Dichotomy

Last time I was at my parents, I spent some time picking through my old closet that is currently housing anything from wedding items to soft air guns I bought on a whim in college. While musing on some of the oddities, I happened across a painting I had made in my high school art class. It was really quite disturbing. Staring back at me was an attempt at a self-portrait. I guess I had thought myself quite the symbolist. I had drawn “me” divided into two halves—one side evil, with fire in the eye and all, and one side good, complete with kitschy scripture quoting. Bear in mind that at this time I was beginning my spiritual journey and early Christian walk; however, even then I had come to feel tension in the paradox of “Christian” living. While I no longer believe I can express that sentiment in water color, the reality is, I still feel that tension now in my life.

A desire to meet some need in my life and behavior that does not get me there—those pressures metaphorically pull me apart. Paul writes with authority on this polarity. “I do what I don’t want to do” Isn’t this just silly? Why am I such a fool? On thinking on it, it is an attempt to gain some measure of control. I desire and need intimacy, but in a lame attempt to secure it, I try and control my relationships. Control is the opposite of relational intimacy. At the heart of it must come trust and resignation to allow the other into our lives. In my relationship with God, this tension plays out like a tragedy. I have drunk the proverbial poison of my own attempts of “grace” and caused the very separation I was trying to avoid. It is the most devastating use of irony that we employ in our life’s narrative. Taking my own road, I quickly find myself lost. Instead of marital intimacy, I find mistrust; instead of supportive community, I find social isolation; instead of service in love, I find I am trying to be served through manipulation; instead of righteous living, I find myself defending sin by claiming entitlement to ‘happiness.’ What a crock!

As a counselor, my job is to promote my client’s welfare by ‘reality testing’ and promoting ‘rational living’; but the reality is that rationality only gets you part of the way down the right road. Resignation gets you all the way there. I do not mean to promote resignation by way of apathy, but rather, I am promoting a letting go of control. Ultimately, at heart, there is where our roads to contentment diverge to no real satisfactory end. I’m still being torn apart, but I hope to learn the lesson that when I forge my own path all I get is a tacky painting.