[gersonian]

"Cognition of God is better attained through a penitent affection than through an inquiring intellect." Jean Gerson

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  • Light/Love

    “The one who loves his brother abides in the Light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him. But the one who hates his brother is in the darkness and walks in the darkness, and does not know where he is going because the darkness blinded his eyes.” -1 John 2:9-10

    “The one who loves his brother.” It is a simple phrase, but it holds more difficulty than scaling Everest. Abiding in the light is not the same as loving your brother or sister, but it is essential if we do want to love our brother or sister.

    John gives us these two verses, which give us a picture of human relationships for the Christian. It is a litmus test to whether we are abiding in the Light or in the Dark. I have to ask myself, “Am I loving those around me?” It is an easy thing to find out if you are brave enough to ask. The danger in asking is twofold. You might get an answer you don’t like or agree with. Or you might get an answer that you do like, and it flatters your sensibilities.

    The Answer You Don’t Like

    The danger in asking is twofold. You might get an answer you don’t like or agree with. Or you might get an answer that you do like, and it flatters your sensibilities. The first danger is in its direct attack on your own pride and self-image. You might think you are a pretty good person. “I take care of my family and provide for them.” But your wife feels uncherished, unloved, and unappreciated. “How dare she? Doesn’t she understand all you have done for her?” Your kids might not listen to your instructions or quite possibly openly rebel against your rules. It is easy to feel justified in those moments to give in to anger, yelling, or maybe worse. “Don’t they know that I am doing all this for their good?”

    Here is the hard truth: it really doesn’t matter what you think. It matters what they think. If your wife feels unloved, then chances are you are not loving her well. If your kids see you as reacting in anger and out of what are quite possibly deeper underlying issues of control or wounds, whether or not they can identify them, they will feel unloved, uncared for.

    Genuine love comes from abiding in the light of Christ and is sacrificial and full of grace and generosity. It could be that your spouse is being unreasonable or emotional or something else, but if your reaction is one of defense or reaction, then there is something there that needs digging out, crucified.

    The Negative Narratives

    For myself, I often find myself dealing with the wound/thoughts of being misunderstood. As a kid growing up with ADHD, impulsivity often got me into trouble when I really had no intention in doing anything wrong. It is widely agreed and quoted that the average kid with ADHD experiences 20,000 more negative corrective messages than a kid without by the age of 12. It shapes every single one of us who deals with it. I can live with the expectation that I am about to be corrected for something I had no idea I was doing wrong. The lie that I have to battle is one that says, “I am screwing up…again” and “I’ll never get it right.”

    Identifying those negative narratives, those lies that the enemy pokes and prods at, is so important. They must be confronted with the truth of Scripture and the love of Christ. Otherwise, I will, we will continue to react out of self-protection rather than the love of Christ.

    Loving the Broken

    Now there is another issue that can arise with this first idea. You can be told you aren’t really loving, but the individual is not capable of receiving genuine love. It is common today for individuals to say that to love them, “you must accept me as I am.” Well, this often means accepting all their sins and flaws and calling them good and right. Another common phrase is, “You do you, keep doing what makes you happy.” This is a worldly and destructive kind of love. It is based not on the love of Christ but on the accommodations or enabling of others. This kind of love is rooted all the way back in the Garden where Eve saw what was good in her own eyes and took the apple. This kind of love is based on our own perception and our own judgment.

    When we look at Scripture, we see two distinct types of wisdom: earthly/human wisdom and spiritual/heavenly wisdom, the wisdom that comes from God. The former comes from man’s desire to formulate their own wisdom and guide for life. It is the sin of the garden. Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and pretty much everyone in the story of Scripture deals with these issues. The author of Genesis is brilliant in using the words of Eve in part or whole again and again to signify to us when someone is replaying the fall.

    Allowing others to live according to this kind of wisdom is not loving. Solomon in Proverbs makes it clear that this type of wisdom will lead to their destruction. To say it in a positive way, they will never become all that God wants them to be if they are allowed to walk in earthly wisdom.

    Flattering Response

    The last danger is that asking others might be a polite or flattering response, or they will be so unfamiliar with genuine love that they cannot identify areas that are shaded with hate. If you are someone in a position of authority, especially spiritual authority, this is of particular danger. It will be all too easy to receive the compliments of others and excuse the criticisms of others as dissension or divisiveness or jealousy.

    Beware the flattering words of others. Turn them over to Christ and lay them at His feet. The good others see should be a sign that God is at work and not that you have arrived.

    The Hard Work of Love

    Do we want to grow in our love for others? Do we want the Light of Christ,¨ to be reflected so clearly from our lives that others see Him? Then, we should embrace the difficult work of polishing and beating out the dents in our finish. It is something that Jesus is kind to help heal and mend if we want Him to.

    Humility is so highly prized, but it is so difficult to obtain because of the pain required. Here is the great result of living a life of abiding love. We will be so full of the Light and Love of Christ that we will not stumble and fall. We will find our paths well lit. Our houses bright with the warmth of love.

