Notes: Much of my inner life since about 2010 has been lived against a backdrop of constant, dull pain. It is the pain of disillusionment, of hope betrayed. In the last few years I have learned to have more peace, to accept what I cannot change. In particular, I have begun to learn how to live a life of faith again and to hope in God even in the midst of unresolved doubt. But there are days (today was one in fact) where the old pain is strong, and then I feel lethargic and sad. (DL, June 10, 2023).
"You have been trying to trap me in words, playing with me? Or are you now trying to snare me with a falsehood?"
"I would not snare even an orc with a falsehood," said Faramir.
I was raised in a Christian home by conservative parents.
I was taught that the Bible is 100% literally true because it’s God’s message to humanity.
As a boy, I was taught that biblical, heterosexual marriage and the family is a great good and a gift from God. I was taught that husbands and wives deserve loyalty, kindness, and love from one another, and that they have a duty to be loyal, kind, and loving.
I was taught that abortion is wrong and a heinous slaughter of innocents because every human—even an unborn one—is a valuable soul made in the image of God Himself.
I was taught that God hates lies, and that to speak truth and eschew falsehood is Good, is pleasing to God, and is a mark of honor in a man.
I was taught that stealing from another—or even coveting what belongs to another instead of rejoicing with them in their bounty—is an evil deed, and that persisting in evil deeds, and hiding them, stains and twists the character and the soul.
I was taught that a man is to treat a woman with respect at all times, and in matters of love, with gentleness and chivalry.
That’s what I was taught, and each of those lessons took deep root in the very core of my being. I believed them all. And I wanted to be—longed to be—a man characterized by those things. A man of Virtue.
Then I grew up an learned lots of other things.
First I learned that the president was a Bad Man because he wasn’t a Man of Virtue. He did shady dealings with cronies. He Whitewatered and Travelgated and cheated on his wife with an intern and lied about it.
How sad for America that Bad People had chosen a Bad Man to be president instead of a Man of Virtue like Ronald Reagan.
Then I learned more.
I learned that my Sunday-school-dad was a serial adulterer. I learned that my mom and dad had, ahem, known each other for a long time before they were married. I learned that the guy who worked for Ronald Regan who went on to write the Book of Virtues was a gambling addict. I learned that Rush Limbaugh was a drug addict. That Newt Gingrich left his wife when she had cancer. I learned that pastors—so many pastors—cheated on their wives. I learned that lots of things taught as for-sure Bible truth were in fact a bunch of nonsense. And that the Bible probably isn’t 100% literally true at all.
And I learned more.
I learned that it was more fun to play video games than to work hard. I learned that I liked porn and that it was very hard not to look at it. I learned that telling lies could really make your day go a lot more smoothly than telling the truth. I learned that I liked eating junk food and would keep doing it even though I knew it made me fat and that my being fat was unpleasant for me and for those closest to me—but I did it anyway.
So much I have learned.
About the loss of faith. About political expediency. And WMDs in Iraq. And water boarding. And To Catch a Predator. About the Jack Bauers and the Frank Underwoods. The Bill Clintons. Bill Gothards. Arnold Schwarzeneggers. The Donald Trumps.
And yes, even the David Lohneses.
I would be lying if I didn’t admit that I very often wish with a lump in my throat (maybe even now, but shhhhh) that I could be that boy again who believed in Good and looked up to Good Men, and the Good Old Flag, and the Good Book, and delighted in Hope at the triumph of Good.
But I can’t.
I’m a middle-aged, overweight white guy who struggles with depression at what he and the world is and is becoming, even though I have nothing to complain about because I’m a scion of white upper middle-class America and have had basically all the benefits with very few of the pains of the human experience.
I grew up thinking I lived in Lothlorien only to discover I was in Terry Gilliam’s Brazil. And the wound has never healed.
But I will be damned before I give up on Lothlorien.
And I’ll be damned before I vote for Saruman for loathing of Sauron. The light may fail, and darkness may cover the lands, and I may be an orc myself like every other orc that slithers across this globe.
But even if orcs and a world filled with orcish dens is all I ever know, in my heart the Idea of the Good Man still shines brightly—so brightly it hurts. And I may never be that, and I may never see it, but I’ll be damned before I walk away from it.
And I refuse to be a Wormtongue to Trump’s Saruman,
Even if so many of those I once respected and trusted have no problem being so.
EDIT: Based on several similar comments, it seems that this post has come across as more of a complaint against people than I meant it–as if there were some bitterness or disappointment I feel in people. That is not how I feel. One of my friends upon reading this post encouraged me not to forget forgiveness, and to save some for myself as well. I have pasted my response to him below.
Forgiveness.
If I have forgotten it, I suppose it would be for myself as you suggest. I love myself as much as any man does, yet often I do not like myself.
But I have no grudge with people. I don’t feel betrayed by the failings of others. How can I blame people for being people? Born into an inscrutable existence, beset with sorrows and challenges beyond their means, and finding their try half over just as they begin to understand the question.
I would have little knowledge of either myself or the human condition if I were to begrudge others their failures—no matter how low.
For many I feel mostly pity. Dennis Hastert is a good example. How must the enjoyment of his accolades and power been tainted by the knowledge of his secret sin—like Dimmesdale in the Scarlet Letter. Unless he felt no guilt or shame and was instead a nothing man not feeling the brokenness of his state, clinging to scraps of glory and power he could never keep, watching in vain as day by day his face grew older in the mirror. An evil man, but pitiable—like Gollum, grasping in vain after his Precious, and incapable of peace.
Probably if I had been a victim, my pity would be overcome by bitterness and hate, and forgiveness would be hard to find. And certainly I believe in Evil and that there are Evil Men worthy only of confrontation and destruction.
But mostly I see the human race as struggling blindly in darkness. We are something like sightless swine squealing after scraps, while singing stories about our royal pedigree and noble mien. We are also like blind children, left alone in the wild to grope our way home as best we can. Pitiable.
Some perhaps are born bent and broken, as are dogs which have been bred to cruelty and violence. But even then, a person can hardly choose his genes or upbringing.
No. I have no grudge with people. If I feel a grudge, it is with God.
It seems to me that if He is and rules as my Calvinist reading of the Bible says he does, He must be cruelly unjust—setting us to a test He knows we cannot pass, and torturing us forever when we fail it.
If He is and rules in some other way, then He seems to me distant and uncaring—giving no sure and loving sign to lead us on the road while we squeal and grope in the darkness, consuming ourselves.
If He is not . . .
. . . then Lorien indeed is dead and I am inconsolable.