Identity and Freedom

There are several modern axioms that sound lovely and praiseworthy, but have death hiding beneath their shiny skin.

An easy one would be “Follow your heart”

Another might be “What’s true for me…”

And perhaps one more subtle and more dangerous, “I have the to right to…”

But there is a particular set of phrases—a miniature lexicon of what matters to the modern (particularly western) individual—that fall into this category that are especially deceptive. They all revolve around identity.

For instance: “This is just who I am.”

Or: “Just let me be me.”

“I can’t change who I am. Deal with it.”

The contexts in which the above phrases are used are, by nature, defensive. We use such phrases when we feel that our very sense of self is being attacked. It makes sense that we would respond with that seemingly freeing statement, “this is just who I am” when we feel that something about the core of who we are is being maligned or belittled. It’s our identity.

To state the obvious, identity is fundamental. It is essentially the atomic structure off of which our whole functioning self is built. It dictates our “properties”; our behaviors, our capacities, our reactions.

It is no small wonder, then, that we are obsessed with defining our own identities these days. Personality tests. Political affiliations. Social groups. Apparently it is very gratifying to constantly tell ourselves and constantly be told who we are, whether it has to do with our taste in food, our modes of expression, or our emotional processes. We seem to thrive on constant identity analysis and affirmation.

Almost as if that very thing that is supposedly “ours” without question, is very much in question.

Why is that so?

There are, I think, several ways of approaching that question and I’m not going to deal deeply with all of them. Some of the explanations will seem obvious at once: people feel lost and disconnected. Families are increasingly patchwork affairs. Tribes are not a traditional feature of western society, except in a metaphorical sense. Nations alternately disappoint and globalize.

Suddenly these sundry and formerly peripheral social identities begin not only to have an outsized importance, but to lay all claims on us. The claims of family—loyalty, partiality—the claims of tribe and nation—sigil, service, self-declaration. One fights tooth and nail in defense of the symbols and rituals associated with that identity. We progress from identity patriotism to identity jingoism. One takes pride in the ‘local dialect’ of their particular identity, to the point of imposing it on others. Then we have reached identity imperialism, as it were.

There is no surety in this. There is no rest. There is no home. All these identities—whether wisely or unwisely cherished, whether our job, our nationality, our political affiliation, our philosophical bent, our activist or special interest group—they are not strong enough or good enough. Influential as it may sometimes be, my skin color is not ultimate. My desires and affections are not sacrosanct.

There is no bedrock here. In such things, we are fighting for an island paradise which, as it turns out, is only a sandbar. We will find ourselves trapped on it and, with it, we will be submerged. Perhaps we felt that we were willing to die for it, but in reality we may well die from it. And not the holy kind of death.

I am reminded of a scene in the book Perelandra where the antagonist, Weston, becomes possessed. The identity he thought he was claiming, claimed him, until he himself was swallowed down (not up), used by that diabolical entity as a mere tool, his intellect and body cast aside like a horse ridden ruthlessly into the ground by a rider who cares for nothing and for no one.

These piecemeal social identities at which we throw ourselves, far from making us whole, rive us down to far less than the sum of our parts.

The Sandbar

Any foundation but God—be it race, nation, activism, sexuality, political party, profession—will eventually crumble. They are only sand, and they wash away. We’ve been told this by Jesus Himself.

Of course it is easy to see that this is true when the thing in which we have placed our identity is false, or wrong, or shallow, or destructive. But this applies even to those things which seem inherently good.

One day a mother wakes up and her children no longer need her or, in a tragic case, do not want her. Who is she now? What happened to all those years of sacrifice?

One day a noble social movement has no place for you anymore. Where, then, did you place your soul?

One day you are no longer making the kind art that matters like you used to. Do you still matter?

These things may be good—even very good—but they too may fall away, and it is vital that there be something left when they do.

If we set our hearts on these non-God identities, even the best and truest of them will begin to turn, and inch by inch, they will force us to give up God in order that they may maintain primacy and relevance, or in order for us to feel satiated by them (even for a moment), or in order for us to remain part of the “group” that we held dear unto the point of worship. This is how we know we have not found our real identity in God; our social identity has eaten us up, corroded our morals, blurred our vision. Ultimately even truth will be thrown overboard so as to save a ship that is nevertheless going to sink.

Back to the Beginning

Again we come down to those ancient, perplexing words: "Whoever seeks to preserve his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life will keep it."

