If He'd've Followed Her Advice, She'd've Been a Jobless Widow...

One of the myriad benefits of marriage is that a second set of eyes is introduced to the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of your mind and behavior, and the owner of those eyes is able to tell you things about yourself you didn't know, and don't believe. You're compelled to believe them, of course, because it's your spouse saying so, whereas if anyone else had told you so, you would've scoffed, sobbed or attempted some violence.

Anyway, one of the things that Courtney has discovered about me that I initially didn't believe, is that I'm a little morbid. According to her, my mind is filled with death and darkness, torture and tragedy, and a keen sense for hopelessness and suffering, even in the small things.

After Courtney noticed, a bunch of other people crowded onto the bandwagon of noticing that my mind is predisposed to darkness. Some of them noticed this because I periodically request prayer at church for conditions that resemble anxiety and depression. I say 'resemble' because they never last quite long enough to qualify, and if diagnosis is a bingo card, I'm always two spaces short.

Anyway, people at church notice, and they're extremely encouraging, and will ask me about all the darkness and disorder in my head, from time to time. And it was in one of those conversations that I had an epiphany.

Reading dark stories, telling dark stories, pondering horrible questions based on dark stories, and the horrifying nature of human history, until I just feel wretched--I have a reason for these behaviors.

It's the same reason that I'm compulsively driven to challenge my fear of heights. Also the same reason that I try to lean into my doubt, and carefully study the best objection I can find to the things I believe most firmly. 

It's because I've discovered that when I run from my doubt, when I scroll quickly past the Facebook links about why the historical Jesus didn't exist, or had fifteen wives, or was a pretender who faced legal action brought by the Hindu deity Krishna for copyright violation, or whatever, or don't pursue the conversation when my atheist friends deride people of faith, that my doubt becomes a looming darkness that consumes my mind. My fear is bigger, badder, and harder to answer than my questions, but I don't want to run from it. I don't want to run from it, because I believe that on the far side of my questions, I'll discover and rediscover something true, over and over, each time I look.

I've also discovered addictive adrenaline in the raw terror I feel in high places, and a glorious sense of satisfaction when I know that I took my dread firmly in hand and subdued it, and crawled out on that beam, or climbed up that rock-face, or dangled my legs off the edge of the cliff for three endless seconds before spasmodically chickening out. But each time I do it, I can dangle my feet longer, and I can breathe easier. On the far side of my fear lies a richer experience of life, and a deep satisfaction with overcoming myself, even in a small way. 

Similarly, I'm drawn to stories of darkness, and to horrible questions about the dark side of human existence, because I believe that if we look straight into the darkness, and don't flinch, we'll see through it. I believe that a light shines in the darkness, and the darkness cannot overcome it. 

And maybe that's naive; certainly life hasn't gone out of its way to make me miserable. I've not yet had any reason to endorse Job's wife's advice on handling adversity ("Curse God and die!"). But I know some people who've gone through things I can't imagine. And those veteran souls seem to think that if you stare straight down past the floorboards of the universe, that underneath all of the chaos and tragedy, at the very root of it all, you'll see something different. And that it makes the rest of it seem a little more worthwhile.

So if it seems like I'm too focused on darkness, or in love with sorrow, I promise it's just because I'm hoping for a glimpse.

A Reaction to the College Football Playoff National Championship Game

Well. That was fun.

I speak, naturally, of Ohio State's wholly unexpected triumph in the national championship of college football. When the roll is taken of those who saw this coming more than three weeks ago, I confess that my name won't appear thereon.

There's something particularly zesty about a sporting triumph that I'm afraid a lot of people are missing, based on my Facebook wall. There's still some SEC-taunting (of which I wholeheartedly approve, don't get me wrong), but it verges on sounding just as obnoxious and ignorant as was all of the chest-pounding from the Southeast, as though one national championship, and a great story make for a dynasty. Also, I've noticed people snarkily taking shots at it (the whole "sportsing sportsers!" angle), and the "This doesn't matter. There are more important things in life." followed at last by attempts (few, and far between, thank heavens) to compare the post-game revelry in Columbus to Ferguson.

Since my readership isn't super high on this blog, it strikes me that posting here is a way to say the following quietly:

1) College football is cyclical. The only problem I've had with the SEC is the patently mindless belief that they've always been better and will always be better, and are better by birthright. Enjoy it for what it is, but don't let it write your biography. Nick Saban will be back, Mark Helfrich will be back. At some point, we'll lose to them, again. And then, at some point, we'll beat them again, too.

2) Not that many people seem to require a reminder that there are things in the world more significant than football and football championships. Probably, most of us spend more time worrying and thinking about money, grades, time and relationships, much less economies, ecosystems, terrorism and epidemics than we do celebrating or stressing about football. A joyless salvation ain't.

3) Those who scoff at sports on social media seem to me to by their very scoffing sacrifice any right they have to be irritated when sports fans mock their correspondingly not-that-important interests and hobbies. Those who don't have hobbies, interests, or things that they get all wrapped up in that aren't massively important should note point 2, above.

4) Bizarre as it is to me that people riot to celebrate victories, last night wasn't actually that wild in Columbus, nor particularly unusual for a large American city following a major sporting event. No one got hurt, there was no serious damage, and fewer than ten arrests. Attempts to derive trenchant political commentary by comparing the two seem like they have about the same amount of a point as dragging a couch into the street and setting it on fire. Funny, in a way, but not helpful.

My own take: how awesome was that? A third-string quarterback and a close-knit team overcoming adversity (and not adversity of the Jameis Winston self-created variety) and the betting line to win the first championship of the new era of college football, and in the process knocking down the king gorilla of the jungle's loudest chest-pounding posse? Two games that were as agonizing to watch as they are fun to remember? The glorious feeling of somehow being identified with having won something, and triumphed over all comers? Fleeting as it is, it's pretty exhilarating, and it makes me appreciate having been created as the kind of being who can watch other people play a game a thousand miles away, and still come out of grinning ear to ear for the next month based on the result.