Perceptions from a Pewboy

I have been intrigued by existentialist thought ever since my college years when I was exposed to the writings of its proponents.

Although it has found a variety of diverse expressions (which makes it difficult to define in succinct fashion), existentialism, as a system of thought, places the focus on the existence of the individual person as a free moral agent. Existentialism further maintains that one’s existence is essentially a personal journey of self-understanding and self-realization in which the individual person is called upon to respond to a wide variety of experiences, emotions, relationships, and circumstances. Such an emphasis upon individual and experiential existence places existentialism in stark contrast with rationalism (which locates all truth in the realm of the intellectual and deductive) and empiricism (which locates all truth in the realm of the tangibly discernable).

Existentialism stresses that one’s EXISTENCE precedes one’s ESSENCE, meaning that one’s essence is not a predetermined reality. Rather, according to existentialist thought, one’s essence is formed by the decisions, priorities, and actions of one’s individual pilgrimage (or existence).

My favorite existentialist thinker is Soren Kierkegaard (1813-1855), who, as a Christ-follower, brought to existentialism a uniquely Christocentric focus. In his classic book, “Either/Or,” Kierkegaard offers an observation that has haunted me for years—one that captures the existential lostness from which, according to Kierkegaard, all of us are longing to be delivered:

This is what is sad when one contemplates human life, that so many live out their lives in quiet lostness…they live, as it were, away from themselves and vanish like shadows. Their immortal souls are blown away, and they are not disquieted by the question of its immortality, because they are already disintegrated before they die.
(from “Either/Or,” vol. 2, “Balance Between Esthetic and Ethical”)

Kierkegaard’s description of this existential lostness is inseparably connected to his soteriology (his doctrine of salvation). For Kierkegaard, as a Christian existentialist, being lost means being separated from our authentic selves in such a way that we “vanish like shadows.” Likewise, for Kierkegaard, being “saved” means making the decisions and engaging in the actions that will enable us to become authentically ourselves (authentically, in other words, who we were created to be).

Why am I raising the issue of existentialist thought in the middle of a mild-mannered blog post? Simply because I just watched what can only be described as an existentialist film, one that sheds important light upon one man’s existential crisis and subsequent search for meaning.

The film I am describing is “Up in the Air,” director and co-writer Jason Reitman’s clever and insightful cinematic treatment of one man’s discovery of his own lostness. The film features George Clooney portraying Ryan Bingham, a well-paid and well-traveled corporate hatchet man who has made a career out of informing people that they are fired.

The problem is that the difficult responsibilities of his career have forced Bingham into an isolated existence (one that he has protected for years with casual sex, alienated relationships, and an excessive pattern of traveling that prevents him from having to stay in one place for too long). Left unanswered is this compelling question: Did Bingham became a corporate hatchet man because of his proclivity to social isolation, or did he become socially isolated because of his career? The moviegoer is left to formulate his or her own conclusions concerning the order of this existential progression.

Three factors compel Bingham to question everything that his life has become. First, his company discovers that people can be fired much more cheaply via the medium of online conferencing, meaning that Bingham’s weekly traveling (a key component of his identity) is no longer a necessity. Second, Bingham develops a reluctant friendship with Natalie Keener (played by Anna Kendrick), an aspiring corporate climber whose cold-hearted ambition unsettles Bingham and compels him to reflect upon his own priorities and motivations. Third, much to his dismay, Bingham begins to experience an emotional connection (and subsequent vulnerability) in his relationship with the striking Alex Goran (brought to vibrant life by Vera Farmiga), another frequent traveler who awakens Bingham to the emotional depths that his life choices have prevented him from experiencing.

In the early portion of the film, Bingham’s favorite and foundational image is the image of an empty backpack, which serves as a metaphor for the unencumbered and emotionally streamlined life that he thinks he wants. As the film progresses, however, Bingham’s “empty backpack” becomes as oppressive as Jacob Marley’s chain. He begins to realize that the weight of emptiness is far more crippling and debilitating than the weight of authentic intimacy.