The more we live in perpetual fear of losing our social (or professional or political or philosophical) identities, the less abundance of life we have. We live in incessant reactiveness against any actual or theoretical slight upon that identity, guarding it with increasing viciousness, and decreasing rationality.

Paradoxically, in relinquishing our whole self--absolutely every last drop of our identity--to God, we are given it back enriched and reconciled. That which we cling to, we will lose, along with everything else; that which we give to God we will receive back "pressed down, shaken together, and running over." It may not look like what we wanted, or what we thought, and there is certainly a dying in it--a crossing of the cold, dark river of submission--but it will be the truth. And it will be whole. And nothing anyone says or does, not even the laws of the land, can take it away.

All those threads of our identity that are really true will be sanctified so that they do not--cannot--take precedence over God. All that which was false, confusion, sin, and wound...these will be washed away. Indeed, your identity once submitted will be salted. The true savor will be awakened.

It amazes me how long and far we'll go to defend and preserve our brokenness under the guise of "this is who I am." Just like sometimes the distinctive way someone walks is due to a muscle strain, an ache, or an injury, sometimes that which we think is our identity is just the way we've learned to walk to compensate for a grievous wound. To take pride in it and plant our flag in it is a deadly folly.

I am reminded of a scene in the recent film Moana. Admittedly, I wasn't really impressed with that movie the first time I watched it. I thought it was merely 'okay.' I was in and out of the room taking care of my newborn son when we saw it and, as it turns out, I missed a crucial scene. It was the scene where the people of the past are voyaging across the sea, singing "we know who we are."

Now this is a Disney rendering of a people's real history, but in this particular version the reason the people 'forgot' who they were was because they feared losing what they had. They clung to their island (identity) thereby losing themselves, day by day, abandoning a very great calling in the process.

Later those words "we know who we are" come back in a different form. Moana sees the raging, burning, angry monster Te Ka; the fiery monster is defending her territory with a violent ferocity. She is defending it...and it's not even there anymore. The rage and defensiveness has kept the truth of her identity far, far away. It isn't until Moana sings the words "This is not who you are. You know who you are," that the rage begins to ebb. The echo of truth. A real identity, not this one of violent fire and hardening shell.

And in order for Te Ka to get her true identity back, she has first to let the fire go out. She has to yield. To die.

A hard and terrifying thing. But then...

The hard shell breaks open. There is new life, and life abundant, overflowing to everything around it.

Now I am not saying that the above scene is a unassailable metaphor for what I am trying to communicate, but there is in there—as in all good stories—a rich taste of truth.

Freedom

We cannot be salt and light if we hoard ourselves, nurturing those sundry, shallow ‘identities’ about which the world so obsesses. We categorize and define ourselves to death, scribbling incessantly in our internal margins about introversion or extroversion, privilege or marginalization, activism or patriotism or any other ism you can think of so that we can “have” ourselves the way we want ourselves, so that we can scream that others acknowledge our definitions of ourselves. And it will be the worst pyrrhic victory imaginable for, “the one principle of hell is—‘I am my own’” (George MacDonald)

So the questions becomes: which is really freedom?

“Well that’s just who I am. This is me. Get over it. ‘I am my own.’”

or is it “I don’t have to be ‘me’ anymore. I am bound by none of this. I am free to give it ALL to Him.”

It is the person who is not afraid to lose anything who can walk sure and confident, who is without fear; we cannot lose what we have already freely given. We can dive, headfirst, into the refiner’s fire, into the salting.

How generous, then, and how humble we will be able to be with ourselves. How wholly unconcerned.

Collisions in the Fast-lane: Twitter and it's Kin

I will be the first to admit that twitter is a fascinating and useful platform, but few will argue that it can bring out the worst in people. It is not, however, simply the shield of the internet, or even our ever-growing echo chambers that are the chief source of the problem. One frustration many have is that there is no coherent harassment-prevention policy and a lot of people get heckled, or bombarded with rude and crude tweets. I am mostly a casual observer and have no twitter following to speak of, so that is not something I’ve personally experienced. You should know that I’m on the outskirts of this here town and don’t really know anyone important enough to get yelled at on twitter.

Let me give a quick caveat to my concerns, then I’m going to explain the problems with, not twitter itself, precisely, but what it cultivates in us.

