The Doe of the Dawn: A Christian World View . . .

PRINCIPLES TO LIVE BY

It is a rainy day here in Denton, Texas. I sit before my typewriter next to a large sliding door, which makes for a good view of my park-like back yard, which is canopied by two large pecan trees that still have their leaves even if we are well into the fall. The honeysuckle hedge in the distance partly frames the scene, and the stark skeletons of our holly bushes, dead since last year’s severe freeze, reminds one that nature is tart as well as sweet. It refreshes the spirit to watch the raindrops fall on my wrap-around driveway and make their way to the carpet of grass, still green, a few feet away.

It is a deceptive scene in a way, for my world is not as peaceful as the scene would suggest. Not only do I watch the squirrels and the crows steal most of our pecans, but the larger world out there seems to be blowing up in my face. The tragic news of Indira Ghandi’s assassination and the attending unrest in India fills the air, along with the continuing famine in Ethiopia that may claim millions of lives before it ends. Only days ago terrorists sought to assassinate the prime minister of England in the peaceful city of Brighton. Peace talks in El Salvador are followed by more fighting. All around the world the news is mostly bad. But there is always the good, such as the struggle to be free, as in Poland, even if priests are kidnaped and murdered.

I stopped writing this article long enough to do two things that might make for a bit more joy and peace in our troubled world. I drove to a school out in the county to have lunch with my 9-year old grandson, who may be upset by having suddenly to move to a new school. I sat with him and one of his new friends, a black boy, and assured him that he was going to be all right. I had a good visit with his new teacher, a dedicated soul. Then I sent a Halloween bouquet to Ouida, colorfully arranged in a real pumpkin. I sent this note along with it:

I goofed.

I am sorry.

I love you.

There is a little story behind those words. It is not that I have erred of late more than usual, but that I have often told Ouida that if those three statements were universally accepted and practiced they would work a moral revolution in our world. Those nine simple words, appropriately spoken, would reduce the divorce rate, mend broken homes and broken hearts, foster friendship, build confidence, dispel suspicion, overcome hate, and work for international peace. They might even reduce the deficit and balance the national budget!

In this my last installment of a Christian world view, I submit them as principles to live by. Yes, as homespun as they may appear they are nonetheless basic ethical principles, rooted in the wisdom of the ages, in moral philosophy, and in the Scriptures. I will express them in more sedate terms.

1. The principle of self-examination.

The reason it is rare for a person to admit, unqualifiedly, that he is wrong (“I goofed”) is because so few people are willing to examine their own lives. It is much more comfortable to examine others! It is instinctive of man to avoid pain and seek pleasure, and self-criticism is painful. Who wants to admit, even to himself, that he is ignorant, prejudiced, or full of pride? Or that he hates his parents, or that he spends most of his time thinking about himself? Or that he is wrong? This calls for a corollary principle, the principle of self-improvement.

One British moralist insisted that “the duty to improve oneself” is prima facie in nature, by which he meant it stands as a moral duty without having to be proved. Everyone will admit, even if he doesn’t want to practice it, that he should improve himself. Such wisdom is as old as Socrates, who insisted that “The unexamined life is not worth living.” One is not ready to admit that he is wrong about anything until he is willing to look deep inside himself, face up to his inadequacies, and resolve to improve himself.

2. The principle of self-denial.

One of the great truths of being a real person appears to be a contradiction: that we win by losing. We affirm personhood through self-denial. This is what Jesus taught: “He who has found his life shall lose it, and he who has lost his life for my sake shall find it” (Mt. 10:39). One is losing, in a way, when he says “I’m sorry,” for he is giving in to the other person, but he is really winning. He may lose selfish pride but he gains self-respect.

