Don't put Happiness on Hold

I'm rereading my new favorite book series (at least until I reread Harry Potter, probably) and it's just as much fun as the first time through. I rushed my first reading, I think because I wanted to see what was going to happen with the (very understated but awesome) love story. I admit that mattered more to me than the other huge happenings that affected more characters and defined the main plotline. Not that that says a lot about me or anything.

My second readthrough is also amazing, but it's different. I'm struck by plenty of foreshadowing and details I missed the first time through. Things I didn't think mattered at all became super important in light of the eventual conclusion. There were clues sprinkled all throughout the books that I didn't have the proper perspective or patience to pick up on before. I was too distracted by pressing ahead to see how things would turn out.

Knowing the ending doesn't make me appreciate the story less; it gives me hope for the hard times. When something terrible happens, I can tell myself, "it's all gonna be okay." I can enjoy the time I have with the characters, knowing some of them die. I can appreciate the richness of a friendship before betrayal enters the picture. I know good wins, even when all seems to be lost.

I liken my first readthrough to my natural (fleshly, in Christianese) inclination to live quickly and impatiently rush through boredom to juicier things; in other words, how I've lived most of my life. In this mindset, waiting to get what I want seems a mistake: something to be endured, not enjoyed. My second readthrough more resembles living with a redeemed mind and eternity in view. This unhurried state is relatively new to me and feels a million times better.

Though many of my hopes for my life have yet to materialize, I've realized I don't have to wait to be thankful, and I don't have to get upset when the road seems to turn the opposite direction. It's as simple as imagining how I hope to feel when my dreams come true and allowing myself to feel that right now, no strings attached. Why should I put my excitement on hold? It could be years... time wasted or dissipated into other emotions besides gratitude, excitement and joy. I see no reason to wait. If my dreams do not come to pass, then I've at least lived several extra years with positive emotion. And this isn't just wishful thinking or fantasy; as a child of God, called according to His purposes, I know for sure something good is coming for me.

I think this is what Paul meant when he wrote that "we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame," (Romans 5:2b-5a) I think boredom or waiting can be considered a form of suffering, but we can still be totally okay with them, knowing what's coming. And I think the last verse means we won't regret hope or be embarrassed we hoped, both because God's promises are true and Jesus is actually coming back and because hoping is an honorable and positive thing, whether or not life turns out the way we expected it to.

As a sidebar, I also find that trusting my path is headed for good releases me from feeling envious of my friends (most of the time!). I can honestly celebrate with those who celebrate, seeing each success story as proof that success keeps coming for us all one by one, rather than thinking there's a success pie that's shrinking as it's served up and if I don't get my slice soon I'll starve.

In my head I've been calling this mindset "preemptive gratitude," though "faith" and "trust" would both work well. The Bible calls it hope a few times. Romans 8:24b-25 says that "hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently." Hope is good (duh), but it's not possible to hope for what we have. Earthly life is our one chance to love God by trusting Him and believing in His promises even though we can't yet see the outcome. When our earthly lives are through, our faith (our hope) will be turned to sight. Living in a world that's still broken provides our only chance at hope. And by the way, what is more majestic: a light shining in broad daylight or a light that shines in darkness?

Christ-followers know good wins in the end. This is why celebration and dancing and feasting are all appropriate even in this world full of crime and hate and poverty, why we say of God, "You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies." (Psalm 23:5a) This verse closely relates to enjoying and savoring my book because I know for sure that the very real and dangerous threats from the enemy won't derail the ultimate mission. Joy isn't insensitive or thoughtless; it's acknowledging a deeper truth. We're all free to ease up on the breakneck pace and enter fully into our lives, secure in a good ending. We can delight in each twist and turn of the story without rushing or despairing. We can celebrate the happy ending right now and let it inform all our choices until it gets here. We don't have to wait to be glad it all turns out well: we can celebrate that truth today, in whatever city and life station we presently find ourselves.

"Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful." (Hebrews 10:23) Let's enjoy the benefits of hope now, despite obstacles, because we can, and because the author of the story of humanity and the world is trustworthy and has promised us a good ending.

The Zootopian Agenda

Zootopia was fun and funny and entertaining. I recommend it, with a caution that there are some parts that would be super scary for little kids (like, scarier than Ursula getting huge in The Little Mermaid; about on par with that Jekyll and Hyde thing in The Pagemaster--not quite that bad but getting there).

Having said all that, I have to comment on its agenda. The film had a very clear one: that biology is immaterial (excuse the pun) when it comes to living the life you want and achieving your dreams. Spoiler alert: they had a rookie 2-pound bunny consistently outperform experienced 2,000-14,000-pound animals like rhinos, elephants, and cape buffalo in the field of law enforcement. While it is of course not impossible that a bunny could do that, the movie goes beyond "it happened one time and it was special" to emphasizing that it should be this way for all at all times, and biology is nothing but an old-fashioned state of mind that, if abolished, would usher in utopia. Wait, like, what? Do these moviemakers inhabit the physical world like the rest of us?

Because it was a movie, they were able to carefully craft the narrative such that the bunny's job never required her to do something she physically couldn't do; her brain won every battle for her. For instance, she hops off the backs of her classmates in police school to scale a wall she couldn't otherwise have any hope of surmounting. This impresses everyone (the teacher) rather than makes them ask, "What if the test had required her to climb the wall alone? Do ten police officers usually handle the same situation at the same time?"

