Why We Suffer, Why We Love

"It removes the veil; it plants the flag of truth within the fortress of a rebel soul." - C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

Its not hard to see that I am obsessed with the words of C.S. Lewis, especially those in the book "The Problem of Pain."  I guess this book appeals to me so much because its the one question that I dealt with the most as an agnostic, and I feel is still the question that most people deal with: "Why suffering?" "How could there be a God (or anything truly good) in a world so screwed up?"  It was questions like these that made Billy Graham's friend Charles Templeton, once an evangelist, come to be an agnostic and reject the idea of God altogether.  "It just became crystal clear to me that it is not possible for an intelligent person to believe that there is a deity who loves."

Beyond the theological implications of the question of why suffering exists, we look at suffering as the worst thing that could happen to someone, as the ultimate failure of humanity.  This weekend, I think I saw a face of the issue that I feel like we often ignore.

It all started with a mountain.  At midnight.

While my friends were no doubt getting drunk at parties and clubs, friday night I was sitting in a car, driving through backwoods Virginia, heading to Old Rag Mountain in the Blue Ridge Mts.  At midnight, four friends and I headed up the mountain, using headlamps and flashlights to navigate the trail.  After about three hours of talking, coughing, laughing, climbing over boulders and meeting a dog named "JR," we reached the top of the mountain, and waited for the sun to rise.

Waiting for the sunrise is, of course, too simplistic sounding to give it the real credit it deserved.  Since the sun wasnt going to rise until 6:30, we got the bright idea that we could sleep on the top until the sun came up.  However, as most people know, there's wind at the top of a mountain.  Alot of it.  So it ended up that all five of us, huddled together against a giant boulder, spent the entire night shivering next to each other, having half-coherent conversation about the metaphysics of being cold (as well as Third Eye Blind, Lemmings, hurt knees, and other things), and occasionally screaming in pain when the wind would whip across the mountain.  Theres no doubt in my mind that we suffered that night.

Needless to say, the sun eventually came up like it was supposed to (funny how often we forget) and we continued screaming, and ran around the top, trying to take in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains while suppressing how truly cold we were.  We eventually climbed back down the mountain, and got back to civilization.  We all remember how cold we were at the top of the mountain, but we all remember how it was worth it (and, as one of my friends said, how we became closer than we probably ever will be again).

The AU people arrived at campus, and I hit my bed at about noon, and fell asleep.  Fast forward eight hours.  I'm waking up, throwing on my Relay For Life t-shirt, and rushing to Bender Arena with four other people (only two of which ended up staying past the opening ceremonies).

I've never been to Relay For Life, though I am perfectly acquainted with cancer.  A year ago, my sister was diagnosed with it, and started an almost year long battle filled with chemotherapy, visits to the hospital, and watching my sister Jessica, one of the strongest people I know, slowly seem to fade away from me, as she got deeper and deeper into chemo.  When the news broke, I was living in Costa Rica, an entire ocean away.  I remember feeling worthless, inadequate, and completely helpless to even help my family that was so far away.  As a result, I sunk into an emotional coma, which caused so many problems in my friendships,  and one that I only recently have felt myself coming out of.  The summer came, and I spent most my time at home, doing dishes for my mom, babysitting for my sister Sarah playing guitar for Jess, just whatever I could do to feel like I was doing something.  Outside of the house, no one quite knew how to deal what I was going through, but with my family, we all understood.  We suffered together, and rejoiced together when we finally saw the cancer start to fade, and Jess start to come back to us.

All of these memories came back to me Saturday night, sitting in Relay For Life, listening to people tell their experiences with cancer, and honoring the relatives they lost.  Luckily, I got to keep my sister, but I could still relate to people when they talked about the constant worry and the forced optimism that the experience forces upon you.  While walking laps in memory of survivors and the lives that were taken, I began to quietly cry to myself, and thank God that my sister had more time to spend on earth.  As I looked up, I saw something truly beautiful.

