Saturday, February 23, 2019
The Desires of Jesus and Narcissus
"Insofar as we control people, they cease to exist and become merely an extension of ourselves. To love the person under our control is to love ourselves, not them."
- Jeremiah Mitchell, via Michael Gonzalez
image from "the medium is the MASSAGE, An Inventory of Effects," by Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore
This quote applies to all relationships, but when I saw this image from Marshall McLuhan, the context of marriage immediately came to mind for me as a case study. We hear that joke a lot about "the old ball and chain," but what is that joke really saying? We can tend to feel constrained in and by all relationships. I would suggest that this apparent tension between constraint and love reveals and pierces into what and who we worship.
A man or woman beholds his or her future husband or wife and they are then drawn to each other, drawn towards a world that the two of them share together. "Beauty evokes desire. It precedes and elicits desire, it supplicates and commands it, and it gives shape to the soul that receives it." - David Bentley Hart "We become what we behold." - William Blake.
The "ball and chain" joke - as well as that feeling of being constrained and enslaved rather than free to love in any relationship - assumes an unquestioned fate of the world the two come to share. Every time I hear that joke or its sentiment, though, I want to ask a question. What does the fulfilling of our desires come out looking like in our relationships? One flesh or dead flesh? Gift or curse? Faithful, covenant love, or dark parody? Cross or resurrection? Death or life?
If this quote about control and love is true, then, to control people is for people to become our technologies. We turn people into idols. Psalm 115:
Their idols are silver and gold,
the work of human hands.
They have mouths, but do not speak;
eyes, but do not see.
They have ears, but do not hear;
noses, but do not smell.
They have hands, but do not feel;
feet, but do not walk;
and they do not make a sound in their throat.
Those who make them become like them;
so do all who trust in them.
The case study of marriage as the fulfilment of a human desire through either love or control, then, reveals that all desire is a quest-ion of worship. Because control(ling) is and implies (worshipping of) an idol - a technology, an extension of our selves. Modern technologies are always about control of something outside of ourselves rather than participation in something in which we share.
"[W]e shape our tools, and therafter our tools shape us." - Marshall McLuhan. In this case study of marriage, a man's idol doesn't just wear his technology but becomes it. A man beholds his wife, and she becomes a mirror. That's why and how marriages - and all relationships in general - are opportunities and gardens to cultivate growth and maturity into love. And, love is life.
In relationships, we are confronted, as though in a mirror, with the unhealthy elements in the soil of our soul bearing fruit in our lives. At the same time, relationships are mirrors in another way. There is a unifying element of all relationships as we come to work towards a goal and share in a world together; as we behold our partners and teammates in a shared world on a path to shared ends, we begin to see ourselves in one another. In both of these ways in which relationships are like mirrors for us, they are opportunities to grow in love and freedom.
On the other hand: "The concept of 'idol' for the Hebrew Psalmist is much like that of Narcissus for the Greek mythmaker. And, the Psalmist insist that the BEHOLDING of idols, or the use of technology, conforms men to them." - Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Idol or living human? One flesh or dead flesh? Life and love, or death and technologies of control?
Our making our wife or husband into our crafted, treasured, golden idol, then, shapes us into one who is incapable of actual love of a real person who uses his or her own hands, mouth, ears, nose, and feet. In other words, controlling precludes loving, because love builds up into freedom. The "ball and chain" joke presumes a blindness and deafness to actual love of another - by blinding and deafening us to the mouth and ears of the actual other person, to their words and to how they perceive the world. This is why love listens first and speaks second. This is why I am struck by the difference in the above photo between my actual thumb as compared to the photo of the hand (remember that photography is another technology).
If we are tempted into the image of "the old ball and chain" (or of relationships being constraining for us), perhaps we should ask: is beauty a free gift or chained curse? Is love a trusting faithfulness unto death, or are we enslaved into a dark world of alienating death? Doe we create our own world or participate in the refashioning of Creation with the Uncreated?
Of course, this being a case study, it applies beyond itself, as the original quote suggests. Other relationships besides romantic ones ask for fulfillment of other desires. What are we believing as we seek to fulfill desires in relationships with others? If we are tempted to govern relationships though control, what does that say about us and how we have been shaped? And, this question of what governs those relationships, as well as of what we believe about them, will always be between love and control. If what we are really loving is an image or technology that we craft for ourselves, then we are really worshipping ourselves. We are shaped by what and who we worship. And, this is precisely because a beautiful God of love and freedom who elicits and evokes a desire for worship sits on a Throne as the Uncreated Creator at the center of all that is. As we come to worship this One True God of Israel, we are more likely to believe that relationships are about love rather control, living flesh rather than deadly suffering. We will imagine relationships looking more like the life of resurrection rather than the blood of the cross.
