My Conscience

Two things happened which, in my head anyway, seem quite connected.  The first thing happened right after Robin Williams died.  I saw Christian Facebook statuses divided sharply down the traditional two lines, over something Matt Walsh, Christian blogger extraordinaire, blogged about the matter.  Matt Walsh was mad/concerned/troubled/offended/whatever, over this:

Robin Williams, who made so many of us so happy so many times in so many ways, was sad and he took his own life, and this made a whole lot of us more sad than we ever imagined it could.  It was like a support we didn't know we had, suddenly shifted without warning, and made us feel how uncertain things are.  Shook us.

   And in the wake of it, people did various things.  This image was, I think, one way of trying to mourn Robin Williams, with, however, a rather dubious bit of "genie trapped in a lamp" imagery, and an equating of death with "freedom."  The image itself reminded me of what they did way back when Walt Disney died:

And when Jim Henson died:

These images are, to me, pretty heartbreaking.  Now, I'd been repeatedly told by my culture that the entertainment achievements of these men weren't important. Were, in fact, an enticing trap.  That their art was something we should sacrifice for God, that it was "of this world" and that we'd do best to steer clear of it all.  Entertaining, sure, but not edifying.  Not fit for us to waste time on.  Not for people like us.  The important thing, they told us, was where these men were going to spend Eternity.  Had they made a profession of faith?  Had they made their choice for Christ?  How awesome would it have been if Jim Henson had converted to preachy Christianity and had "used his talents for Christ" and had made Kermit deliver a Clear Gospel Message right on TV?  Right?

   And that stuff made me a tiny bit disgusted.  When Wayne Gretzky broke some important hockey record back in the day, and when various celebrities died, the next Sunday evening when we trooped out to Gospel meeting, I would listen to see if they'd get a Gospel Namecheck.  Often they did.  

   "Thousands cheered when Wayne Gretzky made that shot.  We know this is true.  But there is joy in HEAVEN each time one sinner repenteth.  We know from scripture that this is true as well.  And how much better than the human, temporary, fleeting efforts of Wayne Gretzky. Rejoicing in Heaven! Could that be you, tonight?"  

   "Foolish people used to pay to laugh at this man's jokes about Hell.  Well, he's not laughing now.  If he didn't accept the Lord Jesus Christ as his personal saviour between making the jokes and dying in that crash, he's experiencing hell right now.  (What a solemn thought which isn't in any way filling me with giggling delight!)"  

   And I felt like it was a cheap form of pandering that both made them look bad, and also vaguely impugned the importance of the record broken, of the art and life of the human being who'd died.

   I didn't read Matt Walsh's whole blog.  I read a few out-of-context quotes from it and didn't want to.  I understood that, while we were kind of reeling with the shock of how much we suddenly cared that Robin Williams would no more be doing stuff to make us feel good, that Matt Walsh disapproved of the genie image.  Wanted to clarify that suicide was a choice (a wrong choice).  Didn't like pairing the word "free" with death.

    I understood his objections.  But I didn't like him blogging right then.  (When I read a followup young woman linked me to, and found out that he'd gotten death threats over the blog, I dialled back my dislike of his blogging significantly, and just felt sorry that this had happened to him.)  I felt like Christians "correct" or "one-up" everyone and everything too much.  It makes us look like assholes.  (Too good to say "assholes," but certainly not above acting in a way that can really only be adequately conveyed using that very word and that word only.)
  I felt like the scripture tells us to weep with them that weep, and rejoice with them that rejoice. This requires being able to be touched by the feelings of others.  And I think, just as the prodigal's elder brother in the Prodigal Son story is unable to rejoice with his family that his brother has returned, safe and sound, having been thought dead, but is being a jerk instead and trying to "correct" the rejoicing Father, we also sometimes suck at weeping with them that weep.  And in my own, far removed small way, Robin Williams taking his own life was quite upsetting to me.  And I didn't want to argue with anyone over how best to deal with it.  I just wanted people to deal with being sad however they needed to.

   I said this on Facebook.  That I didn't like Matt Walsh blogging this, though I agreed with his points.  Just shut up, I thought.  At least for now.  And then a bunch of twenty and thirty-somethings who don't normally take an interest in anything I do on Facebook all posted their support of the "Matt Walsh, please wait a week, and weep with them that weep before 'correcting' the merits of the language used while they wept" message in my Facebook status.  So I felt, as one does, supported and agreed with.  There was no arguing.

