredge says the Heart is good.

To be fair, he means the regenerate heart, not any just any heart. But the calvinist in me still recoils at this, of course, because of point number T of Calvin's TULIP, which has been well-drilled into my head (or is that my heart?) by many well-meaning angry reformed people: the heart is wholly wicked, and incapable of any good. This has always been a troublesome tenet for me, not because I don't believe it, but because I don't really know what it means. Since nobody is as evil as they are capable of being, it seems like a merely academic point. Some will try to explain that it means that even our good deeds and desires are corrupted or soiled somehow. (Like when your even your cleaner is dirty.) But of course this would be "partial depravity" (popularized by that 21st century theologian Oprah).

As I understand it, the use of the word "total" is intended to reflect the absolute language of the scriptures, namely that the unregenerate man is dead in his sins. Not sick, not impaired. Dead. And just as the deceased are incapable of choosing life, the spiritually dead cannot choose to be born again. And so being "born again" into "new life" has new meaning for those formerly dead. It's not an adjustment or re-alignment of our former state of being. It's a new state altogether.

In the past, it made me angry when people say that the distinction between the old and new man is that the old cannot not sin, whereas the new has been given that ability. "But", I retort, waving my hands in frustration, "both have the ability to be less evil than they could be. Common grace falls on all. I don't see a distinction." But maybe what they mean is that the christian has the ability to see the goodness of redemption and choose it. Even so, this faculty is given, not achieved.

The pragmatic outworking of this is that we can never boast in any goodness. No spiritual understanding or rebirth originates in me. This perspective is crucial for any worship. But I suspect that we have taken these ideas and perhaps gotten fuzzy with the boundaries and certainly with our language. Eldredge says our self-deprecation and groveling is often just shame masquerading as humility. I've found myself uneasy leading confession in church because I so easily default to self-flagellation, though I know shaming myself isn't the point. We well-meaning angry reformed folk treat our desires as if they are irredeemable, and I think we short-change God when we do this. Though our flesh remains and battles on, in the war it is losing heart (pun intended). Our inability to do good must carry a caveat: apart from God. And Emmanuel is God with us.