Do Not Go Gentle

My body is determined to let me know that forty is just around the corner, and to process this, I thought I would make like an elderly person and share my physical ailments.

Lately I have been experiencing considerable discomfort and some pain at the part of my foot where my arch borders on my heels. In response to this, I jumped on the web and googled “heel pain” and after wading through a couple of pages I came across a malady known as a “bone spur” that is related to another malady called “plantar fasciitis”. A bone spur is a little growth on the heel bone and plantar fasciitis is when the soft tissue that surrounds this spur becomes inflamed. It is this inflammation that causes the pain. Although I cannot say for sure that I am afflicted by these two maladies, when the various sites I consulted said that middle aged people are most susceptible, and that often there is pain after a night’s sleep due to the soft tissue becoming contracted, which is when I typically experience this pain, I think I have good reason to believe that I am indeed the victim of bone spurs.

I always thought that when I got older I would likely be dealing with my fair share of physical issues as my parents had their fair share, but I thought older wasn’t till my mid-fifties. Along with this, I still view myself in many ways as one who is just out of college. Over the past couple of years, however, in the face of receding gums, mildly thinning hair, periodic back pain, unintentional grunts when getting up from low chairs, occasional random popping sounds, and some digestive issues, the fact of my getting older is undeniable. My body is schooling my mind telling it to recalibrate my sense of self to match my demographic category: middle age.

And yet, there is a part of me, a strong part of me, that refuses to give in. Along with Dylan Thomas, I will “not go gentle into that good night”. Consequently I am working on a plan to make changes in my life so that I will be kickin some ass into my eighties, and perhaps beyond. Of course, the mere fact that I have to make these changes just to maintain my previous level of functionality is an indication of getting older. My younger body had the resilience to withstand all the abuse that I put it through. By contrast, nowadays even the slightest abuse results in significant consequences: too much coffee equals too much toilet time, too much food equals to much gut, too little sleep equals grossly bloodshot eyes framed by dark circles, and too little exercise results in slow but persistently advancing aches and pains upon my body.

Having said all of this, I want to be careful to balance the fight with the kind of wise acceptance that generally comes with age. Indeed aging is a natural part of life and on some level it needs to be graciously affirmed. As I see it, however, I have at least another twenty years to work on establishing this kind of balance. In the mean time, I am going to pop a few vitamins, some probiotics, and an occasional antacid to help buttress my resolve to follow through on my plan to keep the symptoms of aging at bay.

Dead Words

Nietzsche once said, “That for which we find words is something already dead in our hearts.” So, here are a few words: God, justice, love, truth, salvation, holiness, faith, and goodness, which according to Nietzsche are all signs that point to empty and dead realities. Being a Christian, I, of course, resist his assertion and yet I also affirm the truth of what he is saying. How is this so?…

When I first heard this aphorism, what initially came to mind is that throughout Church history people—mystics particularly—have had experiences of the divine that were beyond words to convey. Then I thought about the apophatic tradition within the larger Christian tradition, which basically asserts that God is beyond words and that we finite creatures would do best by acknowledging the limits of our understanding and language. Drawing upon my own experience I remember instances of becoming frustrated by the baggage of language when trying to express a shift in my understanding of God that came as a result of some kind of experience. It seems that this frustration arose because of the tension between the new and the old. I had a new experience, and yet I only had the same old words to express it, words that were bound by a tradition of usage that I feared would inevitably distort what I was trying to communicate. In light of all this, I find sufficient reason to affirm Nietzsche’ assertion. Words like “God”, “love”, “salvation”, etc, are all too often the empty husks of cultural decay that inevitably lull the soul into numbness. Likewise, I have too often read through books that gave descriptions of God, or the work he has done, only to get a sense that the reading gave me some kind of mastery regarding these things. This should never happen when talking about God. And yet, in spite of all this, even as this post demonstrates, I have an impulse (as do many others) to speak about God.

I find some resolution to this tension in the words of the apostle Paul, who when writing to the Christians at Corinth stated, “My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’ power, so that your faith may not rest on men’ wisdom, but on God’ power.” For Paul, when it comes to speaking theological truth, the Spirit must make present the divine realities the words point to, and thereby give new life to words that are in bondage to decay and death. This new life, however, is not just given to words; it is also given to those who respond in faith to the words that are spoken about what God has done in Jesus Christ. In fact, it is probably most proper to say that words come to life for those who are coming alive. In this manner, Paul would very likely respond to Nietzsche by saying, “You only find words for something already dead in your heart because you are dying.” This leaves me with a final question for myself and for any others who might care. If words like “God” and “love” and “faith” are dead is it because they are no longer vital, or is it because we, in some very real sense, are dead?