Stuck in the Middle

A little apropos, seeing as how this post is supposed to be on Monday, two days before the post on Wednesday. But, having missed two Monday’s in a row, I’ve stuck this one in the middle. And I want to talk about middles – no, this isn’t a fitness blog, and I’m not making up pet names for the Duchess of Cambridge: I’m talking about the war between two ideas that refuse to consider that the answer lies in the middle.

“Everything in moderation.” I don’t mean heroin in moderation is okay. What I mean is life as I’ve experienced it tends to find equilibrium with moderate doses of either side of an argument. Maybe that’s why I liked what little of Hegel I’ve been given. Evolution v. Creation. Acceptance v. Rejection. Punishment v. Grace. Orthodoxy v. Non-Denominational.

Emotion v. Reason.

“The best way to solve a problem is through objective, scientific, fact-based argument.”

“Follow your heart, and be yourself.”

Objective, scientific, fact-based arguments say that abortion is protected by privacy – even though euthanizing and suicide isn’t. (I don’t agree with either one; I’m saying “privacy” was applied because they really couldn’t think of anything better - and they must have really wanted it to happen, so they tied it to the Constitution any way they could.) It also uses evolution to butt God out of the room, when – if anything – the billion-and-one preposterous coincidences needed for, not just one evolutionary process, but all of them, proves to me even more concretely that something was in control.

Our hearts are selfish, self-centered, devious (see previous paragraph) and I wouldn’t follow my heart into the next room. Wife-beaters be themselves, as do bullies, alcoholics, rapists, thieves, murderers – some might slip through the crack of dire circumstances, but if they all did our prisons would be empty. It was heart, not reason, that came up with the ridiculous phrase: “Live your life with no regrets, because in the end, they make you who you are.” Ignoring the problematic grammar, who says “who you are” is a good thing (see previous sentence), making regrets unnecessary?

And yet, Christ is very clear that feeling and emotion are very good things: “You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me, ⁴⁰yet you refuse to come to me to have life” (John 5:39-40 NIV). And I don’t think he meant a cerebral, intellectual love when He said: “The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them” (John 14:21 NIV).

But He also used the Scripture to defeat Satan in the wilderness (Matthew 4). And Joshua tells us: “Keep this Book of the Law always on your lips; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful” (Joshua 1:8 NIV); while David sings: “Oh, how I love your law! I meditate on it all day long” (Psalm 119:97 NIV) and Jesus echoes: “Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me” (John 14:21 NIV).

God is too infinite to understand and know with just one faculty – even our human relationships are incomplete if we engage only our minds, or only our hearts. But stuck in the middle with God means experiencing Him emotionally, and knowing Him intellectually. Because without knowing Him intellectually, our hearts can lead us to say “There is no real Hell, and everyone goes to Heaven”; without knowing Him personally, our intellect will say: “You do not obey God as well as I do, and you do not know the proper answers; so you are a bad Christian.”

I don’t know about you, but that sounds like some clowns and jokers to me.