Life is Not a Tragedy

Nobody doubts that there is suffering in the world...and culture finds it cool and hip to be depressed about it. To let your internal and external pain haunt and torment you. To be tormented, and hopeless...yes, that is very often what culture portrays as good and attractive. Why do girls flood to see Twilight or Harry Potter...young and attractive men tormented by an inner demon? Because somehow, this torment is seen as beautiful...if you have been tormented and hurt, then you are deep. And depth is beauty.

Perhaps.

And yet, what kind of life does that give? It turns our world into a tragedy where the happy people are superficial liars or simply unable to cope with the pain of life. There is, I cannot nor would I ever hope to deny, that there is such abundant beauty in pain. Yet, that is not the eternal end of our lives. We were not created to hurt. We were created to glory with our Creator in a land that sees no more pain or tears.

So clearly these things must come to an end.

Yet, what should we cling to as deep and lovely? Because to only be happy is truly a superficial lie. And if pain is a passing beauty, what is the deeper one? How can we truly learn to be deep people, who can reach out to those around us?

Lasting, so then eternal, beauty?

The only thing that will never pass away, the thing that makes the very essence of God himself, and life eternal with him. Perhaps this is love? Maybe it is joy? Or some combination of the two? I am not sure if that can ever be known. But I know that whatever the deepest beauty is in heaven, it will stand compariston. We can take anything that is lovely and beautiful and say that, maybe, it is like that, and it certainly will be...and much better. Let poetry, art, effcient machines, love, and nature speak to what is beautiful, and then seek to find God's beauty beyond that. That beauty, both in nature and in actions of creation and redemption, is eternal. That beauty is what we ought to spend our lives seeking.

But there is a problem.

We so often are too easily pleased with the beauties of this world...and when we sin, it is because we are too easily satisfied. Our desires are too strong...and not strong enough. If we knew what we really desired, we would seek it with our whole beings. And yet, we fall into depravity and sin...choosing carnal and banal things instead of the really beautiful things that will last into eternity. And in doing this we hurt. We hurt ourselves, and we hurt others...and suddenly the beauty of pain is destroying everyone we love. And we are powerless, truly, to do anything to stop it.

This world is not a tragedy.

There is a way to learn to love the higher things. We must change our desires. And seek that which is higher. This, takes discipline. Lewis in his book The Weight of Glory (where most of these ideas are coming from) compares it to a school boy learning Greek. At first it is just hard work, and he could never imagine in a million years how beautiful Greek poetry and writings can be...for now it is just conguations, declentions, and awful foreign letters. But as he keeps at it, eventually it becomes natural. And then, he begins to read Cicero, Plato, and the great poets in their native tongue, and he cannot but joy and glory in them. How lovely is this hidden world of mysteries, mysteries locked away. As is the eternal beauty...it is a mystery, hidden from mortals...but God made known the mystery in Jesus Christ, in whom all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell. And so in becoming like Christ, we learn these mysteries.

This world is a mystery unveiled.

Paul, in his letters, teaches us how to become more like Christ, the unveiler of mysteries...and as we become more like him, we begin to understand the mysteries of eternity more and more...until, suddenly, like the boy with his Greek, we understand how beautiful eternity is and how to love and rejoice in such depth and sincerity. Seek Christ, and learn to know him in his character and in his sufferings. Paul exhorts both...but certainly not to dwell on sufferings, but see them as a means to an end. The pain is not the beauty, the glory of God is, and pain is only beautiful in its ability to show God in his glory and his glory in us.

And like the boy...becoming like Christ, expecially at first, will likely be difficult, and at times we will want only to run to lesser joys. But in keeping the discipline, the desires begin to change. So there is no need to despair, if at first our hearts do not seem to feel as they ought for the journey they are embarking upon. For the desire to engage the journey will come, as we simply start going.

Discipline will begin to change the desires.

And the desires will grow stronger and stronger as we pray and seek God as we live our lives seeking his mysteries.

I had always hoped that life would be a big mystery that we could one day know the answer to...and yet, even in eternity we will not be equal to God...so in many ways, even eternity may be filled with mystery...and that is beautiful indeed. To get to spend eternity knowing and seeking the mysteries of God, the glory of God, the beauty of God.