As everyone walked, people joined hands, people embraced each other, and me and my two floormates walked together, remembering the terrible thing, the ultimate failure of humanity, that was uniting all of us in that moment.  The same terrible thing that made me and four people huddle together on the top of a mountain, and bond through an unforgettable adventure.  The same terrible thing that brought my family closer together than we had been in years, and made slight acquaintances we hadnt talked to in years come to our house to cook dinner for us, or come visit my sister with a couple words of encouragement.  The tears we cried, whether from sadness or the mountain wind hitting us in the face, made us something that the comfortable times could not: real people, experiencing what it truly means to be human and to love.

As a doubter by nature, I wont ever say that I have everything figured out.  I wont ever say that I truly understand why we suffer, but I have to wonder.  Everyone is asking if the human race can live with suffering.  I'm starting to ask if the human race can truly live without it.

To close, I will, again, leave you with the words of my favorite writer, who said more than I ever could.

"God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is His megaphone to rouse a deaf world."

~Jared

Stuck in the Middle

Not so long ago, I used to be a very politically charged person.

Well, let me qualify, because I think there is a difference between politically charged and obsessed.  I used to obsessed about politics, and about submitting to some kind of political ideology that would hopefully define me as a person.  This was the reason I wanted to come to D.C.  I wanted to get a journalism degree so I could hound people in the Capital and fully immerse myself in the rough and tumble world of U.S. politics.  In a way, being political was probably supposed to define me, or something.


These days, whether its by apathy or a greater perspective, I cant bring myself to care less about any sort of political ideology or party affiliation.  I think as politics became less important to me I started caring less about having to call myself anything.  Right now, I call myself a moderate, and the results of it really interest me.

The thing I find most interesting about being a moderate is that you either cause gentle cooperation from both sides or intense hatred, and there doesn't seem to be any sort of middle ground.  Though both sides can agree with you, it also means both sides disagree with you.  So, tentatively, as a Democrat, you only have to defend yourself against Republicans, but a moderate gets to defend himself against everyone.

Why is there such a disincentive in our society to be in the middle?  As a society, we have invented alot of pejorative terms for people who are in the middle: wishy washy, waffler, lukewarm, half-ass.  As humans, I think we tend to want to see things in black and white, because, lets face it, things like politics are alot easier to deal with if you have one giant rubric that you judge everything from.  The harder path is to see the middle ground in political conflicts and be able to put yourself out there in saying that both sides are true and false at the same time.

I, personally, wouldn't apply this to all things (though many do), because I believe in universal truth.  I believe there is good and evil, which is why I want to qualify myself and say that I think there are some things that no one should be in the middle about.  I dont think its good to be a "moderate" about sex trafficking, slavery, fascism, or (to be controversial. hehe.) something like abortion.  These are issues that demand action, and therefore demand a firm resolve in your thinking about them.  I once heard it explained that people have two hands, one is open and the other is firmly closed.  Each hand represents the beliefs you have, and in the open hand you have the beliefs you're willing to let go, and in the firm hand the beliefs you aren't.

I guess my main beef with politics is that, furthering the analogy, people seem to put the most insignificant things in their closed hands, and are unwilling to compromise.  For instance, conservative bug me because they cant seem to ever accept that maybe health care reform isnt such a bad idea, and that paying some extra taxs isnt so terrible.  Liberals annoy me because they cant seem to ever accept that Keynsian spending programs are not a cure all, and never truly further any free-market reforms like Tort Reform.

So whats the solution?  I leave you with a simple saying, what my pastor told me long ago:

"Govern from the middle."

~Jared

Joy and All of His Friends

"When we are such as He can love without impediment, we shall in fact be happy." - The C.S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain

(I usually dont discuss religion or spirituality here, but whatever.  its my blog anyways)

Got back from Spain last night.  Quite honestly, the whole experience was amazing, but I sometimes wonder if it all really happened.  Waking up on the return flight to Madrid, I half-imagined that the whole thing was just a dream I had.  I dreamed the people, the place, and the lessons I learned.  Waking up, I descend back into the bowels of everyday life, which never seems to lack depression, pain, and defeat.

Dream or no dream, I feel the most content knowing that I learned things there.  My expectations going there were mostly that I was going to speak Spanish alot, but surprisingly every time I opened my mouth I felt like my speech was impeded, almost as if I wasnt supposed to be speaking, but just observing.  My arrogance wasnt enough that the Hound of Heaven wasnt pursuing me still.  and he caught me this time, because Joy exists.

