Not Worked Up

What did you expect?

Just a reminder here: Our virtual parish belongs to a branch of religion broadly referred to as Christian Mysticism. Our brand comes with certain assumptions. When your moral orientation starts with the assumption that mankind is fallen, and you live in a world that denies it, there should be no surprise that you shift away from common expectations. Have you noticed how folks get emotionally engaged in stuff that no one can fix?

Seriously, folks — stop and consider the logic of our Christian Mysticism. Yes, mysticism does have a logic. It’s a different logic, but that’s no reason to say it isn’t logic at all just because it starts with wholly different assumptions. You should learn to distinguish between “different” and “wrong.” In the logic of Christian Mysticism we don’t go out of our way projecting an expectation of bad things from everyone so as to provoke those bad things. We know that most folks will tend to do okay most of the time, but we always keep in mind that we don’t expect very much because we know our own sins.

So we don’t foul the atmosphere any more than we can avoid, but we do prepare for the worst. Part of that is a fundamental assumption that any given system will fail. While systems rarely implode completely before our eyes, we will see the failure of systems repeatedly crunching up against human reality. When the people who devise these systems work from a false sense of reality, we know it’s going to come apart. We also know that somewhere up the chain of command that someone truly believes in the system and blames individuals for failing to live up to some imaginary potential. When someone says in all seriousness that they can’t get good help, it’s because their expectations are wholly unrealistic.

We aren’t aimless, but Christian Mystics also don’t struggle to accomplish things most people would notice. We aren’t entangled in the outcomes appointed by human reasoning. We do what we can, but not because we believe in the ostensible goals. There is a far higher motive of embracing the moral character of God, and it’s not the same as the moral character of any particular socially identifiable group in the world around us. They share some of our moral applications, but virtually nobody shares our moral assumptions.

So we handle notions of instrumentality in a totally different way. For us, reality itself is an instrument for something else. We can grasp the instrumentality others see, and even deduce when they lie about it, including when they deceive themselves. We remember what Jesus said about Solomon in all his regal glory unable to match the simple beauty in God’s creation, and that we might sow and reap, but remain deeply attached to the freewheeling spirit of the birds God feeds (Matthew 6:25-34). He didn’t say neglect human concerns, but to trust the Father and put things in a moral perspective that isn’t tied to material considerations. We reject lazy selfish indulgence and fearful materialistic thrift as two sides of the same lie.

We don’t care about what other people care about. And in a certain sense, we could care less that they do so care. But in another sense, we grieve over the “hardness of their hearts.” Actually, that’s a bad translation from a foreign idiom; we should read that as “hardened against their own hearts.” It means refusing to let your moral discernment guide you, and relying on materialistic human logic instead. It implies a complete lack of awareness of the heart-mind.

So we don’t have to debate with Cultural Marxists, but we do need to spend some time learning to recognize false consensus. We need to develop a talent for expressing a complete lack of interest in what drives them. Don’t engage them on their level because their whole strategy depends on dragging you onto their preferred battlefield. They are swine unworthy of your pearls of divine wisdom. So long as they root like pigs in the mud, kick them aside. Rude and blunt rejection tends to work well, while refusing to answer any questions that don’t serve your higher purpose. Like a patient adult waiting for a ranting child to calm down, we calmly stare until they say something we want to discuss. You do it all without the slightest hint of feeling, though I find a slight expression of amusement works well. They make themselves unworthy of taking seriously.

That does mean you’ll have to prepare for all the nasty human consequences of pissing them off, but that was the whole point in the first place. Ignore them when you can, but be ready to stand for God’s truth at whatever cost. Don’t invest yourself into some fictional deep concern for things they control. God will take care of the consequences long term. Recall the third pillar of Christian Mysticism: disentanglement.

We build our expectations on God’s promises.