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Introduction

“The Sea Is so Great,

and My Boat

Is so Small”

The above title is reported to be an old Breton fisherman’s prayer. We don’t have to be in the middle of a vast ocean to be overwhelmed by the magnitude of reality and the smallness of the vessel we are doing our best to keep afloat. When we were able to get men to the moon it was rightly hailed as a spectacular achievement. It was — until you consider what a speck that is in our solar system and how dwarfed that system is when placed in our galaxy and viewed from the perspective of galaxies beyond number that appear to stretch to infinity — and beyond. (The allusion to the movie Toy Story is intentional).

The sea used to be much smaller and our boat much larger.

We felt much more secure and things seemed much more predictable when we were the center of a system that was basically sun, moon, and stars. The discoveries of recent years, both telescopic and microscopic, have revealed worlds beyond the wildest imagination of even the best science fiction writers of the past. Vastness beyond vastness and complexity beyond complexity appear to be the order of creation.

As if this were not unsettling enough, add to this the complexity of each of us as human beings and you face another large mystery. We often complain that we do not understand another person. When I hear this, I want to ask (but never do), “Do you understand yourself?” In a Peanuts cartoon, Lucy gets to the heart of the matter as she stands at the blackboard and writes: “I will not talk in class.” Frame two shows further writing of the same phrase. In frame three, Lucy pauses and appears to be in deep thought. Frame four has her writing: “On the other hand, who knows what I’ll do?”

Even Paul in Romans 7 laments that he does not understand his own actions. He is perplexed by this ambiguity in his life. Some have attempted to relegate this chapter to his pre-conversion condition, but he seems to be speaking about the present and not about the past. He certainly describes my present-tense dilemma. Paul contradicts the philosophy that if people only know the right thing to do, they usually will do it. Well, not necessarily. There are always extenuating circumstances, peer pressure, other demands, risks involved — need I continue?

“Bleating” news seems to be coming from everywhere.

We have yet to touch on our awareness of the conflicts and chaos that continually erupt across the globe and come to us in living color, as they happen, through the courtesy of the ever-present “breaking news” outlets. Add social media that gives us much that only amplifies our stress in an overloaded information culture. In a movie of some years ago, one of the characters who has just received an alarming confession from the person seated next to him says, “Please feel free not to share that with me.” That is one of my favorite quotes next to one in the same tenor where one person says in response to a rather too vivid piece of digestive information, “Why do I need to know that?”

In an era where almost everything seems to be overwhelming, the Breton fisherman’s prayer takes on new meaning: the sea just keeps getting bigger and my boat just keeps getting smaller. This reflects the enormity of existence and our attempts to find some perspective or philosophy that will enable us to have a measure of control over the craft in which we find ourselves. Tom Butler-Bowdon put together two books that I couldn’t resist adding to my collection. The first is 50 Self-Help Classics: 50 Inspirational Books to Transform Your Life (from timeless sages to contemporary gurus).2 The second is 50 Psychology Classics: Who We Are, How We Think, What We Do.3 These books reflect the many different approaches to understanding ourselves and our world. I have not been able to resist sprinkling some of this “wisdom” in the following chapters. Much is worth noting and pondering.

I’ll tell you the secret and save you the read.

Some years ago, The Secret became a bestseller. (The secret is: whatever you send out is what you get back.) This was simply a new twist on Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking (1952). Earlier versions of the same basic premise (cited in 50 Self-Help Classics) include: As a Man Thinketh by James Allen (1902), The Game of Life and How to Play It by Florence Scovell Shinn (1925); The Power of Your Subconscious Mind by Joseph Murphy (1963); Visualization by Shakti Gawaiun (1978); Real Magic: Creating Miracles in Everyday Life by Wayne Dyer (1992); You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay (1984); and The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra (1994). Wonder why anything with this much coverage (which actually goes back much, much earlier in history) could be called a secret? (This usage of the term “secret” is in no way to be equated with a conundrum.)

There is no doubt that positive thinking, a positive attitude about life, and an emphasis on the good things in life are, to say the least, helpful and healthy attitudes. While this is true, the question is: “What else is also true?” I view with great suspicion any philosophy which proclaims, “All you need to do is….” Life is too complex and multi-layered for such a simplistic approach. In what we call The Sermon on the Mount, which I believe is a good summary of Jesus’ teachings and what it means to live as Kingdom people, Jesus gives many things that need to be done in order to achieve the good life he came to bring.

Musings and Insights from Hither and Yon.

There is not a single, simple explanation.

One of my recent highly recommended reads is Behave: The Biology of Humans at our Best and Worst by Robert M. Sapolsky. At almost eight hundred pages, it is a weighty and worthwhile exploration into the world of neuroscience. After in-depth discussions of many aspects of human behavior, in the epilogue Sapolsky makes this observation: “If you had to boil this book down to a single phrase, it would be: ‘It’s complicated.’”4

You would think that someone with this depth of knowledge would be able to give something a little more specific at the conclusion of his book. With all the research you might expect a genetic explanation for most of our behavior: “My genes made me do it.” We will come back to this later, but I want to give this preview quote: “…while genes are important to this book’s concerns, they’re far less so than often thought.”5 (And as my reviewer pointed out: a major problem is that genes mutate).

The ocean of personal behavior is far deeper than we usually suspect, with many hidden factors coming into play. When Jesus asks the “possessed” man his name, he answers with a number: “Legion” (Mark 5:9). (A Roman Legion was about 600 men.) While The Three Faces of Eve was a movie that explored human complexity and personality disorder, I suspect that most of us could supply some number for the numerous voices that attempt to influence our behavior. Paul is not the only one who ever cried, “I do not understand my own behavior!” (Romans 7:15 — my translation).

My take on all this: We are all far more complicated that we like to admit.

A pandora’s box I won’t open except for a quick peek inside!

There continues to be much discussion in certain theological circles about Divine Providence. Usually there is much name-calling and charges of heresy on both sides of such discussions. One of the best books I have found that presents clear arguments for both sides (Classical Theism and Open Theism) - without rock throwing — is: Does God Have a Future: A Debate on Divine Providence by Christopher A. Hall and John Sanders. This highly readable treatment found me underlining and starring much material from both sides of the argument. In an early chapter, Chris gives this much-needed reminder:

James Packer taught me that biblical revelation…contains irresolvable tensions largely because God has chosen to keep certain things to himself, at least for the present…. Indeed, Moses taught Israel that the “secret things belong to the Lord” (Deuteronomy 29:29). Packer has warned me, both as his student in Vancouver and in many of his writings, to beware of draining the mystery out of the Scriptures in a misplaced desire for rational consistency.”6

Even in making our way through the pages of Holy Scripture, it is necessary to remember that this sea seems to get even greater with our advancing years, and our craft of understanding (exegesis) frequently seems ever so small and in danger of being swamped.

Questions for Reflection and Conversation

1 In what ways have you found your sea getting greater and your boat getting smaller?

2 Have you ever wanted to respond to someone in this “Information Age”: “Please feel free not to share that with me,” or “Why do I need to know that”?

3 Did anything in the “Musings” section surprise or disturb you?

2 Tom Butler-Bowdon, 50 Self-Help Classics: 50 Inspirational Books to Transform Your Life (New York: MJF Books, 2007).

3 Tom Butler-Bowdon, 50 Psychology Classics: Who We Are, How We Think, What We Do (London: Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2003).

4 Robert M. Sapolsky, Behave: The Biology of Humans at our Best and Worst (New York: Penguin Books, 2017), 674.

5 Ibid, 225.

6 Christopher A. Hall and John Sanders, Does God Have a Future: A Debate on Divine Providence (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2003), 16.