I accept that movies are often unrealistic. It's damn hard to craft a believable story in a compressed space. Real life is way more boring, so you have to skip lots of parts in a story, which can make it seem "too easy." You have to partially shave off the inconvenient bits of reality to make your point. But this movie's flouting of reality is vast and noteworthy.

Judy the bunny had a lot to offer the police squad, but that doesn't mean that she was equal in every way to all the stronger animals, with no differences, as the movie implied. We all have different strengths and weaknesses (yes, often based on biology), so working as a team we can achieve a lot more. In this case, the police force needed brute strength as well as passion and smarts.

Biology is a real thing. It matters, sometimes on a small scale and sometimes on a large one. It's wonderful to tell children to pursue their dreams, even if they seem far-fetched. But rising above one's circumstances or biology is different than denying or ignoring one's circumstances/biology. Zootopia does the latter, and that's why I'm concerned.

A tragic example of what happens when we tell children they can be and do whatever they want unconditionally, no questions asked, is the story of Jessica Dubroff. She's the 7-year-old whose parents never taught her the word "no." She had 35 hours of flight training when, upon the suggestion of her father, she decided to become the youngest person to fly across the North American continent. Great emphasis was placed by both her parents on the fact that she chose this for herself. Here's a mention of her biology from Time Magazine: the "Federal Aviation Administration... permitted a 4-ft. 2-in., 55-lb. seven-year-old whose feet did not reach the rudder pedals to fly an airplane across the country." Tragically, Jessica didn't reach her goal. She died in a crash that also claimed the lives of her father and her flight instructor. Famously, her mother said she had no regrets, emphasizing her daughter's freedom of choice as an American. Time's take: "Many wondered whether the freedom to pursue personal identity had been pushed too far."

Asserting that biology is a real thing feels oddly risky in our day and age. Then again, maybe it felt that way in 1996 as well (the year of Jessica's flight) and I was not old enough to know it. It reminds me of the Emperor's New Clothes story. It involves a lot of group pretending to arrive at and stay at the conclusion that the physical world doesn't matter, is nothing but an inconvenience on the road to human self-realization. As it relates to Jessica: "The hype of the whole enterprise, in retrospect, seems reckless. Let us tick off the deceptions that everyone involved pretended were true: the trip was Jessica's idea; she was doing it for the joy of flying; she was truly piloting the plane; it was safe; she wasn't scared. For the most part, the public played along with this game, for it is easier not to question the received platitudes." I won't go into the full list of topics these sentences could apply to. I'll simply say that ideologies like the one blatantly promoted in Zootopia push us to pretend certain things are true. It's still easier (and more politically correct) not to question them. May we as adults encourage the children in our lives to participate in reality as it is, even when our aim is to rise above where it finds us now. Even if that means a conversation on the way home from Zootopia.

The Truth Takes Time

I collapsed on his white carpet, sweaty from a morning of walking miles in the city sun. I was too hot to do anything else. He approached me with a cold, damp washcloth, which he progressively put on my neck and my back and my legs while I giggled incredulously. He noticed when it got warm and refreshed it with cold water. He washed my feet with it. He brought me cold grapefruit and refilled my water glass when it started getting low. These are facts from years ago. He made me feel more beautiful and amazing than probably anyone else ever has in my life. That's a fact, too. A more relevant and contemporary fact is that this relationship was incredibly unhealthy and it needed to end. This last fact is supported by countless other factual vignettes, darker and deeper, separated from the washcloth in space and time by months or just hours, that are beyond the scope of this post.

I've been reflecting lately that a true statement doesn't exist in isolation. Reality is too large. One sentence can be true, but it cannot be 100 sentences; in each true sentence, 99 facets of fact are absent. "The truth takes time." "The years teach much that the days never know." "A single story is dangerous." A story or truth is on some level misleading if it not properly contextualized. A wise woman I look up to once pointed out, "Until you are in a relationship with anyone, you judge poorly who they are and what they represent."

I came across this idea again in an article sent to me by a friend, titled "How the Invention of the Alphabet Usurped Female Power in Society and Sparked the Rise of Patriarchy in Human Culture." Very worth reading. TL;DR: the alphabet and its resulting communications are direct/pointed, linear, analytical. These in contrast to image, which is simultaneous and holistic in its presentation of ideas. Men's thinking tending toward the former traits and women's toward the latter, women were disadvantaged when literacy arose and became the primary way to organize human thought/truths at a societal level. A pull-out quote: "Nothing vast enters the life of mortals without a curse," --Sophocles. This morning I came back to that thought in my own words and decided that's why we have the expression, "it seems too good to be true." I thought of all the new products and foods that have come out in the past few decades and their promises of a more convenient life. They certainly delivered on that promise, but a generation of thinking people have begun to ask, "at what cost?" and intentionally return to slower, messier living for the piles of fringe benefits it brings. Examples: home cooking, making your own [yogurt, almondmilk, bread, etc.], growing gardens, cloth diapers, simple homemade cleaning supplies, etc. Of course I don't want to abolish literacy (I feel like subtracting literacy from it would literally ruin my life), and neither does the author of the article, by any means, but its reminded me to remember the bigger picture.

Reality always contains both shadow and light, so if something looks perfect upfront, your only safe assumption is that you don't yet know it in full. This goes for products as well as people. My story is longer than the first nine sentences of this post, though they could seem to paint a complete picture of a relationship (and I used to think they did). I try to remind myself the whole story whenever I'm tempted to tell only half, calling myself back from the edge when I villainize either of us. A true story can be a long story. It can have lots of sides. The truth takes patience.