To the Glory of God

 

In eating, in drinking, in all that you do, do everything as for God’s glory.

1st Corinthians 10:31

The smoke of their torment goes up for ever and ever; day and night no rest is theirs, who worshipped the beast and his image, who bore the mark of his name.

Apocalypse 14:11

There's something that abuse survivors don't talk about, especially those who were abused as children: they can't bring themselves to blame someone other than themself.  Deep down, way deep down, most people are actually good creatures and don't want to put the enormity of that monstrous act on another human being. It's so heavy that most of us who are hurt would rather unconsciously bear the burden, alone. 

The problem, of course, is that loneliness is not of God. God is love, relationship. What people don't understand is that, by trying to relate to someone, they are invoking the Spirit of God. Spirits are living media for transmission, like the spiritual equivalent to air... but alive. So, withdrawing requires going through a medium to do so. There's nothing wrong with solitude in God, but we got concupiscence to worry about, which almost guarantees we won't do it right.

So instead of choosing solitude we choose loneliness.

Over the last year, I have watched a lot of horror. And I do mean a lot of it. And I don't mean "tame" horror. I mean stuff that borders on tasteless and genuinely awful. Stuff like Possessed, Irreversible, The Outwaters, The Poughkeepsie Tapes... stuff that is known for being entirely too much. Way, way, way too much. Tons of stuff that has left my skin crawling, terrified, in some cases sleepless. And I have been mainlining it all into my system, factory-style. 

Now, I didn't necessarily do this on purpose. I am ten years into this whole PTSD thing, and have gotten used to gauging when an overwhelming urge is something to fight with every bit of my being, or something to simply let go and watch like a hawk. So I am not claiming some form of moral superiority, no matter how snarky I may get at people who disagree with what I am doing. I am saying that I have gotten used to having things that are simply not worth fighting, because there are bigger fish to fry. I wasn't trying to do anything, other than let a part of me that didn't have have a lot of power before that point have it, as far as I could, without judging it. I simply let it exist and have what it wanted, as long as I wasn't harming someone else.

But I accidentally had a bit of a breakthrough, and I think people in my position may need to know about it.

There was this moment in The House that Jack Built where Jack, as a child, cuts the foot off a baby duck and chucks it back into water. The poor thing squeaks in pain, and then in panic, as it goes in circle upon panicked circle, bleeding out into the water, unable to steer straight because a foot is missing. The camera doesn't focus upon this poor thing's last moments as it spirals into death. It focuses on Jack's totally impassive face. The face of a child who does not care about the poor little duckling he just doomed.

In that moment I felt something I have never actually felt before: disgust. 

I have felt a lot of anger in my life, far too much for it to be healthy. But disgust requires something that no abuse victim can just claim: superiority. You can only be disgusted by something lower than you. Which means that you have to think that you are above something. Which is really difficult to do if you're a sex abuse victim. In order for there to be disgust, you have to be healthy. You have to be able to put yourself as above the disgusting actions (never people) of evil.

Those who think disgust is morally wrong are full of shit.

In that one moment, I was suddenly able to place something beneath me, on reflex. The self-loathing, which is atmosphere in rape survivors, a smothering plastic bag to self-worth, was gone. Just for a second. And all it took was seeing a poor baby duck's foot cut off and its panic.

I went home, and suddenly found I was more responsive to my wife and kids. I could suddenly relate to them better. Something had been banished. So I went and found more things. And found that, the more disgust I forced myself to endure, the freer I felt to love my family. And love glorifies God. 

When I was younger, I was told that to glorify God meant to only think or talk about beautiful things. What I realized a little bit later was what was meant was to only think or do "nice" things. The problem is that "nice" things aren't what Jesus did. Jesus did kind things. Him flipping the tables on the money lenders was an act of kindness to them. He loved them with a whip.

Jesus didn't avoid pain, He dealt it when necessary. Misery and discomfort were tools.

They weren't something He shied away from. He just didn't see the need to use them often.

I am not advocating for random smut. But there's a fact about the modern world that we don't like to acknowledge: we don't see a lot of horrible stuff. One of my friends who grew up on a farm complained about the lack of blood from lightsabers, and laughed that she didn't need any sex-ed, because she had seen what the animals did with each other and put two and two together to make four. The amount of nudity used to be much higher, not to mention the amount of blood, maiming, and killing. Pretending we're not used to such things and will miss them on almost a genetic level is... naive. 

"But Nathan," someone will say "tHE FAthErs..." 

Dude, most of the Fathers lived in a civilization where slitting noses and other public maiming stuff happened. People died much more than they do now. You're really telling me that the context they said any of their comments about entertainment and enjoyment don't factor in... I mean you do you... but my wife's a history major and she wouldn't put up with such idiocy. You do you.

But the thing is that the Father's advice is given in an environment where you don't have to seek out disgust. Too much exposure to evil is corrupting. You have to focus on the true and good and beautiful in a world of horror. I'm not advocating ignoring the Fathers. I am saying that the proper interpretation of those passages in a world where you must choose to look away. No matter how sexually explicit our world gets, it's not the ancient world, it's just not.

"But Nathan,", someone will say "i THink tHat'S iCKy...."

Cool. But I gotta live with my decisions, which all need to have consequences I can live with. Such idealisms are nice, but I have seen the cost for having a "coherent" worldview, where you can worship your little inner abstract idol and not feel bad. "Coherence" is merely a nice word for idolatry, for avoiding God. I want to find God in the real world, using my mind to interact with it. God isn't in my head. He isn't whatever stupid system of beliefs used to keep my emotions pinned down. 

Furthermore, it was into that dirty and blood-soaked world that Christ came. He came during the Pax Romana, which is a polite term for "Rome had killed everyone who could resist". He came to the remnants of utter destruction. People would walk past their neighbors crucified all the time. It was in this dark time euphemistically called "peace" that Christ said "Love your enemies". There were people hanging, choking to death, in public squares as a matter of course. "Love your enemies"  didn't mean "Be nice to those you don't like". It meant looking at atrocity and seeing the humanity of the perpetrator, and to refuse to back down from it. It meant looking something actually horrific in the face, and to go "This disgusting thing you did does not change that you are human, and that on some level if I am loved, so should you be."

That requires horror. And yes, disgust. And yes, that is a beautiful thing to do.

So keep your abstract idols and your sterile sanctuaries. I’ll take the whip, the blood-stained farm, and the God who isn't afraid to get His hands dirty to pull me out of the dirt. The God Who, when seeing me covered in blood and shit, is filled with disgust at what covers me... and pity for the one who is covered.