I am sorry! They are magic words in human relations, always disarming and humbling, so why are they so hard for us to say? The answer is clear and strong: our selfish pride. When Jesus calls for self-denial (“If anyone wishes to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me”) he is dealing with pride. It is hurt pride that is behind many of our problems. There is but one way to deal with this: renounce the pride. This is what self-denial means. It is also self-forgetfulness, which expresses itself in our not taking ourselves so seriously. Humility is a virtue, not because one thinks lowly of himself, but because he doesn’t think all that much about himself. When this is the case it doesn’t matter if someone puts us down. Socrates insisted that the humble man will not pay much attention to anything said about him, good or bad!

Kipling was getting at this in those lines from If”

 

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue

     Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch;

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;

     If all men count with you, but none too much!

There is virtue in a balance between being “all things to all men,” to quote Paul, and being one’s own person. Self-integrity and self-denial are complimentary, not contradictory.

3. The principle of benevolence.

Religion is a love story, the story of God’s philanthropy. He has said to mankind “I love you” all through human history. And this is why we love, as 1 Jn. 4:19 puts it: “We love, because he first loved us.” Love is contagious. When we come to see how much God really loves us, unconditionally just as we are, warts and all, we are ready to say “I love you” back to God and to others.

There are of course many different ways to say I love you, and all those ways may be seen in Paul’s remarkable statement in Col. 3:14: “Beyond all these things put on love, which is the perfect bond of unity.” This makes love “the golden chain of all the virtues,” as Phillips renders it. Love picks up the broken pieces and puts them back together, or as 1 Cor. 13:7 says it: “Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything,” to use Phillips again.

All this points to the power of saying (and doing) I love you. Love changes the way we look at life, for if there is anything better than being loved it is to love. So long as a man can love we can believe that he is not wholly depraved. If envy looks through a microscope, love looks through a telescope. Love can so change a person that we can hardly recognize him as the same person.

The little book of James can be viewed as a summary of these three principles. The letter calls us to a life of wisdom (“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask God”), which has to do with living effectively in a troubled world like ours. The writer of the letter, who is believed to be the brother of Jesus, lays out principles to live by, and in doing so deals with problems that we all know about: suffering, temptation, deception, anger, the nature of sin, slander, inactive faith, unruly tongue, passions, sickness, apostasy, and more.

Speaking to teachers in particular, James calls for self-scrutiny: “Who is wise and understanding among you? By his good life let him show his works in the meekness of wisdom” (3:13). One does not prove himself a wise teacher by academic degrees or even by eloquence, but by his good life. I have studied with world famed teachers in our leading universities who have been less than exemplary in the way they lived, such as Paul Tillich, whose wife exposed his infidelities in a book published after his death. Some of our youth have teachers who not only curse in class but who sometimes lecture while still drunk. Even religion teachers do not always manifest “the meekness of wisdom” that the brother of Jesus calls for.

This refers to the humility that only wisdom can inspire — wisdom, not merely knowledge. While knowledge may inspire arrogance and rudeness, only wisdom inspires humility and gentleness. Knowledge is man’s acquisition, while wisdom is the gift of God. One who has to shout down an opponent might have knowledge, while he who quells a hasty temper by a word fitly spoken has wisdom. James says we prove ourselves wise by right living, by being a gentle person. He says that we are to receive the word with meekness (1:21) and we are to teach it with meekness. We do not prove our worthiness as much by talk as by walk. It is the examined life that is worth living.

Self-denial in James is centered in the control of the tongue, which he describes as “set on fire by hell.” He even defines religion in part as bridling the tongue, urging his readers to be “slow to speak.” The tongue is described as the source of many of our problems: “The tongue is an unrighteous world among our members, staining the whole body.” The tongue is like a wild fire within us, a force that runs out of control. He indulges in hyperbole to show that the tongue is beyond control, claiming that every animal in the sea and on land has been tamed by man, while no one can tame the tongue. He even nails the tongue as “a restless evil, full of deadly poison.”