But can one make an existential change in the middle of one’s life? Will a backpack that has been shaped by its emptiness be able to accommodate the accumulation of unfamiliar baggage? Will the people and circumstances in one’s life permit such a conversion? And will it last? These are the important questions that “Up in the Air” addresses. As a title, “Up in the Air” describes, not only the extensive traveling of the main character, but the uncertain status of his existential pilgrimage.

After seeing the film, I find myself examining the content of my own backpack. What relationships are in there? What vocational decisions? What hopes and dreams and prayers? What regrets and failures? Which heavy items in the backpack are authentically mine to carry, and which items do I keep in there because of my stubborn refusal to throw them away? Is my backpack as meaningfully filled as it could be, or is it cluttered and poorly packed? Do I utilize my backpack for the purpose of traveling to redemptive places, or do I utilize it for the purpose of running away?

These are the existential questions in which I am living today. They are questions that pave the way from Kierkegaard to Clooney, from philosophical exploration to cinematic realism. Most importantly, they are questions that demand the attention of anyone who longs to be truly self-aware and self-actualized, which is the goal, not only of the existentialist, but the holistic Christ-follower.

Christmas morning of 1974 holds a special place in my memory. On that morning, as a seven-year-old boy, I received a Christmas present that signified an advancement in toy-making about which I was very excited. It was a Christmas present that I was convinced would change the landscape of my personal playtime.

The Christmas present to which I am making reference is G.I. Joe with Kung Fu grip.

If you were born after 1980, my reference to “Kung Fu Grip G.I. Joe” will probably not mean anything to you. But if you lived through the mystical and whimsical decade of the 1970’s, then perhaps you recall the evolution that I am describing. Back in the 1970’s, long before the movement toward the miniaturization of children’s action figures, G.I. Joe was a hard plastic doll, about 12 inches tall—sort of like Barbie but with a beard and military equipment.

Although fierce looking and fun to play with, G.I. Joe was plagued by severe functional limitations. The hard plastic of which he was made was not at all pliable, which made it impossible for him to hold on to anything with any degree of security (which, as you might imagine, significantly hindered his tactical ability). But in 1974, the problem was creatively rectified. All the commercials talked about it. G.I. Joe was now equipped with a Kung Fu grip—large, pliable rubber hands attached to his hard plastic body. Did it look unrealistic in the commercial? Of course it did. But the cosmetic issues were far outweighed by the prospect of G.I. Joe being able to grab hold of the clothesline in the back yard!

On Christmas morning 1974, “Kung Fu Grip G.I. Joe” found his way to that very special place beneath my family Christmas tree. When I opened the present and saw those plastic blue eyes looking back at me, and when I glanced downward to verify the existence of his disproportionate kung fu grip hands, I was instantaneously brought into a condition of Christmas morning euphoria. I played with “Kung Fu Grip G.I. Joe” all morning long.

Utilizing his kung fu grip that morning, G.I. Joe found himself suspended from Christmas tree branches and extension cords and even the belt of my father’s bathrobe. It was a great day of kung fu grip playtime! Then, playtime came to an end with my mother’s announcement: “Eric, time to get a shower and get dressed. We’re going to travel to Pittsburgh so that we can have Christmas dinner with your Aunt Mary Jane and the rest of the family.”

“OK, Mom.”

I laid “Kung Fu Grip G.I. Joe” under the Christmas tree, proceeded to get ready, and then off we went for the family Christmas celebration. What we didn’t know at the time was that our relatively new family dog, whose name was Jiggers, had a fondness for mischief. More specifically, Jiggers was a chewer, and, as we would soon discover, he seemed to enjoy sinking his teeth into anything made of wood, plastic, or rubber.

Well, to make a long story short (as if that’s even possible at this point!), when we arrived back home on Christmas night, all that was left of “Kung Fu Grip G.I. Joe” was a plastic torso, riddled with doggie teeth marks. In fact, we didn’t find some of his plastic body parts until the next day in the back yard (if you know what I mean!). Suffice it to say that the newly developed kung fu grip didn’t help G.I. Joe one bit in his fight with Jiggers.