When I first heard of twitter, I didn’t remotely understand its purpose. I heard people praising it in connection to the protests in Iran circa 2011, so I assumed it was some sort of news outlet, rather than—essentially—a string of abrupt personal status updates. It took me years to grasp the concept, and I only dipped a toe into the platform in 2014 so as to better follow the vagaries of the publishing industry.

Now, I have seen people say and do positive things on twitter. Not just nice hashtags, but efforts of real value. I have seen people support someone who is discouraged or harassed. I have seen people unselfishly advocate the work/art of others. I’ve been linked to many a good article (while ducking and dodging the click-bait). I have seen people talk sweetly and kindly about those they love. I have seen some good comedy and, all too rarely, some wise and compassionate social commentary. So there is that. Let it not be said that I was unfair.

The problem is not with Twitter itself, precisely, but with what it necessarily cultivates in us. The very brilliancy of such a platform is also its villainy; that which makes for great wit and instant updates also makes for terrible consequences in many other areas. There are four main characteristics of Twitter that put us on our worst behavior.

1.      Brevity: The space for a punch-line is the same space given for a complex argument so, for the most part, there are no complex arguments. The platform encourages stereotyping, over-simplifying, broad-sweeping generalizations all in the service of the required brevity. Yes, you can do a tweet-storm, but at that point you are sort of using a loop-hole, and it’s still one sentence at a time, and scanning eyes will skip around to find the thing they want.

2.      Emphasis: The platform also encourages over-emphasis. Since you usually can’t make a many-bulleted, complex, full-scale argument, requiring step-by-step data and logic, but you really, really want to prove your point as succinctly as possible, most people just use extreme language. Hyperbole is used instead of reason—since there’s no room for it—and then, over time and frequency of usage, it eclipses reason. Reason is no longer invited to the table. We come to believe the extreme language we employed for mere expediency, and so do others. What was once recognized as hyperbole for the sake of emphasis, simply becomes “the truth” and fie upon all those who dare question it. We begin to believe our own lies.

Not only do we exaggerate to emphasize, but we begin to crave that everyone match the extreme nature of our language. It becomes a Cold War of hyperbole-turned-“reality.” The stronger you feel, the more extreme language you want to use, which pressures others to do the same, lest they fall behind. It’s a lot like when one sends e-mails…you start by using one exclamation point, so they they use two (so you won’t think they’re under-enthusiastic) and by the end of it, the whole text is riddled with meaningless punctuation. Eventually the truth—the proper temperature of the given sentiment—is lost entirely. Everything boils over and kills whatever value was present to begin with.

3.      Immediacy: A platform like twitter is designed for instant feedback. Something happens, you tweet it right then—whether it’s newsworthy, funny, infuriating, or false. This leads to two big problems. In the moment of reaction, emotions are at their highest peak, reason often at its lowest. You know this if you’ve ever gotten in a knock-down, drag-out argument with someone you love, where they’ve really gotten under your skin. You get so hot and angry, you start exaggerating, making outrageous accusations that don’t line up with reality, and using “always” and “never” where you really mean “sometimes.” (“You NEVER listen to me. You ALWAYS get what you want!”)

That’s one thing in a personal relationship, where you can mend it, and move on. But the nature of the public platform makes it that much harder for anyone to apologize and acknowledge their untruths. The height of anger, rage, meanness, hurt, confusion and frustration are all on display because the platform encourages it. Yes, it is possible to be disciplined just as it is possible not to drink too much at an open bar, or not to watch too much Netflix when the next show only gives you 17 seconds to stop it before you’re hooked on the next one. But when you’re angry and the option to spill your anger is right there at your fingertips, and you might get a lot of back-patting feedback to boot? Well, the temptation is strong, and only grows stronger each time we blast our in-the-moment emotions onto the internet. We get to the point where we can’t not do it.

The second thing that happens is that bad information is circulated just as swiftly as good information…nay, faster. “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth gets its boots on.” Incendiary, angry, snarky stuff—whether true or not—will get around a LOT faster than a calm, measured truth. Falsehoods, false equivalence, and funny lies get traction, so we’re tempted not to scrutinize the things that we already want to agree with.