    How often do I let darkness creep in, and I find myself stumbling about, grasping for hope or direction wherever I can? Anxiety, fear, uncertainty, pain, loneliness. These are the results of walking in the dark. The results are often outbursts of anger, jealousy, pride, and the list can go on.

    I can recall a time when I was alone at home growing up. It was night, and my parents were out with friends for dinner. We lived a little way into the country, and our house was nestled in the woods a little way back from the road. Looking out the window, it seemed so dark and foreboding. It was as if anything could come out from any direction and get at our house.

    This is what it is like not to be living in the light of day. We have so many artificial lights these days that we have forgotten the oppressiveness and uncertainty of a moonless night without light. But we choose this night, and even more, we choose to stumble around in it, banging shins, scraping arms, stepping in mud and falling into ravines.

    In this darkness, everyone is our enemy. Our pain and suffering are everyone else’s fault. We thrash about in fear, warding off all those who are trying to help. It isn’t until we are like a blind beggar and cry out for Jesus to heal us that we will find that the path was always next to us, and he was offering help all along.

  • The Swift Dogs

    Lo! now your swift dogs, over stone and bush
    After me, (a) straying sheep, loud barking, rush.
    There's Fear, and Shame, and Empty-heart, and Lack,
    And Lost-love, and a thousand at their back!
    I see you not, but know you hound'st them on,
    And I am lost indeed--escape is none,
    See! there they come, down streaming on my track!
                  (September 15, Diary of an Old Soul, George MacDonald)

    A straying sheep is a status that I am fully familiar with, as I would think most of us are. It is a purposeful choice to stray. We might excuse it as a distraction or an accident, and it very well might be a distraction or seeming accident that finds us straying from the flock. We made a decision prior to those events that put us in vulnerable places.

    It is often those choices that lead to other choices which lead to worse choices. I find myself then straying further afield than I ever thought possible. Then comes the sudden awareness at the sound of a bark and the swift sound of them rushing.

    Shame often leads the way for me. A realization of my foolishness settles over me, and years of ADHD impulsivity and lack of focus have fed Shame, making it strong and swift. My first reaction is always, “I’ve screwed up again,” and old wounds, not fully mended, draw the pack right to where I am.

    Fear takes the form of dreaded consequences or rejection of how my straying has affected others. Lack and Empty-heart are twin hounds that attempt to drive me further and further into their mother’s jaws, Self-Pity.

    We all have our own mongrels chasing after us. They remind us of who we were, what could have been, how we have failed, how we have been hurt. It is important to identify these individually. It is when the pack is bunched together and there is no distinction between what hounds us that we become the most overwhelmed of all.

    When MacDonald mentions last Lost-love, it should not be confused as something as trite as a lost romance of a woman. The words of John to the Church of Ephesus that they had “lost their first love,” namely Christ, is where all straying begins. When love of God wains and is not cultivated, the distractions of the World and machinations of the Enemy find footholds to pull us away from flock and Shepherd.

    I rise and run, staggering--double and run.--
    But where to?--where to?--where for escape?
    The sea lies all about this long-necked cape--
    There come the dogs, straight for me everyone--
    Me, live despair, live center of alarms!--
    Ah! between me and all his barking harms,
    The Shepherd, lo!--I run--fall folded in his arms.
             (September 16,)

    The visceral nature of MacDonald’s words here strike me full force and fill my soul with an empathetic response. These words could be my own. The description is my own. Desperation and desire for escape from the hounds that so desperately chase and nip at my heels.

    There might be many times that we find ourselves in situations like this. Sometimes because of our own making, and others, it is because God is wanting to push us out of an area of self-reliance and into his arms. The only way He can do this is to drive us toward Himself. It is a sad state that God is often left no other choice.

    In their book, The Critical Journey, Janet Hagberg and Robert Guelich discuss the journey of faith through six stages. In the fourth stage (the journey inward), they identify the fact that every believer must encounter “The Wall.” This is how they describe it,

    The wall represents our will meeting God’s will face to face. We decide anew whether we are willing to surrender and let God direct our lives. Once we enter this part of stage 4, either through crisis, spiritual boredom, or a deep longing, we can easily become perplexed. Although we deeply desire to give our will over to God, and even believe we are doing so, in truth, we are trying to deal with the Wall in the same way we have gotten through life-on the strength of our own will or gifts. We try everything we can to scale it, circumvent it, burrow under it, leap over it, or simply ignore it. But the Wall remains. 1

    I think of the Wall as distinct though similar to other walls we face in our spiritual life. The key difference is that previous walls were partial. They were often spiritual, psychological, or emotional. The Wall is all of those things tied together and the only way is through it. It requires help as well and not just from God but from others to help us see how to pull it down brick by brick.

    Ultimately, surrendering one’s self into the arms of our Shepherd and Savior in a new and complete way is the result. Some in the past have called this the place of absolute surrender. Truly our lives are full of smaller surrenderings as God peels back the veil and exposes the hurts, the idols, the comforts, the flesh, the lies that we all carry.

    He has been in the business of doing this for all the history of humanity. Whether it is the suffering of the wilderness journey, the exile of Israel, the blindness of Samson, the confrontation of Peter after the resurrection, He confronts the broken areas of our heart and offers healing and safety if we are willing to “fall folded in His arms.”

