Tenderness Trumps Beauty!

The weekend before last, after the Superbowl loss Tom Brady the quarterback of the losing Patriots was disappointed. To be a quarterback and lose a game is like being the surgeon who loses a patient in the operation. Of course there would be the nurses, the anesthetist etc... who are responsible for success, but when it is a failure the responsibility in most cases, falls squarely on the shoulders of the surgeon. Such is the weight the quarterback feels when his team loses. If my analogy doesn't quite fit football, blame it on my lack of understanding of the game. I don't follow sports much. The reason I watched the Superbowl was to just experience the community part of watching the Superbowl.

There was something after the game that perked my interest. The camera focused on Tom Brady's despondent face ans someone said, "Well, he has lost his game, but he is going home to a supermodel wife". Then I was watching some news and there too the anchor made the same comment.

Honestly, I was a little bit pissed off with the characterization. Is that supposed to mean that guys who do not have supermodels wives can't help but be sadder? Or does it mean having a supermodel wife is so great that even if you are total wimp, your faltering ego will find its footing on the beauty of the wife you possess?

Just to make clear, I am not belittling what Tom and his beautiful wife share. I belittle how people perceive and present it to others thus reinforcing a wrong value in marital intimacy. The moment of intimacy that Tom and his wife share is precious, and what makes is precious is not Gisele's beauty but her tenderness and caring nature.

Unfortunately, our culture places a lot of premium on beauty. Both men and women do it, though slightly differently. Men generally want hot wives, that is all they mostly ask for. Women generally just want good husbands who are also, btw, hot and handsome!

The importance of tenderness over beauty is best said in the words of Max De Winter in the movie 'Rebecca'. Max De Winter says, "I was told that what a man needed in a woman was beauty, brains and breeding. But now I realize that is wrong. What a man needs in a woman is sincerity, modesty and the ability to love".

Tenderness triumphs beauty anytime... anyday!

The Nikki Minaj Phenomenon

I enjoy music. But I do not consider myself sophisticated enough to critique it. Yesterday I saw a performance of Nikki Minaj's at the Emmys. Nikki walked on the red carpet dressed as red riding hood with a dude dressed as the Pope and then performed what seemed like a confused parody on the Church. The sole motive of the whole deal seemed to be nothing other than being outrageous for the sake of being outrageous. This has now inspired me to try to critique music and so I'll try to bite something I probably can't quite chew.

I respect Nikki Minaj's achievement in making it to the top. It requires a lot of talent and hard work. She is as old as I, yet her achievement is many thousands times greater than anything I have ever done in my life. But I don't think her music, as I saw in the Grammys, is good music and I think it worth the time pondering why.

I think there are two kinds of music, the ones that bring a tear to the eye and the ones that add a rhythm to the stride. Listening to the Adagio in G minor or some Pink Floyd stuff can move one to tears. On the other hand, the Hungarian Dance or the Black Eye Pea can add a rhythm to one's stride. There is one thing both of them exploit, that is that God has created an intelligent universe in which any sound that adheres to musical norms/laws resonates deeply within human beings. Such music evokes the deepest emotions brining about a psychological contentment. Whether it is Beethovens' 5th or LMFAO's Party Rock, both follow the musical norms that resonate with the part of us that is patently human, as God created us to be.

The goal of musicians through the centuries has been to find newer expressions of the musical norms/laws that deeply resonate with us. So whether it be Beethoven or Black Eye Pea, the goal of music is to conform of the norm/law of music thereby eliciting deeply human responses.

The two apart, there is the third kind of music, where the goal is not to conform to the norms of music but to 'stand out' by non-conformance and make that the point of appeal. There is not a lot of ways this non-conformance can be achieved, because beyond a certain point, 'standing out' just gets too jarring even to the ones with the most jaded of senses. So the goal of this performer is to 'stand out' by manifesting non-conformance non-musically. The easiest way of non-musical non-conformance is through bombastic visuals - popes and priest and exorcisms and gothic cathedrals and speaking in tongues and ancient hymns... as Nikki Minaj did at the Emmys. Sometimes it can just be some 'accidental' wardrobe malfunctions, just saying...

If we look at human history, until the 20th century the goal of living was to conform to the ideal of what it meant to be human. Idealism was the highest goal sought. The question that troubled philosophers and prophets and priests and the peasants was the question of the 'highest good' and how to conform to it. Everyone endeavoured to move towards the norm of what it truly meant to be human - reflecting the image of God in us. But with the advent of modernism and ultra-modernism, 'individual expression' has taken the place of the ideal. So the new goal is not to conform to the norms, but to 'stand out' in every arena, music included.

People will do anything to 'stand out' and people will admire everything that 'stands out' as long as its titillative value is high enough to appeal to the jaded sense that no longer has the patience or the nuance to enjoy the music that adheres to the norms. Nikki Minaj is not the first to ride this way of egregious individual expressionism, she will not be the last.

Nikki Minaj can 'stand out' by do everything from belittling Priests to disparaging Christianity. She is after all, the new Madonna (remember the burning cross). But there is no way she can stand up against God designed timeless norms/laws of what makes music enjoyable to the human ear. As the legendary Cecil De Miller's said before the screening of his timeless classic, 'The Ten Commandments', "man cannot break the law of God, anyone who tries will only find himself breaking against it".

Safe House

Word enthrall me. Safe House is a movie so full of noise, but very few words. So there wasn't much in the movie to captivate me. But hey, I would gladly pay 10 bucks to watch the gritty Denzel Washington anytime. Denzel is one of the few rugged men still left in Hollywood which is increasingly permeated by the pretty kind.

