Part of my life-journey as a Christian has been coming to terms with all the things I have managed to put in the way of focusing on God and what God is calling me to do. One of the biggest obstacles I face is taking seriously the business in the Gospels where Jesus declares that unless we hate those we are supposed to love, we are unworthy to be called his disciples. That is to say, I take this seriously - and therefore, it is an obstacle.
My wife, in fact, is an object lesson in the reality of this statement. Dietrich Bonhoeffer's paraphrase of this line - "When God calls a man, He bids him come and die"(forgive the exclusive language) - is another way of challenging our facile ways of understanding the whole Christian things. God takes it seriously; we should, too. Lisa doesn't seem to get that I understand this. It makes for some rough going on occasion, to be sure, but as I always tell her, what choice does she have, really?
Anyway, as part of my desire to flush all the bad spiritual crap out of my life (and I do so hate that word, "spiritual", because everything is "spiritual"; we westerners, with our compartmentalized ways of looking at life, tend to make boxes when everything is really just strewn all over the attics of our lives), my latest struggle (for well over a year) has been with music. I realize this sounds stupid, but if you have been paying attention to this blog, or know me well enough, it is rather a big deal.
Before I even contemplated taking music away, the big struggle sat on shelves in the front living room. Books. Lots of books. Books on all sorts of subject. See, I used to think that reading all those books, getting all that education, meant something. I suppose it does, in a way, but I am far less impressed with the ability to complete a sentence than I used to be (although, as I read blogs and other things, I probably should be so impressed). In a long discussion I had with someone from work last year, I just no longer cared about it all that much. Having a graduate degree. Starting a doctoral program. All it means is I've read a couple more books. Hardly a feat worth shouting about.
When I said that, I realized that I no longer needed all those books on my shelves. They no longer were a part of me, or I a part of them. They were just a bunch of paper sitting there. The only thing that has kept me from tossing them out is they are useful, on occasion (including serving to hold up a box spring on a bed with missing slats . . .).
Now, the dual challenge I have is figuring out if I can really live without them. Ship 'em off to a library or something.
Now, music . . . I have done better. Have been blogging in silence for a couple months, which is new (I usually either have the CD player running, or some Internet Radio thingy going). Silence isn't golden, though. I find it harder to concentrate. I find it kind of sad, really.
Ridding myself of all this stuff is more than just an exercise in discipline. Whether it was books or is music, it is all part of stripping away the unnecessaries in life. Years ago, we go rid of TV, and I'm far happier not having the end of that particular cultural sewer pipe spewing in to our home. With the demise of books and all that learning as a part of my identity, I see far more clearly what a jerk I have managed to be over a long span of years of my life, when I thought it meant something that I had read a book.
Now, ridding myself of music . . . That's hard.