   Then one of the authors of the division that resulted in my parents having to leave/being kicked out of their church this spring posted on my Robin Williams status.  Trying to "correct" my "correcting" of Matt Walsh's "correcting" of the genie image above.  And I didn't want to talk about it.  Had to tell him that a few times. Thwarted in his mission to fight with me over it, he kinda left me then with the message "Have fun supporting unbelievers!" (which I couldn't help but picture him saying in a whiny, bitchy voice) and moved on with only a couple of additional loving comments tossed over his shoulder.  Seemed to be positively spoiling for a fight and I really didn't want to give him one.  He can go work on the next division and leave me and my parents alone.  Can see to kicking someone else out for pointing out things that aren't in the bible.

   I've often felt that of all the things we brethren people screw up, we actually do pretty well with death.  Funerals we do well at.  I have been to many funerals that were nothing less than the reason for thousands of formerly or differently Brethren people to get in the same room again and get along and care about each other.  I sometimes think that Brethren people never behave more like warm, nuanced, empathetic human beings than at a funeral.  We're actually better people.
  What on Earth could induce me, people who kicked me out of my church, my mother, my aunt and all kinds of various Brethren and ex-Brethren people to all gather in the same room to eat together, in the Missionary Alliance Church in Ottawa, (which isn't, I must point, a Brethren church)?  Someone we cared about, dying.  A funeral.

  So, we "do" funerals pretty well, I always thought.  We kind of enjoy them, I suspect.  They tend to validate our whole view of the pointlessness and brevity of human life on earth.  Provides a reason for a kind of low-key, food-centred celebration we can handle.  Or something. 

Ice, Ice, Baby

And happening at the same time Robin Williams' face was all over the Internet, something else was all over the Internet.  The ALS Ice Bucket Challenge.  It was entertaining.  It was fun.  George W. Bush did it and challenged Bill Clinton to do it.

  It was clearly fun, but I think most who see the videos still don't really know what ALS does, or what needs to be done or can be done about it. Is much money being donated? (And yes, there's that whole white guy "throw money at everything" solution to everything bad  thing going on, here as usual.)

  But I didn't post a Facebook status saying anything about it.  I want it to continue.  But I have this thing, working in a high school as I do, about kids thinking there's nothing left to do once they've "raised awareness" by wearing a rubber wristband, or a t-shirt or something.  I tend to think it trivializes the issue and declares "the world is now a better place, thanks to all we've done" without us having really done much.  Much besides making ourselves feel like we did something when maybe, really, we didn't do much.
   But I didn't post anything on Facebook.  I've often said what I think of the wrist bands and so on.  When you give money to those less fortunate than you with your right hand, even your left hand shouldn't "be informed" as to your charity work, let alone all of your Facebook friends.  Pray in your closet.  And so on.  Stuff Jesus cared enough to say.  Stuff I've gone on about before. 

   But then a Facebook friend whose beloved grandma died of ALS did a status.  She didn't say she was against the Ice Bucket Challenge. She did ask, though, if people really were coming out of the Challenge knowing anything more about ALS, or if any money was really going anywhere good about it.  Like, they should do the Challenge, but do more.  With more information.  And I commented on her status in some more detail about this old topic of mine. The "raising awareness doesn't do much but raise people's awareness that we want to raise their awareness that we have done something totally insignificant in order to supposedly raise awareness" thing.

   And then my conscience tapped me on the shoulder.  Wanted a word.  Thought that I was missing something.  As usual, I was.   It came down to this:

   When there is something "negative" (unpleasant) like a death or a funeral, I am all over supporting that, and attending the funeral, and wanting people to shut up if they say stuff that isn't, to my mind, appropriate.  Stuff that is "correcting" expressions of grief rather than weeping with them that weep.  So I want people like Matt Walsh, "correcting" an expression of grief, to shut up.  At least for a week or so.

  So why, my conscience asked, when someone is doing something "positive" (pleasant) like a fun, viral video, Internet, awareness-raising fundraiser, do I feel free to "correct" that wonderful activity? Isn't that a double-standard?

   Yes. It is. Mea culpa.
   And then my conscience pointed out that really, all my blog does is raise awareness.  And that that's worthwhile.