    There let the dogs yelp, let them growl and leap;
    It is no matter--I will go to sleep.
    Like a spent cloud pass pain and grief and fear,
    Out from behind it unchanged love shines clear.--
    Oh, save me, Christ!--I know not what I am.
    I was Your stupid, self-willed, greedy lamb,
    Would be Your honest and obedient sheep.
         (September 17)

    Sleep is highly underrated by the young. I speak from my own experience. I have been blessed with never struggling to fall asleep, and while this still holds true, I started suffering from Restless Leg Syndrome and sleep apnea in my forties. A good night sleep now is a thing to rejoice. To sleep easily, deeply, without restlessness, nightmares, or fear is something to be grateful for.

    The image stands for us who find ourselves surrendered to the arms of Christ. He can bring a peace and stillness like the air after a storm. The pain and grief and fear are the rain and wind and lightning that leaves a world more at peace. New life begins to grow from the torrent of emotion that spilled over the soil of our soul.

    MacDonald speaks of how his sinfulness brought all this about. I want to point out that pain, grief, and fear are normal things to experience when surrendering.

    Pain, likely, because you have been using something or someone to mask a wound you have never been willing to tend to properly.

    Grief because that idol, that escape, has been a faithful salve to your pain. It is the thing that has seemed so reliable to make it through life, through each day.

    Fear because what will life be like without it. Will God really be enough? Can I really survive? Will I really be happy?

    Let me encourage you in this. Let me encourage myself in this. He is enough. He is trustworthy. Be His honest sheep. Let Him know all that you feel and all that you think. The Psalm of Lament makes up the largest portion of all the Psalms by a significant margin. God is not afraid for your pain, your neediness, your struggle with trusting Him.

    He is the great healer, the good friend, the one in which all things hold together. I encourage you to find that first small step of obedience. I won’t prescribe anything other than for you pray and give ample time to listen to what He might want to say in return.

    1. Hagberg, Janet O. and Robert A. Guelich. The Critical Journey: Stages in the Life of Faith 2nd Edition, page 114. ↩︎

  • First!

    I am dating myself with the title of this first post. My 17 year old has informed me that he had no idea what I was referring to. <sigh> Getting older has its advantages such as wisdom, experience, and perspective, but in our day and age of youth idolization, it can be humbling to find yourself “out of touch” with younger generations and maybe tragically labeled as irrelevant. For some of my fellow Millennials, it is a scary proposition to no longer be “relevant.” We prized ourselves in being “relevant” to such a degree that the magazine Relevant was created during at our birth in 2000.

    Relevancy is a sliding scale and slippery slope. It is a slippery slope because, when defined by being up to date with modern culture (especially modern youth culture), there is the tendency to gild our actions with whatever might be trending or meme-able. This gilding often is a veneer that is covering up something that is still very beautiful. Like laying linoleum over beautiful hardwood floors.

    [When asking AI to generate some feedback on this article, it gave me the following:” Engage with Younger Audiences: Incorporate examples or anecdotes related to current youth culture to enhance relatability.” Even the AI has been trained in this way.]

    It is a sliding scale because as any teenager will tell you, the more someone outside of your sub-culture tries to engage your sub-culture the more cringy it becomes (unless you are purposefully embracing the cringe, as any good father should do if wanting to endear yourself to your children’s friends). Often, being aware of the larger cultural trends and way of thinking is enough. It is almost impossible without being glued to your phone to keep up with whatever is trending and in.

    The truth is that there is a type of relevancy that is available to all people of all cultures across all generations. The human heart and the mortal life needs the same things regardless of whatever the popular culture might be promoting as a need in the moment. Relationships, intimacy, love, grief, honesty, truth, family, and the list could go on. If relevancy was based on culture, then it would not make sense that Jesus, the Epistles, and the rest of the Bible and other ancient and just older writings still find a readership.

    My hope with this post, and all that follow, is to speak to those areas of perpetual relevancy. I am eager and apprehensive to see how well I will do and how God will develop all of this.

    What is a Gersonian?

    One final note, the title of my site is “Gersonian.” I talk about who Jean de Charlier Gerson on my about page and why I identify with him so much, but I thought it might be helpful to mention one or two things here as well.

    Gerson was an individual who bridge the late Medieval period to the Modern era. He was a reformer before the Reformation. He was an academic who was pushing into the humanism of the enlightenment but still firmly grounded in Medieval sources. He was a spiritual mystic who saw union with God as something all people could strive for, not just monks, nuns, and clergy. He preached, wrote, and taught in French which while not unheard of was definitely not common. He fits fully neither in the Enlightenment nor in the late Medieval scholasticism and because of this, he is largely forgotten in Church History.

    Gerson was a man of ideals who loved the Lord and struggled with the state of the Church, politics, and faith of his generation. I find a lot to identify with.

    So while this is not going to be dedicated to exploring all things Jean Gerson, he will make an appearance from time to time. He is worth getting to know.

    Thank you for reading so far, and I hope you will be blessed, encourage, and challenged in the time to come.