Open Minds

Leo Tolstoy got married  when he was 36, but by the time he was 50 he ran into a spiritual midlife crisis that would place great strains on his marriage. While Tolstoy and his wife shared a common religion, they did not share a common faith. The differences between them placed enormous strains on their marriage up until his death. The fact is that spiritual unity can bring people together, but it is a tenuous thing. Having a common religion is no assurance of spiritual unity. This realization was key for me, because I have realized that if you cannot find unity among fellow Christians, is it really something that should be looked for as a qualification in marriage? Blessed is the couple that has this, but is it required? People will bring up the scripture about being unequally yolked with unbelievers, but what about being unequally yolked WITH believers.

Do not be yoked with unbelievers. For what do righteousness and wickedness have in common? Or what fellowship can light have with darkness? What harmony is there between Christ and Belial? What does a believer have in common with an unbeliever? What agreement is there between the temple of God and idols? For we are the temple of the living God. As God has said: “I will live with them and walk among them, and I will be their God and they will be my people.” “Therefore come out from them and be separate, says the Lord. Touch no unclean thing, and I will receive you. I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the LORD Almighty.” Since we have these promises, dear friends, let us purify ourselves from everything that contaminates body and spirit, perfecting holiness out of reverence for God.

2 Corinthians 6:14 - 7:1

The assumption here is that the ’stuff’ in Christian was different than the ’stuff’ in others. That might have been true when Paul wrote this, but I find that this assumption no longer holds among the so-called Christians that you find in the church today. The Christian church today has boiled down to a social group. This group is dotted with people who are more sincere than others, but as a group I can’t see anything really different between a group of Christians and a random group you pull off the street. Sure, they will talk differently and hold different world views. World views and opinions, and manner of speech  says nothing about the manner of ’stuff’ that is within you. Holding a Christian world view or not swearing does not mean that you have a greater heart of love than another who swears a bunch, and things we evolved from monkeys.

Formerly, I would consider dating anyone who was not a Christian on the basis of the previous scripture. I was mistaken with this and for a long time I excluded one who was really very well equally yoked with me. I discovered my error much too late.

Everything I’ve written here is far, far outside the realm of accepted doctrine. Were I to tape this on the front door of my church I would no doubt have people lined up to tell me the error of my ways. So strangely, why I would prefer a wife who shares the Christian faith, I will probably not find one. Christian doctrine says that a husband should toe the line on certain doctrines, and your typical Christian girl expects her husband to instruct her on the proper doctrines and be a spiritual leader. My refusal to blindly toe the line is a very significant problem for me.

This blog was started on the study of Tolstoy’s Confessions, and so I shall tie it in and bring it home.

While listening to the church services I paused at each word and whenever I could I gave it meaning. In the liturgy, the most significant words were: ‘Love one another in unity.’ But further on I ignored the words ‘We believe in the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,’ because I could not understand them.

I fully agree with Tolstoy as to the most significant words. Loving one another in unity. The key word is unity, and so I decided to look it up to fully define its meaning. One meaning is the absence of diversity; unvaried or uniform character. Loving one another in the absence of diversity is absurd if you mean  that you only love people who are the same as you. Not so absurd if you mean that you love everyone equally regardless of their similarity to you. Another definition is : whole or totality as combining all its parts into one. It is said that God is the embodiment of love. If this means to love one another as if you were love in flesh, then I think that is just really cool. Or perhaps it means to love all parts of people. This seems to be common sense, but clearly a marriage should be based on this sort of love. No longer am I going to break out some checklist of theological beliefs as some sort of eligibility criteria.

I will no doubt spend my life trying to live out this one simple statement, yet my refusal to toe the line on something really irrelevant like believing the doctrine of the trinity is a real problem even if I think it’s absurd. Without intending to, I have just expounded on the reason I keep telling my parents to not expect the family line to continue through me.

I was reading one of my daily financial blogs and I read this quote. It’s been over a year since I read War and Peace, but the style of writing and logic was unmistakably Tolstoy. I recognized the author even before looking for the source at the bottom.

“With the enemy’s approach to Moscow, the Moscovites’ view of their situation did not grow more serious but on the contrary became even more frivolous, as always happens with people who see a great danger approaching.

At the approach of danger there are always two voices that speak with equal power in the human soul: one very reasonably tells a man to consider the nature of the danger and the means of escaping it; the other, still more reasonably, says that it is too depressing and painful to think of the danger, since it is not in man’s power to foresee everything and avert the general course of events, and it is therefore better to disregard what is painful till it comes, and to think about what is pleasant.”

Leo Tolstoy, War & Peace

This was written on a financial blog, so the implication was that there is a great financial danger approaching, and people are acting frivolously. I think he is right. I think that it’s the job of our leaders to listen to the first voice, while it’s perfectly reasonable for the average citizen to listen to the second. Instead, too many of our leaders are falling prey to the latter, and the ones hearing the former are too few in number and influence, and are shouted down by the latter.

I cannot recall those years with horror, loathing, and heartache. I killed people in war, summoned others to duels in order to kill them, gambled at cards; I devoured the fruits of the peasants labor and punished them; I fornicated and practiced deceit. Lying, thieving, and promiscuity of all kinds, drunkenness, violence, murder … there was not a crime I did not commit, and yet I was praised for it all and my contemporaries considered, and still consider me, a relatively moral man.

For 10 years I lived in this fashion. During this time I began to write out of vanity, self interest, and pride. In my writing I did the same as I did in life. In order to achieve the fame and fortune for which I wrote I had to conceal what was good in myself and display what was bad. And this is what I did.  Time and again I would contrive in my writings to conceal under the guise of indifference, or even of lightheartedness, those strivings for goodness which lent meaning to my life. And I succeeded and was praised.

When was the last time you really saw an example of a good or moral person in mass media? Is this because good people make others feel guilty, and guilty viewers change the channel?