4.      Public Space and Publicity: None of this is being done in the privacy of your mind or your home. It is ALL on display. The good, the bad, the ugly. Even if any given sentiment expressed is genuine—you’re supporting a cause you 100% believe in, boosting a signal that you 100% support, or encouraging someone that you honestly admire and want to help—there is often still some part of you that is doing it for the feedback: the thanks, the favorites, the accolades, or even just the general atmospheric impression you give of “being a good person.”

Being a good person on twitter consists in garnering favorites, retweets, links, and adulatory comments. You don’t have to go very far out of your way to prove that you’re on the “right” side of an argument, or that you’re angry about the same thing everyone else is angry about. The platform provides tremendously easy access to a pleasing (and passing) sensation of goodness. Of course giving an impression or getting feedback are things we all desire for almost anything we produce: writing an article, or a book, or making a piece of art.

But once again, the brevity and immediacy are what make the key difference here. When creating some art (a novel, a painting, anything) time and effort and thought wear on the piece of art like water, shaping it slowly over time. You don’t just spit it out in two seconds. You have to wait a long time for feedback, or for it’s intrinsic value in the grand scheme to show itself resilient. You have to do the work without any accolades at first.

Not so with twitter and like platforms. Public interaction in the form of feedback and accolades are immediate, so it tends to shape what we say and do far more than we realize. The distance between creation and subsequent response is reduced almost to nothing. Room for deep thought and careful creation—without thinking about what others will say about it—is essentially lost.

When you write about that good thing you did, are you doing it because you’re trying to encourage others to do the same, or because you want everyone to know you did something. Probably a bit of both? Even if it’s the former, you’re doing it to prove you have the right to encourage others to act…and eventually, it’s more and more of the latter, because it feels good to be praised for doing something, rather just doing it and never letting the right hand know what the left is doing.

Thus Twitter becomes an external archive to prove to others that we hold the correct opinions and are doing the correct things in the correct way. It’s almost as if we’re in a perpetual state of building our own public defense. As if…we’re expecting to be brought to trial in a court of public opinion and need to have evidence for our public persona.

I think that says an awful lot about both the way this platform seeps into our thinking, and about where we are as a culture. We all think we’re on stage, waiting to be praised or booed—wanting to know instantly what people think of our thought-of-the-moment. And, if we’re not careful, we’ll become the marionettes who just do and say that which we know will garner praise, likes, retweets…or simply the mere absence of censure.

The Screwtape Letters

I recently discovered these amazing, artistic renderings of sundry Lewis writings (please check them out, O Reader, they are worth your time) and it put me in a mood to re-read Screwtape Letters in particular. It had been quite a while.

For those unacquainted, the book is written as letters from a senior devil to a junior, all of which regard the best ways to tempt a given “patient” (a human) and lead him away from what the devils refer to as “the Enemy,” meaning God.

I forgot how excellent this book is!

I had actually hesitated slightly before re-reading, because I wanted to read it out loud to my husband, and reading in the voice of a devil seemed a little uncomfortable. Of course, Lewis had to write in that voice, mind you. He said it was the easiest book he ever wrote and the least enjoyable, all “dust, grit, thirst, and itch.”

Since my review of Pilgrim’s Regress has turned out to be a helpful post, I decided I could add to the Lewis reviews. If nothing else, this is an exposé on my character, because what I will list here are all the most convicting elements of the Screwtape Letters…all the ways in which I have allowed myself to be fooled, lied to, tricked, and clouded.

1.      Argument style:

This one is best relayed in quotes, as follows. Screwtape is telling Wormwood (the junior devil) to encourage his patient to focus on those little habits or mannerisms of his mother’s which most annoy him so as to damage their relationship by inches and pinpricks.

“Let [the patient] assume that she knows how annoying it is and does it to annoy…And, of course, never let him suspect that he has tones an looks which similarly annoy her.”

Screwtape then advises that the patient be made to speak normal words in a particularly nettling manner, thence to be “surprised” that the nettle finds its mark.

“Once this habit is well established you have the delightful situation of a human saying things with the express purpose of offending and yet having a grievance when offense is taken.”

*Ahem* Reading this passage was like having cold water dumped on my head. Deservedly. I have done this. I have said things in sharp and exasperated tones, then been irritated that anyone should take offense but me. “All I said was such-and-such. How could that possibly hurt your feelings? It certainly wouldn’t hurt mine.”

2.     Approved but inactive virtues:

Along the lines of believing in God—as even the demons do while shuddering—faith without deeds is useless.