When I saw the freshly devoured G.I. Joe doll on the living room floor, I was furious. I stormed up to my bedroom and cried. To this day, I remember the angry and bitter lament that I whispered through my tears. “I am never traveling on Christmas day again! I don’t care where our family lives! Bad things happen when we leave the toys alone in the house! I mean it—I am NEVER traveling on Christmas day again!” It was a moment of childhood angst and revelation—a moment in which I learned that traveling on Christmas day is not without its logistical challenges and pitfalls.

But I don’t really have to tell that to any of you, do I? You are already well aware of the logistical challenges of traveling around Christmas time. In fact, one of the most important organizational questions that families and friends contemplate each and every Christmas is precisely this: Who’s going to do the traveling? Are we going to Mom and Dad’s house, or are they coming here? Are we going to grandma’s in the afternoon, or is someone going to pick grandma up so that she can come here? Are we staying overnight, or is it just a day trip? When do we leave? When do we come back? What do we have to pack? Do we have all the Christmas gifts?

Who’s going to do the traveling?

Much of the rhythm and content of our Christmas celebration is dictated by our response to that question. There are cooking and cleaning implications. There are issues of travel time to be contemplated. There are delicate family politics to be pondered (i.e., if I go to spend time with this family member on Christmas, will this other family member be offended that we didn’t travel to his house or her house?).

In the midst of these complex logistical questions, there have probably been times when all of us have articulated a viewpoint that was something like the viewpoint I articulated back in 1974, when my devoured G.I. Joe doll inspired me to mutter these words: “I am NEVER traveling on Christmas day again!”

Today, on Christmas Eve, the vocabulary of Christmas traveling is very much on my heart. I find it to be a vocabulary that illuminates some of the mystery and majesty of what transpired on that first Christmas night, 2000 years ago.

In the Gospel of Matthew, an angel tells Joseph that the name of the child born to Mary shall be Jesus, and that he shall be called EMMANUEL which is a word that means, “God with us,” or, perhaps more specifically, “a God who has traveled to be with us.”

Then, in the Gospel of Luke, an angel appears to the shepherds on that first Christmas night. “Do not be afraid,” the angel says to the shepherds, “for I bring to you good news of great joy to all the people. To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord.” The angel’s message to the shepherds, essentially, is that God has done some significant traveling. God has made the journey into human skin and can be found in Bethlehem as a vulnerable baby in swaddling clothes.

The Christmas message, you see, delivered initially by the angels, is a message about traveling. It is a message about God’s merciful itinerary. It is a message about a heavenly Father who recognizes our inability to reach him and who, therefore, made the decision to travel for the purpose of reaching us. “To you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord. His name shall be Jesus, and he shall be called EMMANUEL, which is a word that means, ‘God has done the traveling.’”

Today, I ask you not to burden yourself with the task of attempting to comprehend all of the scientific specifics of how it is that a sovereign God travels into human skin. Resist the temptation to lose yourself in the kind of analytical mindset that would reduce the mystery and profundity of the birth of Jesus Christ to nothing more than a theological equation or a spiritual formula. Instead, make peace with the fact—and beyond that, CELEBRATE the fact—that something occurred on that first Christmas that is well beyond the boundaries of human comprehension. Somehow, in the mystery of gracious divinity, the God of the Ages traveled from eternity to the present moment; traveled from a heavenly throne to a Bethlehem manger; traveled from heavenly adornment to human skin.

Why would God make that kind of trip? Scripture would have us to believe that God made the trip simply because God loves us that much. “In fact,” God proclaims “I love you so much that I am willing to do the traveling. I am willing to come to you in Christ, because I know that you cannot come to me. And I refuse to allow your sin to keep us apart. I refuse to allow the alienation of your disobedience to prevent us from being in right relationship. Therefore, I will do the traveling, thereby bridging the chasm between us that you on your own are not able to bridge.”

Many if not all of the other world religions place the emphasis upon the kind of spiritual traveling that WE might do to reach GOD. Christianity is unique in that regard. Christianity places the emphasis upon the traveling that GOD has done to reach US.