In college, I have suffered from some of the most intense depression of my life.  There have been days at American where I didnt feel like getting up again, where I wanted freedom from the endless waves of despair and misery that would come over my life.  For me, happiness is a foreign concept, but joy is the most foreign.

Praise God, I have hope these days, and I can muddle through the crazy depression of college with my sanity intact.  I learned what David meant when he said "I wake again, because the LORD sustains me."  In the past, I often prayed for death everytime I went to sleep.  Praise God, I start seeing every day, every sunrise, as a miracle, since every day is another day I'm alive.  Its a perspective that keeps me alive and full of hope, but it doesnt necessarily involve having joy in your life.  Sometimes it impedes it.  Still, I purge away happiness and Joy from my life.  I dont understand it, and most of all I dont feel I deserve it.  I didnt even know what it could look like

In Spain, I actually saw what it looked like, and I saw that it was attainable.  I met people who had it, but even had it in such a way that it was contagious, like it was a thing that couldnt be content with staying on one person, but busied itself with spreading to any person it came in contact with.  After 7 months of on and off depression, I have gotten used to heaviness of heart, but on the wall of a dead Moorish castle, looking at all of Granada, I felt it lift.  For the first time in a long time, I laughed for no reason it all.

Now, I still live in the basement of McDowell, and I still experience depression, but I see the little things alot clearer now.  I'm getting the bravery to smile on a sunny day, or laugh at the simple things in life.  For me, having joy is learning to walk, learning to breath, and maybe the hardest thing I have to do.  But these days I'm becoming ok with the idea of having it in my life, and pursuing it.  Its out there, and thats reason enough.

~Jared

Wisdom From Calvin

Saw this on a buddy's facebook, had to post it.

"I used to hate writing assignments, but now I enjoy them. I realized that the purpose of writing is to inflate weak ideas, obscure poor reasoning, and inhibit clarity. With a little practice, writing can be an intimidating and impenetrable fog!"

I read this so many times as a kid, but college taught me how true it really was.

Right on, Calvin

~Jared

My Shameful Identity

At the esteemed University of American, we tend to get obsessed with having an "ethnic identity."  Much like the days when my generation used to pain for hours over a cool sounding AIM screen name, my fellow students often go to extreme lengths to have a non-white people group they can identify themselves with, just to have a cooler story than that girl who taught English in Nepal over the summer (if you think you know who I'm talking about, keep in mind there are several hundred girls that match this exact description on our campus, and probably wear Buddhist prayer beads to show how cultural they are).  It gets so ridiculous that I often hear third or fourth generation wasps define themselves as "scottish-americans" just to avoid that terrible word "Caucasian" or (God forbid) "white."  These days, admitting you're white is practically admitting that you personally peed on a Native American's land and then proceeded to invade a small Asian country.

Unfortunately for me, there is no getting around the fact that I am, dare I say it, 100% white (aside from the scrap of Cherokee that my relatives successfully covered up).  Even worse, the word I use to identify myself is "southerner," a word that continues to conjure images of hooded, Bible beating rednecks who watch "Song of the South" and think of the good old days in the minds of alot of people.  But I tried, dear friends.  I searched my genealogy and looked for a cool 64th to identify with and brag about in class, but in the end I've faced the truth.  I am a southerner, and I am tired of feeling embarrassed to admit it.

The reality is that Southern culture is so much more than what people make it out to be.  Living in the south all my life, I know that I live in a culture that has deep roots in a lot of beautiful things, and many of my fellow southerners will agree that it offers something that Northern culture cannot offer.  For instance, in the South we're not afraid to make conversation with complete strangers.  It still wigs me out how unfriendly people can be in the North.  Also, we're not afraid to invite people over that we don't know, even feed them.  We'll even stand on the porch and wave at you as you drive off in your cars.  I would even go as far to say that we respect our elders a lot more than people in the North care too.  Southerners sort of have an unspoken rule that anyone more than 5 years older than you is a sir or ma'am, which usually gets a strange reaction from a lot of people.  Finally, this is a little ethnocentric, but "you all" and "yous guys" are the most awkward things I have ever heard come out of anyone's mouth.  Common, ya'll.