In spite of all the bombastic baloney, a few words caught my attention which is what I want to write about. Towards the end of the movie, when the safe house keeper writes a report to his superior, his superior tells him that some part of his report would be redacted. The naive novice objects, 'But that wouldn't be the Truth as you and I know it'. His seasoned superior replies, 'Sometimes, Truth is messy. We don't want a scandal. Truth will give us sleepless nights.'

The superior did not want to be troubled by the Truth. He just wanted 'personal peace'. Francis Schaeffer  in his book 'How Then Shall We Live' says that the modern man having emerged into the post-Christian era has only two goals in his life, 'affluence' and 'personal peace'. As long as he is not troubled by the plight of people around him, he'll live in his self-contained sub-urban house with a beautiful wife, pretty kids and happily amuse himself to death.

The fact of the matter is, God did not design a world where some people can live in a bubble unperturbed by the plight of the sick and the poor and the persecuted. If people were to ignore the poor and the persecuted, God intervenes and brings the smack down on the elitist culture. In fact this is what happens with Judah. During the time of Isiah, the elitists in Israel (actually Judah) did not care for the poor and the needy and God brought judgement upon them.

Isiah 1
23 They do not bring justice to the fatherless,
   and the widow's cause does not come to them.
 24 Therefore the Lord declares,
   the LORD of hosts,
   the Mighty One of Israel:
“Ah, I will get relief from my enemies
   and avenge myself on my foes.
25 I will turn my hand against you
   and will smelt away your dross as with lye
   and remove all your alloy.

God's people are not supposed to live in cozy cocoons and turn a blind eye to the messy Truth of the fallen world around us. We are to hunger and thirst for righteousness in ourselves and in the world around us. We are to deal with the messy Truth of people dying of hunger, women trafficked from around the world to be made the prey to licentious men, Christians being killed in droves where they are religious minorities, the disintegration of life among the poor pushed to the periphery to make space for our cozy cocoons.

Dealing with these messy Truths will give us sleepless nights. But that is what God wants His people to do. In fact, in Isiah 1 the Lord says that He will not accept their worship unless they take care of those oppressed among them.

15 When you spread out your hands,
   I will hide my eyes from you;
even though you make many prayers,
   I will not listen;
   your hands are full of blood.
16 Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean;
   remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes;
cease to do evil,
 17 learn to do good;
seek justice,
   correct oppression;
bring justice to the fatherless,
   plead the widow's cause.

It is interesting to note that God did not reject Israel (actually Judah) because it did not worship Him. Judah worshiped the Lord, but they did it just to placate their need for 'personal peace'. God wasn't to be fooled. Christians today can sometimes think that because we are able to have great weekly worship services that they are good Christians. Alas, we may just be turn-a-blind-eye-to-messy-Truths elitist Christians and not even know it. The Church is not to be the safe house away from the world. We are to make the world a safe house of God for the poor and oppressed who need a safe house.

Positivist Christian vs the Real One

I was reading Jim Collins book 'From Good to Great'. He coins a phrase called 'Stockdale Paradox' which I think is a great analogy to explain Christian hope. The story is about an American Colnel Stockdale who was tortured as POW in Vietnam. He was one of the very few who made it through the brutal POW life. Below is the narrative of the meeting between Jim and Stockdale.

When Jim asked Stockdale what gave him the strength to make it through, Stockdale replied...
"I never lost faith in the end of the story, I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade."

When Collins asked who didn't make it out of Vietnam, Stockdale replied:
"Oh, that's easy, the optimists."

Collins was confused. He thought Stockdale's statment about not losing faith make him sound like an optimist. Collins questions him on how optimists were different from him.

Stockdale replied...
"Oh, they were the ones who said, 'We're going to be out by Christmas.' And Christmas would come, and Christmas would go. Then they'd say, 'We're going to be out by Easter.' And Easter would come, and Easter would go. And then Thanksgiving, and then it would be Christmas again. And they died of a broken heart."

The POWs had two types of faith. One prevailed, the other did not.
1. One faith believed that circumstances would change. When that did not happen, the faith died along with that the person too.
2. The other faith believed that no matter what the circumstance, the self was powerful enough to make it through. The self remained powerful enough to make it through.

Among Christians too we have two kinds of people. The optimists believe that life will provide for them what they want at just the right time as long as they have the positive attitude and work hard enough. They expect they'll be married when they are 25, have a beautiful suburban house when they are 27, kids when they are 30, a great executive position when they are 40, become a Church Elder when you are 45, a director when you are 50 (if not a CEO) and have grand kids by 60. For whatever reason when that does not happen, they'll begin to grumble, they'll be angry at God, go in to a bout of self-pity or even depression or worse end up in mid-life crisis induced addictions from alcohol to drugs to illicit sex.

Then there are the Stockdale believers who don't quite expect that everything in life will turn out the way they expect it to. But no matter what happens, they TRUST God would work it all out for good (Rom 8:29). The basis Christian believer's faith has a better foundation than Stockdale's. Where Stockdale has faith in his self, the Christian's faith is based on the finished work of Jesus Christ. The Christian does not just say he'll make it through because he has a strong will. The Christian says he'll make it through because Christ has already secured a place for the Christian in Eternity.

Stockdale then added:
"This is a very important lesson. You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end—which you can never afford to lose—with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever they might be."

This an important point we need to remember. We should not try to deny or trivialize the brutal realities of life. Instead, we should acknowledge that life is tough and that we live in a fallen world. We need to remember that NOTHING in this world can separate us from Christ.

Romans 8:35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? 36 As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.” 37 No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

 The positivist Christian who expects external realities to turn for the good will be disappointed, because in a long enough timeline we will all die. On the other hand, the real Christian is more than a conqueror, not because he has a better attitude or luck or marriage or achievement or pleasure, but because even if life deals its worst cards, the Christian will not be separated from our Lord who has secured for us a place in Eternity by dying on the Cross for us.