Ponder for just a moment what it meant for God to make the trip into human skin. It meant that God in Christ willingly entered into the messiness and the fragileness of the human condition, with all of its cuts and its bruises, with all of its aches and pains, with all of its sins and its blemishes. “You cannot come to me,” God essentially said to us, “and so I will come to you. I will do the traveling. I will experience childhood with you and the mishaps that can occur in the experience of growing toward adulthood. I will break with you and bleed with you and breathe your air and experience your journey. And, when the time comes, I will die on the cross for you, thereby taking into myself the sins of the world.”

Such is the language and the imagery of a God who is willing to do the traveling for our sake. I don’t know how you feel about that kind of God, a God who traveled from eternal glory to the crude tangibility of a Bethlehem feeding trough.

Personally, I’m grateful that he saved us the trip.

There is no one I enjoy watching play the game of golf more than Tiger Woods.

I do not care for his volatile temper or his profanity, both of which have been captured frequently by the cameras that document his every move in a tournament. Concerning his demeanor in competition, there are probably 150 golfers on the PGA Tour who are more gregarious.

But on my list of favorite athletes to watch, Tiger is at the very top. His golf swing is unparalleled in both its athleticism and its purity. The intensity of his competitive focus is nothing short of stupefying, as is the brilliant creativity of his course management. To put is simply, when Tiger is playing his best golf, everyone else on the PGA Tour is playing for second place.

I am deeply saddened by the scandal that currently surrounds Tiger. I am saddened because I chose to believe that Tiger approached his personal relationships with the same rigorous discipline that he demonstrates in his golf game. I am saddened because of the pain and embarrassment that Tiger’s wife Elin has had to endure. I am saddened because the sporting world will be greatly diminished during the “indefinite” absence of one of its most dynamic and history-making stars. I am saddened because of the tawdry revelations made by Tiger’s mistress and the manner in which our culture has devoured those revelations.

Most of all, I am saddened by the broken covenant and the broken hearts that Tiger’s infidelity represents.

I am convinced that no portion of the scandal surrounding Tiger falls outside the boundaries of God’s redemptive grace. I am praying that Elin, Tiger, and their entire family are able to experience that redemptive grace in wondrous ways in the days ahead.

As I reflect on Tiger’s scandal, I cannot help but think of some of the things that it illuminates:

First, Tiger’s infidelity reminds us of the complex and seductive power of human sexuality. In this regard, all human beings stand on common corporeal ground. Plumbers, pilots, preachers, and PGA celebrities are all entrusted with a sexuality, the impulses of which demand a relentless attentiveness to ethics and boundaries. If stewarded faithfully in the context of covenant, one’s sexuality becomes an awe-inspiring manifestation of intimacy that bears witness to the incarnational nature of an intimacy-seeking God. However, when one’s sexuality is conceptualized as yet another appetite to be satisfied, the door is thrown open to a myriad of potentially poor decisions and destructive pathways.

Of course, this matter becomes even more complex in a culture that seems desperately eager to kneel at sexuality’s altar and surrender to its manifold impulses. In such a culture, it becomes increasingly difficult and awkward to speak of sexuality as a precious and powerful gift to be stewarded. Much more common is the tendency to treat sexuality with the kind of aggressiveness and covetousness normally found in the final round at Augusta National.

The urgency, then, of marital attentiveness and sexual boundaries has found new illumination in the story at hand. For the follower of Jesus, the story of Tiger’s scandal is a cautionary tale that inspires, not the ridicule of a fallen man, but a renewed commitment to subordinating even one’s sexuality to the transforming Lordship of Christ.

Second, Tiger’s infidelity has brought to light once again the sickening and seemingly insatiable lust for scandal produced by a culture that can only be described as pathologically voyeuristic.

It is not my intention to be hyperbolic in this matter. Nor is my intention to be unfairly grim in my sociological analysis. (I believe wholeheartedly, after all, that all of creation is in the process of moving toward God’s redemptive future.) But let’s be brutally honest for a moment about the sociological equation that is before us: Tabloid journalism, plus a mistress who is more than eager to sell personal text messages to the highest bidder, plus a culture that refuses to look away, equals a culture that finds itself in deep need of repentance and transformation. Tiger, in other words, is not the only one in need of a “come to Jesus” kind of experience.

