BlakeAtwood.com

[Adapted and expanded from this post: The Primal Scream]

In the wake of the death of my marriage, I began a search for answers to questions that I knew had no answers, but the desire to know, unequivocally, what had gone so horribly wrong was too great. I had to know the answer to “Why?” More than just “Why did this happen to me?” I had to know “Why does this happen to anyone?” even “Why does this happen to everyone, in some form?” Which, really, boils down to the first question, plus a pointed noun, “Why, God?” Yet even in asking that question, in thinking long enough about it, one might even question the necessity of the comma, the necessity of the God, and simply, honestly, ask “Why God?”

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In watching the first season of Breaking Bad two years ago, I sat transfixed by this small, strange, intoxicating universe of characters and experiences I knew nothing about. Even though they inhabited a vastly different world, their motivations to do some absolutely heinous things seemed all too familiar.

Breaking Bad follows Walter White, high-school chem teacher, cancer patient, and part-time meth manufacturer.

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Allow me to quote a quote of a quote:

“He was a frail, sickly child, afraid of many things. So he stayed inside his house a lot and read books, mainly adventure stories. One day he was reading a novel by the English author Frederick Marryat. In his autobiography, Roosevelt records what happened:

‘In this passage the captain of some small British man-of-war is explaining to the hero how to acquire the quality of fearlessness. He says that at the outset almost every man is frightened when he goes into action, but that the course to follow is for the man to keep such a grip on himself that he can act just as if he was not frightened. After this is kept up long enough, it changes from pretense to reality, and the man does in very fact become fearless by sheer dint of practicing fearlessness when he does not feel it.’”

In context (The Art of War for Writers, to be precise), author J.S. Bell is talking about feigning fearlessness in the face of the daunting tasks of living a writing life, to act as if you are one until you become one. Author Steven Pressfield would call this manning your station, day-in, day-out, so that the Muse will find you hard at work and reward you as such.

And while this is helpful and true and beneficial advice, I read more into it.

The warring parts of my soul (some might even say the Jacob hovering above my right shoulder and the Lockeness Smoke Monster hovering over my left) answer the conundrum of feigning fearlessness differently.

Smokey answers: Your bad habits? The things you despise about yourself? The things you always want to change but you never seem to be able to shake them? You’ve been feigning godliness for a long time. Your pretense is not your reality. I know what’s real. You should just give up.

Jacob answers: I know what’s real. I can see behind the facade of your charades. I know your heart, your will. You have, actually, been feigning godliness for a long time, but that makes you just like all the others. And to see that you still try, despite the short hand you’ve been dealt? That you keep pressing on and pressing in and pressing forward impresses me. Don’t forget that. But don’t let it go to your head either.

And I answer: I used to be afraid, and because I was afraid I became numb. When the world changed and I was shocked back into feeling reality, I barely held on. I almost lost my grip, but I kept feigning fearlessness, and now that fearlessness… it’s almost real.

…as copied from a footnote in Brian McLaren‘s newest book, A New Kind of Christianity. The quote isn’t indicative of the book as a whole, thus it’s inclusion in the footnotes, but it resonated with me, and I thought it appropriate to post:

“Bernard of Clairvaux understood what it means to be a friend to oneself. He spoke of four stages in the spiritual life, beginning with learning to love oneself for one’s own sake. This is the infant, nursing at his mother’s breast, ecstatic in the warmth of being held and filled, but unaware of anyone outside his own skin.

Then comes loving God for one’s own sake. This is the child who learns to appreciate his mother, maybe to draw her a picture or gather her a bouquet of flowers, overflowing with love mixed with gratitude for all she dos for him.

Then comes loving God for God’s own sake. This is the adolescent or young adult who begins to see his mother for who she is, not just for what she does for him, and his love grows even deeper.

One wonders how any love could go deeper than this, but Bernard sees yet another dimension to the journey of life: loving oneself for God’s sake. This is the young man who has made a mess of his life and feels knocked down and beaten up, but then thinks of how much his mother loves him, and her love inspires him to not give up, but to get up and give life another go.”

If you think the post title doesn’t make sense, wait till you see this. I’m not sure if I love it or hate it or both at the same time. The ending is face-meltingly awesome.

HT: TV Squad (“It’s so bad that it’s either making Jesus laugh or God cry in that order.”) and Everything is Terrible (“the greatest Christian Sci-fi story ever told.”)