The man who can say “I am sorry” is one in control of his life, one who has said no to the destructive passions within him. James says that the point of control is the “very small rudder,” the tongue, which guides the ship “wherever the will of the pilot directs.” Great ships driven by strong winds are controlled by that small rudder, James says, and so man can wisely direct his life in this world only by watching what he says. Such a simple and practical rule as being slow to speak is basic religion to James.

Many ills could be avoided if more of us were like one of Shakespeare’s characters: “I had a thing to say, but I will fit it with some better time.” How often might one think, If only I hadn’t said it! But when one does say it, if he cannot at last say, I am sorry, he is out of control. There is no guiding hand on the rudder.

The oldest of cultures see the moral value of James’ religion of the tongue. The Japanese have a proverb that while the tongue is but three inches long it can kill a man six feet tall, while the Chinese have long taught that if one unlucky word falls from the tongue it cannot be retrieved by a coach and six horses. Old Pythagoras saw a wound from the tongue as worse than a wound from a sword, for the latter affects only the body, while the former affects the spirit. Through the centuries the wise have recognized that fortunes are more often made and lost by men’s tongues than by their virtues. But James insists that there is neither virtue nor religion when the tongue runs wild: “If anyone thinks he is religious and does not bridle his tongue but deceives his heart, this man’s religion is vain” (1:26).

It is a simple way to summarize the ethics in one’s world view, the bridling of the tongue. But a principle is involved, the principle of self-control and self-denial. If that great ship that embarks upon the sea of life has no controlling hand on the rudder, there can be no meaningful voyage.

James has his own way of telling us how to say I love you or in expressing the principle of benevolence: “If you really fulfill the royal law, according to the scripture, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself,’ you do well” (2:8). He also refers to the love principle as the law of liberty. Love is the royal law in that it reigns above all law and is the purpose and fulfillment of all law. Love is the law of liberty in that love frees one to manifest benevolence towards others as an expression of his own free will and not simply as duty to a list of unconnected laws. One is free to love in his or her own unique way! And that love rules over all other law! That is what the law of liberty and the royal law mean to us.

But this finds very practical meaning in James. Love expresses itself in acts of mercy, for a faith without such deeds is dead. Love does not make distinctions or show partiality, as between rich and poor. If God chooses the poor to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom, as he notes in 2:5, how can we be prejudiced against them? And if Paul refers to love as “It vaunteth not itself,” James says even more. Not only does he name the tongue as the little member that boasts great things, but he indicts man for his presumption in trying to direct his own way, as if there is no God in heaven: “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and get gain’; whereas you do not know about tomorrow” (4:13). How arrogant it is of us to presume that we call the shots! James lays down a truth that proud man is slow to accept: you do not know about tomorrow.

What is your life?, James asks, a question we have to face up to in forging a world view. He does not flatter man in his answer: “You are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.” It is only when we see our limitations and our dependence upon our Creator that we can appreciate James’ advice: “Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we shall live and we shall do this or that.’” Then he nails us with: “As it is, you boast in your arrogance. All such boasting is evil.”

This is the “meekness of wisdom” that James emphasizes. We must humbly realize that it is only “If the Lord wills, we shall live” and that it is arrogant for us to pursue a life of “I will do this and I will do that” with little or no thought of God. It points to man’s basic sin, pride, and it stands against the supreme or royal law, the law of love. When we can say “I love you” in lots of ways both to God and to man we will repudiate our sinful pride and prove our integrity through “the meekness of wisdom. “

The Meekness of Wisdom might have served as the title for this series, for that is the spirit reflected in The Doe of the Dawn, the lonely deer on the craggy hill watching the sun rise and seeking his way into an unknown future. On that troubled journey the pilgrim may cry out “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me,” but along the way he finds answers enough that he puts his trust in “the Lord the ruler of nations” and resolves to live for Him, that his children will serve him, and that men will proclaim Him to generations yet unborn (Psa. 22, inspired by an ancient hymn, the Doe of the Dawn). —the Editor