Third, some have looked upon Tiger’s infidelity as an opportunity to express their doubt and cynicism concerning the authenticity of his apology. The other day, for example, I read a pastor’s newsletter column in which he lamented that Tiger only apologized because “he got caught.” But, isn’t that the only time ANYBODY repents—when they get “caught?” History and experience tell us that repentance only occurs when one is confronted with an unanticipated accountability. Sometimes this accountability is initiated by our misdeeds becoming public (as in Tiger’s case). Other times, this accountability is engendered by a burdened conscience that can no longer accommodate a particular pattern of behavior.

In either case, however, repentance begins with the experience of getting “caught.” A person is either caught by another individual, or s/he is caught by the weight of his or her own conscience. One could argue, I suppose, that getting caught by an internal conscience is more “noble” than getting caught by an external agent. But I am not at all convinced that such an ethical distinction is anything more than a forced and unnecessary dichotomy that takes the focus away from the main point.

The bottom line, theologically speaking, is that authentic repentance is the work of the Holy Spirit in a human soul, no matter whether the instrument through which the Spirit moves is a public discovery of wrongdoing or an internal guilt. The Church serves best in the process of repentance when, in hope, it resists the temptation to approach the one repenting with cynicism and disbelief and instead becomes an agent of encouragement and prayer. All the Church’s people, after all, are intimately familiar with the experience of being “caught” in the midst of some sin. Therefore, why do we seem to have such difficulty giving Tiger the benefit of the doubt concerning his apology?

Finally, Tiger’s infidelity inspires me to do some honest inventory on my own life. As the season of Advent continues to unfold, I find myself wanting to honor my own marital covenant even more deeply, to create healthy boundaries in my relationships that are even more clearly delineated, and to pray even more consistently for the hurting and troubled families that are all around us. Tiger’s family is one of those. I am praying for that family, even as I type these words.

“Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers…Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.” (Romans 13:11-12)

One of the more important processes that every single one of us experiences every single day is this: We wake up.

It is one of the great equalizers, isn’t it? No matter one’s income, personality, age, gender, or political affiliation, one’s experience of a new day is dependent upon his or her accommodation this regular process—the process of waking up from sleep.

It should be acknowledged that all of us wake up in different ways, depending, of course, on one’s particular routine and temperament. Some people wake up to a blaring alarm clock, others to the gentle sounds of soft music. Some people wake up to an internal alarm, a mysterious mechanism within their biological network that brings them to consciousness without any external assistance whatsoever.

Some people wake up easily and quickly. As soon as their eyes open, they hop out of bed with a palpable eagerness, excited about beginning their day. “Bring me the newspaper, bring me my coffee, bring me my fruit loops, I’m ready to go.” Other people wake up slowly and rather reluctantly, pulling a distorted face out of the congealed drool that has bonded head to pillow for the last eight hours; stumbling and grumbling all the way to the bathroom; tripping over the dog on route to shutting off the alarm that is placed intentionally on the other side of the room because of the physical movement that such a placement demands.

We all have different routines, you see. But at the heart of each routine is the simple practice of waking up. All of us have to do it. In fact, you are reading this post only because, at some point today, you saw fit to wake up.

One of the key components in the process of waking up is the task of what might be described as laying aside the darkness. Darkness, after all, is an important part of sleeping. Even if it is light outside, the closing of one’s eyes in sleep produces a condition of darkness, and it is a darkness to which one grows quickly accustomed. Part of waking up is accepting the illumination that will bring us out of the darkness of sleep and into the light of an awakened condition.

But that is not always a comfortable thing, especially if it is still dark outside when the waking occurs. We turn on that light that for some reason seems ten times brighter than it normally does. We shield ourselves from it as though we are being confronted by a radioactive bombardment. Sometimes we even curse the light because it is so painful to our eyes. But we know that we must have it. We know that the light coming on is portion of waking up. Because only then can we lay aside the darkness. Only then can we be certain that we are stepping where we need to be stepping and seeing what we need to be seeing.

