Category: pastoral theology

I'm loving Pascal's Thoughts.

He would have had a great blog.

Check out this one on "Diversions" (basically our lack of contentment).

Given that, as I type, I have no less than 15 active screens on my computer, perhaps I should take heed...

139.  ...I have discovered that all the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact, that they cannot stay quietly in their own chamber. A man who has enough to live on, if he knew how to stay with pleasure at home, would not leave it to go to sea or to besiege a town. A commission in the army would not be bought so dearly, but that it is found insufferable not to budge from the town; and men only seek conversation and entering games, because they cannot remain with pleasure at home.
But, on further consideration, when, after finding the cause of all our ills, I have sought to discover the reason of it, I have found that there is one very real reason, namely, the natural poverty of our feeble and mortal condition, so miserable that nothing can comfort us when we think of it closely.
Whatever condition we picture to ourselves, if we muster all the good things which it is possible to possess, royalty is the finest position in the world. Yet, when we imagine a king attended with every pleasure he can feel, if he be without diversion and be left to consider and reflect on what he is, this feeble happiness will not sustain him; he will necessarily fall into forebodings of dangers, of revolutions which may happen, and, finally, of death and inevitable disease; so that, if he be without what is called diversion, he is unhappy and more unhappy than the least of his subjects who plays and diverts himself.
Hence it comes that play and the society of women, war and high posts, are so sought after. Not that there is in fact any happiness in them, or that men imagine true bliss to consist in money won at play, or in the hare which they hunt; we would not take these as a gift. We do not seek that easy and peaceful lot which permits us to think of our unhappy condition, nor the dangers of war, nor the labour of office, but the bustle which averts these thoughts of ours and amuses us....
....Thus passes away all man's life. Men seek rest in a struggle against difficulties; and when they have conquered these, rest becomes insufferable. For we think either of the misfortunes we have or of those which threaten us. And even if we should see ourselves sufficiently sheltered on all sides, weariness of its own accord would not fail to arise from the depths of the heart wherein it has its natural roots and to fill the mind with its poison.
Thus so wretched is man that he would weary even without any cause for weariness from the peculiar state of his disposition; and so frivolous is he that, though full of a thousand reasons for weariness, the least thing, such as playing billiards or hitting a ball, is sufficient to amuse him...
 ...Consider this. What is it to be superintendent, chancellor, first president, but to be in a condition wherein from early morning a large number of people come from all quarters to see them, so as not to leave them an hour in the day in which they can think of themselves? And when they are in disgrace and sent back to their country houses, where they lack neither wealth nor servants to help them on occasion, they do not fail to be wretched and desolate, because no one prevents them from thinking of themselves.

Read them all here.

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In the last month Emma's been in and out of hospital 3 times (she's in at the moment) and I've consistently had man-flu.  (Sorry to those who've sent messages and comments recently.  I'll get to them in time).

It's struck me very forcibly how offensive illness is to our fleshly sensibilities.  Just speaking of my own meagre maladie, here's the sort of thing said to me on a daily basis:

[Shocked] Haven't you seen a doctor then?

[Tutting] Haven't you been taking your medication?

[Frowning] Haven't you been inhaling hot lemon and eucalyptus like I told you?

[Disappointed] Haven't you rubbed menthol on your chest and belched La Marseillaise? 

[Appalled]  Elderflower, saffron and moose hair Glen - that's what I keep telling you.  How long will you choose frailty over my curse-proof stratagems??

Maybe I'm imagining it, but I often sense a note of anger in the advice of others regarding illness.  It doesn't really fit our default world-view for people to just get sick.  We need to believe that there are practical reasons for the suffering and dependable remedies to fix it.  When our friends have an illness that doesn't budge, it actually becomes very threatening.  It forces a collision between two strong emotions.  On the one hand there's deep love and concern for your friend who's suffering.  But on the other is an un-named but powerful belief that life will work for us if we act smart, work hard, keep trusting God and never give up.  Of course this entails the belief that bad stuff is preventable if we're prepared, persistent and prayerful enough.  And so when our friend is sick, and stubbornly sick... well... you love 'em.  But deep down you know that somewhere, somehow they've done it to themselves.  ("Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?" John 9:1)

Of course the battle is there in the sufferer too.  We end up suffering double when we believe the lie that all bad stuff is preventable.  Not only do we face the illness, we face bitter self-flaggelation for succumbing in the first place.

Both sufferer and comforter should stop being surprised by the fiery trial (1 Pet 4:12).  We must ditch this ridiculous belief in our curse-proof stratagems.  Let's comfort one another as those who know we are east of Eden and the Suffering Servant is the only way back.  

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