Triumphant Return?

Part of me feels that I should join the ranks of those writers putting forth Christmas pieces. Part of me feels that I should talk about the wonders of the season, the joys of this time of year, and yes, even the pleasure of receiving presents. Part of me feels that I should give in on this.

Fortunately, only part of me feels this way.

On the news front, I passed all of my classes. The scarcity of posts this month is due to finals, which were every bit as tough as advertised. All were passed, though, so on to the next quarter. Now that they are done, posts should pick up again.

I have gone back to my old high school over my vacation and visited an old teacher who has different political feelings than I do, and as always we started talking about history and the economy and politics. After one particularly enjoyable conversation he pointed out that he always thought I was more convincing and believable than many, that I did a good job reconciling opinions from different sides of an issue. Mainly what I think he was noticing is my ability (most of the time, at least) to treat respectfully an opinion that I do not hold and in fact with which I vehemently disagree.

After thinking about why I can do that, especially given the fact that many of his political views are so different from mine that in the abstract I have no respect for them, I have reached the only conclusion possible: that the way to respectfully disagree with another person’s point of view is to disagree with someone but to respect the person. On a similar vein, Chesterton talked of the importance of dividing our reaction to sin from our reaction to a sinner, that one revelation of the new testament was that the sinner we were to forgive “unto seventy times seven” but that the sin we should never forgive. This idea carries over, I suppose, into how to treat those with whom we disagree: we can violently disagree with the idea all we want, but should endeavor not to violently disagree with the person holding it.

All of my thought on this, though, comes back to my ongoing effort to understand the proper way to approach relationships with other people, from the general (fellow person, citizen, member of a city/school, etc.) to the specific (friend, family, etc.). Though every such effort comes with a hope for the one golden revelation that will go down in history, I am learning not to expect such an idea. One such idea already exists, what many refer to as the Golden Rule (and no, Aladdin fans, it isn’t “He who has the gold makes the rules”). But that deals with how to treat other people whereas I want concepts for how to view my relationships with other people.

The closest I have gotten so far is a variation on another piece of biblical wisdom (that book stole every good idea I have ever had), this time the one about removing the plank from one’s own eye before removing the speck of dirt from another’s. The basic thought is that before I can approach friends, family, even new people, with a proper attitude, I must have my own house, my own life, in order. A large part of that for me is knowing that I am on the right path to my own future. For the first time in a while, this isn’t a problem, and already I have seen changes in myself.

Another visit since being home was to an old professor. I mentioned my theory about how everyone has a central theme or concept that underscores everything they do: for one of my sisters, that theme is justice. He seemed intrigued by this and started thinking about what his would be. As I informed him that I thought his theme was the simplest and most powerful of ideas, “Life is fun,” he was in the process of saying “I think mine would be that if it isn’t fun then it isn’t worth doing.” This has been another cause of change in my life.

The right approach to the world and to life is not indifference or tolerance or misery, it is joy. The saddest things I have ever experienced should still have been countered by the fact that I get to experience this wondrous thing, existence. Chesterton talked of this being the right view of the world, but another story shows it as well. Fulghum (another oft-quoted author I like) tells a story in one of his books about a man who ends up with the king’s horse and gets sentenced to death, but manages to stay the execution for a year by promising to teach the horse how to talk. When confronted by friends as to why he would promise this, the man says, (paraphrased quote, too lazy to find the book) “I have a year to sort it out. A lot can happen in a year. The king may die, I may die, the king may forgive or forget, we could move, or any of a number of other things. But maybe, just maybe, the horse will talk.”

I love the story for the optimism about the future but moreso for the unstated preference for being alive to being dead. Any person with that attitude toward life and the future must have the appropriate joy for life in his heart. And with this attitude, life is no longer scary. An introvert like myself can engage strangers at a bar in conversation, and each time I have done so I like to think I impressed them but I know they impressed upon me more strongly lessons about how to live and enjoy life. And this word, enjoy, perfectly sums up the proper approach to life: life itself should engender joy in all who have it.