I bring all of these realities to mind because they are at the heart of the scripture upon which I meditated this morning (Romans 13:11-14). It is a scripture in which the Apostle Paul essentially says to the Roman church and to us, “Hey, church, wake up! Wake up, and lay aside the darkness!”

The people to whom Paul was writing in the Roman Church would not have had alarm clocks. They would not have had light switches. But they would have been confronted with the same daily process that confronts us: the process of waking up and laying aside the darkness. Therefore, the Paul’s words would have called to mind an everyday reality that would have been as familiar to the Roman Christians as it is to us.

“You know what time it is,” Paul writes in the scripture. (Interestingly, the “time” to which Paul refers here is “kairos” time, not “chronos” time. It is not measurable and chronological time that Paul is describing. Rather, it is freighted time—time pregnant with mystical urgency and messianic significance.)

“You know what time it is,” Paul writes, “it is kairos time! It is a moment in which you are to pay attention, a moment in which you are to wake from sleep.” Why? “Because,” Paul continues, “salvation is nearer to us now than when we first became believers.”

Paul’s description of the nearness of salvation here is no doubt a reference to Christ’s triumphant return, which, with every passing day, is indeed nearer to us than it was the day before. Paul’s language also calls to mind the fragility of the human condition and, more specifically, the perpetual nearness of a physical death that will one day bring us face to face with the One who saves us.

“You know what time it is. It is time to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.”

In this stark and unsettling moment of Scripture, Paul utilizes the everyday reality of waking from sleep as a metaphor for an attentive and vibrant discipleship. “Do you really want to be a follower of Jesus,” Paul essentially asks in this scripture. “Do you really want to live a life that is subordinated to his Lordship? Well then, spiritually speaking, wake up! Stop living like a spiritual somnambulist—sleepwalking from worship service to worship service, church meeting to church meeting, while giving little or no attention to the transforming presence of the living Christ in our midst.”

“Wake up,” Paul writes. “Live a life of alertness and spiritual attentiveness. Sense the urgency of the moment. Respect the fleeting nature of time. Live in such a way that you are completely awake for the kingdom of God and the ministry of that kingdom in the world.”

“Wake up,” Paul writes, “and lay aside any sinful works of darkness that are engendering a condition of sluggish indifference toward the things of God, because time is short.”

I had a conversation recently with a woman who told me that, each week, before she walks into her church building for worship, she sits in her car in the parking lot for a few minutes, and she prays a prayer that goes something like this: “Lord God, take away my pettiness; take away my mean-spiritedness; take away my self-centeredness; and take away any small-mindedness that would cause me to believe that worship is more about spiritual self-gratification than it is about offering the entirety of myself to you.”

What is that woman doing when she prays that prayer each week? The scripture from Romans provides a new vocabulary with which to answer that question. Each week in her automobile, that woman is spending a few minutes laying aside her personal works of darkness that she might be awakened to the living presence of the God she is about to worship. Each week in her automobile, in other words, that woman is waking up.

A man I know recently began to volunteer at Washington City Mission. In fact, his entire family is joining him in that volunteer ministry. “We had to do it,” he said to me. “We had to get ourselves into some hands on, face to face ministry for the sake of Jesus Christ. As a family, we had become drowsy in the comfortableness of our lifestyle. We all needed to be shaken up by some kind of new ministry that would take us beyond the stifling normalcy of what our lives had become.”

What are those family members doing when they spend hours each weekend working with the homeless? Some might say that they are simply appeasing their suburban guilt. But I say something different. I say that they are laying aside their personal works of darkness that they might be awakened to the living presence of the One who is the light of the world and whose light shines with particular brightness in the faces and lives of the poor and marginalized. That family, in other words, is waking up.

I don’t know how you look upon the season of Advent. I look upon it as a season in which to wake up. Therein, I suppose, lies the significance of the mystical rhythms of the liturgical calendar. A season like Advent brings to the church’s people a unique opportunity to open their spiritual eyes and to come out of their drowsiness, so that, by the time Christmas arrives, their hearts are receptive to Jesus, the Light of the world, who comes to us afresh.

I want to be available to him this Advent. I want to lay aside in repentance whatever works of darkness are preventing him from having complete access to my life. In short, I want to wake up.