The Dangerous In-between

Dear Eugene,

I'm good at love 
I'm good at hate 
It's in between I freeze
Leonard Cohen, "A Thousand Kisses Deep"

There are people who can only see the worst in a person, and there are those who seek to redress the imbalance of love and hate by saying we should always try to see the best.

My understanding is that it's the dangerous water of in-between that we are called to navigate.  At least this is my reading of the Bible.  It has always been the reading of good literature.  Anything that attempts not to take in the full measure of human reality appeals to either cynicism or superficiality, both willful blindness.

A person may not be doing a good job navigating the dangerous water of in-between, but at least he knows navigate he must to stay afloat in this human business.

I guess this is one of the biggest qualms I have with social media, that people would keep telling stories on dry land about their loves and hates, rarely make an honest attempt to dip a toe in the dangerous water of human reality, let alone taking a deep dive.

Here you hear the sweetest voice of a dog-lover who would in the same breath condemn an animal-abuser to hell, where she volunteers to monitor the furnace temperature to keep it eternally hot.  There you see a tree-hugger who wouldn't mind killing a brother or two to save a shrub.  Family portraits, food pictures, vacations, parties, new hair, new finger nails, all with captions to solicit--dictate--absolute loyalty and approval, reading between the lines strictly outlawed.

I once read the story of a German SS (Nazi special police force) official who would in daylight execute with great effectiveness and efficiency the extermination of Jews in Auschwitz, only to every evening stroll in the sunset towards his home nearby and be the most faithful and loving husband and father, cozying up with his family by the fireside, listening to Grieg, Schumann and Mozart and have a cultured opinion about each.

Take a daytime Polaroid of him we have no problem lifting ourselves up on the right side of the moral scale.  See ourselves as the five-year-old daughter cuddling up with him beside the fire we think heaven is on earth.

We would like to believe we have many friends but we don't.  A friend knows your worst and loves you in spite of it, celebrates your best for seeing the Christ in you.  Social media cannot handle relationship so subtle, nuanced, and storied.

Frederick Buechner once said, "Maybe it's all utterly meaningless. Maybe it's all unutterably meaningful. If you want to know which, pay attention to what it means to be truly human in a world that half the time we're in love with and half the time scares the hell out of us."

Are we paying attention?  Or do people know us for our cynicism and/or superficiality, which are in profuse supply in this world, and, sadly, sometimes even more so in church?  When the body of Christ would shatter into smithereens overnight, I wonder how many acts of willful blindness it must have taken to over the years stockpile the necessary dynamite.

How do we grow to be more attentive to the human condition?  Our human condition?

Your friend, Alex

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