But no one cares to see this anymore.  Instead, our region becomes the whipping boy of the nation, the butt of every joke about anyone seen as backwards or uneducated (For the record, we don't eat squirrels in the South.  We prefer possum).  Understandably, I realize that to some extent we've reaped what we've sown.  We held on to slavery, we held on to racism, and, worst of all, we tried to pass it off as culture.  However, at the end of the day, this shameful identity is the only thing I can really claim for my own, so I prefer to forget the past and the racist blood that runs through my very veins and hold on to the beautiful things that we can still offer our country (fried okra anyone?).

As a closing note, here's a portrait of the cousin of my direct relative, dear old John Calhoun.  He was a pro-slavery advocate, and it often causes a pit in my stomach to think I share an ancestry with someone who advocated the civilized genocide of human dignity.  Often times I make it my personal mission to spite him.

But then again, hard to take a man seriously when he looks like a muppet.

~Jared

Give us an inch, and we tear the world apart

It’s been about ten years since I last stepped foot into the Air and Space Museum. The museum had not changed too much, but I certainly had. Now, I am older, more aware, and more out of place. Most everyone there was a tourist, who totted their kids along the museum, while the kids’ eyes gazed in wonder at all the planes around them. It’s strange to think I was in there shoes at some point.

I’m sure that when I was a lot younger, I saw the giant model planes just as they did, but now, ten years later, the first thing I saw was the bombs strapped to the bottom. I would also bet that when I was younger I saw the big rockets, but only now did I notice the nuclear warheads that they were carrying. Did the Smithsonian purposefully make the instruments of war look so fun and educational?  Is this the reason we blew up dolls with firecrackers on our driveways?

When I was young enough not to notice bombs and warheads, I used to get sage advice from my mom, one of which was "give a person an inch, they'll take it a mile."  In the Smithsonian, they show old grainy photographs of the Wright plane, perhaps the most important innovation in flight. This happened in 1903. Next to it, there was a picture of the very same model, only this plane had a gun attached to it, and the photo was taken in 1909. In less than ten years, the military had transformed an innovation into a weapon. In another part of the museum, rockets that launched satellites into space were displayed. Sitting right next to it was a polaris missile.  Again, a less than ten year span between discovery and destruction.

Science has given mankind amazing power, but what have we done with our power? Most of the time, we’ve looked for ways to use it to kill the people we hate. Sometimes, hate and war is a bigger driving force towards invention than scientific inquiry. Some of the greatest discoveries in rocket technology have come about when hateful men sought for ways to destroy their enemies across the ocean. Innovations in breathing apparatuses came about to allow early pilots to breathe while on bombing raids. Technology gives us the inch, and when it gives us the inch we take it the mile. We then see what its really like to tear the world apart.

Walking out of the museum, I kept thinking about the movie 2001: A Space Odyssey, particularly the scene where the monkey discovers how to use the very first tool, a bone, and the first thing he uses it for is to kill a tapir (what tapirs were doing in Africa remains a mystery to this day.  I plan to ask Zombie Kubrick that some day). In midst of cheesy costumes and several tapir maulings that would make any PETA activist cry, Arthur C. Clarke knew what he was talking about. The twisting of invention to satiate man’s desire to kill. It still happens, just with different monkeys and different bones.

~Jared

What a person I am

Its 1:30 am and I feel very personal right now, mostly because im running out of time.

In two days, im going to American University, to the city that will likely be my home for the next 5+ years of my life, and to do my best impression of someone that likes meeting new people, or new people in general. Someone told me I needed to open up to the people there. That sounds strange considering I can barely open up to people ive known for a year. What a person I am.

Considering the prospective future I find myself on the brink of, I am facing some of the worst parts of my personality, notably my knack for wanting to shove people I love as far away from me as possible. The fact that I care about them makes me want to shove them away, and the fact that they might care about me scares me to death. Why would I rather shove them away then love them more than I ever have? What a shitty person I am.

I can't type another word. it would only be more useless self loathing tripe. all I really want to say is that i'm sorry. i wish I wasnt like this, but you know by now, Ive never been an easy person.

sorry.

~Jared