“All sorts of virtues painted in the fantasy or approved by the intellect or even, in some measure, loved and admired, will not keep a man from Our Father’s house: indeed they may make him more amusing when he gets here.”

“Here” being hell, remember.

There are so many times where I see a truth but struggle to adhere to it in the clutch. I approve a truth, but do not internalize it. I agree with a truth, but do not apply the discipline necessary to live it. And this is deadly in the most honest sense.

3.     Political Christianity (it doesn’t even matter which side):

When the war (WWII) breaks out Screwtape tells Wormwood that he would do well to try and figure out whether Patriotism or Pacifism would be a better inducement to folly. It’s not to do with which is worse or better, but rather which is better suited to his personality and, therefore, more easily twisted to his endangerment: “All extremes, except extreme devotion to the enemy, are to be encouraged.”

“Let him begin by treating the Patriotism or the Pacifism as part of his religion….Then…come to regard it as the most important part.”

This is something of which we should always be leery: cramming God into a political agenda, even a good one. Now, I have very strong political ideals and leanings. But they must all be measured by a rubric outside of themselves: whatever is not of God must fall off. There is much that is not of God in absolutely every corner of the political field. We must never forget that. We must never fall prey to the belief that ANY earthly faction perfectly represents God’s “interests” or character, for in that moment with have replaced Him with something that is NOT GOD, and it does not matter how good it seems or is. In this case especially, the perceived good is the enemy of the actual great.

AND YET

We must always be “alive to the social implications of [our] religion” even though the intersection of theology and politics is regarded to be an excellent point of spiritual attack.

A tricky situation indeed….a dangerous road that we must nevertheless walk.

4.     Law of Undulation

Simply put, we are rhythmical, amphibian creatures—“half spirit half animal”—and thus we go through peaks and troughs.

Screwtape tells his nephew Wormwood that God appears to use the troughs of spiritual life even more than the peaks…indeed “some of His special favourites have gone through longer and deeper troughs than anyone else.”

A period of spiritual dryness or dullness is neither the loss or end of faith, but the refining of it to great purpose. Remember this. I am telling myself, and anyone else who will listen.

5.      I’ll just leave this quote right here: “An ever increasing craving for an ever diminishing pleasure is the formula. It is more certain; and it’s better style. To get the man’s soul and give him nothing in return…”

6.     In one letter, Screwtape berates Wormwood for having let ‘the patient’ slip back towards the Enemy…and how did this happen? The patient read a book he really liked and took a peaceful walk. Joy, nature, and clear thought become an act of routing the devils’ intentions, or at least taking cover from direct fire. Another thing we would do well to remember.

7.      The combat of daily prayers:

Even Screwtape assumed daily prayers as a given, though of course he regards them as a troublesome barrier to tempting. I forget about this sometimes. Daily prayer. Such a simple, seemingly little thing. But it’s humility, it’s warfare…and it’s necessary.

8.     A Taster of Churches:

Screwtape advises Wormwood “Surely you know that if a man can’t be cured of churchgoing, the next best thing is to send him all over the neighbourhood looking for the church that ‘suits’ him until he becomes a taster or connoisseur of churches.”

This is especially convicting of our broader culture. It often does lead to giving up on church altogether, for all churches have flaws, even drastic ones. She is, after all, made up of humans.

9.     “…zealously guard in his mind the curious assumption ‘My time is my own.’ Let him have the feeling that he starts each day as the lawful possessor of twenty-four hours…the assumption which you want him to go on making is so absurd that, if once it is questioned, even we cannot find a shred of argument in its defense.”

Our time is not our own.

10.   “How valuable time is to us [tempters] may be gauged by the fact that the Enemy [God] allows us so little of it. The majority of the human race dies in infancy; of the survivors, a good many die in youth. It is obvious that to Him human birth is important chiefly as the qualification for human death, and death solely as the gate to that other kind of life. We are allowed to work only on a selected minority of the race, for what humans call a ‘normal life’ is the exception. Apparently he wants some—but only a very few—of the human animals with which He is peopling Heaven to have had the experience of resisting us through an earthly life of sixty or seventy years.”

That’s kind of a thrilling notion, isn’t it? What we experience isn’t just the norm. It’s intense training and preparation.

So I actually had TWENTY-EIGHT bullet points when I started this, but it was getting so long, I decided I’ll save the others for another time. Or perhaps I should just say: read the book, and see what you find.