- Jeremiah Mitchell, via Michael Gonzalez
image from "the medium is the MASSAGE, An Inventory of Effects," by Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore
This quote applies to all relationships, but when I saw this image from Marshall McLuhan, the context of marriage immediately came to mind for me as a case study. We hear that joke a lot about "the old ball and chain," but what is that joke really saying? We can tend to feel constrained in and by all relationships. I would suggest that this apparent tension between constraint and love reveals and pierces into what and who we worship.
A man or woman beholds his or her future husband or wife and they are then drawn to each other, drawn towards a world that the two of them share together. "Beauty evokes desire. It precedes and elicits desire, it supplicates and commands it, and it gives shape to the soul that receives it." - David Bentley Hart "We become what we behold." - William Blake.
The "ball and chain" joke - as well as that feeling of being constrained and enslaved rather than free to love in any relationship - assumes an unquestioned fate of the world the two come to share. Every time I hear that joke or its sentiment, though, I want to ask a question. What does the fulfilling of our desires come out looking like in our relationships? One flesh or dead flesh? Gift or curse? Faithful, covenant love, or dark parody? Cross or resurrection? Death or life?
If this quote about control and love is true, then, to control people is for people to become our technologies. We turn people into idols. Psalm 115:
Their idols are silver and gold,
the work of human hands.
They have mouths, but do not speak;
eyes, but do not see.
They have ears, but do not hear;
noses, but do not smell.
They have hands, but do not feel;
feet, but do not walk;
and they do not make a sound in their throat.
Those who make them become like them;
so do all who trust in them.
The case study of marriage as the fulfilment of a human desire through either love or control, then, reveals that all desire is a quest-ion of worship. Because control(ling) is and implies (worshipping of) an idol - a technology, an extension of our selves. Modern technologies are always about control of something outside of ourselves rather than participation in something in which we share.
"[W]e shape our tools, and therafter our tools shape us." - Marshall McLuhan. In this case study of marriage, a man's idol doesn't just wear his technology but becomes it. A man beholds his wife, and she becomes a mirror. That's why and how marriages - and all relationships in general - are opportunities and gardens to cultivate growth and maturity into love. And, love is life.
In relationships, we are confronted, as though in a mirror, with the unhealthy elements in the soil of our soul bearing fruit in our lives. At the same time, relationships are mirrors in another way. There is a unifying element of all relationships as we come to work towards a goal and share in a world together; as we behold our partners and teammates in a shared world on a path to shared ends, we begin to see ourselves in one another. In both of these ways in which relationships are like mirrors for us, they are opportunities to grow in love and freedom.
On the other hand: "The concept of 'idol' for the Hebrew Psalmist is much like that of Narcissus for the Greek mythmaker. And, the Psalmist insist that the BEHOLDING of idols, or the use of technology, conforms men to them." - Marshall McLuhan, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. Idol or living human? One flesh or dead flesh? Life and love, or death and technologies of control?
Our making our wife or husband into our crafted, treasured, golden idol, then, shapes us into one who is incapable of actual love of a real person who uses his or her own hands, mouth, ears, nose, and feet. In other words, controlling precludes loving, because love builds up into freedom. The "ball and chain" joke presumes a blindness and deafness to actual love of another - by blinding and deafening us to the mouth and ears of the actual other person, to their words and to how they perceive the world. This is why love listens first and speaks second. This is why I am struck by the difference in the above photo between my actual thumb as compared to the photo of the hand (remember that photography is another technology).
If we are tempted into the image of "the old ball and chain" (or of relationships being constraining for us), perhaps we should ask: is beauty a free gift or chained curse? Is love a trusting faithfulness unto death, or are we enslaved into a dark world of alienating death? Doe we create our own world or participate in the refashioning of Creation with the Uncreated?
Of course, this being a case study, it applies beyond itself, as the original quote suggests. Other relationships besides romantic ones ask for fulfillment of other desires. What are we believing as we seek to fulfill desires in relationships with others? If we are tempted to govern relationships though control, what does that say about us and how we have been shaped? And, this question of what governs those relationships, as well as of what we believe about them, will always be between love and control. If what we are really loving is an image or technology that we craft for ourselves, then we are really worshipping ourselves. We are shaped by what and who we worship. And, this is precisely because a beautiful God of love and freedom who elicits and evokes a desire for worship sits on a Throne as the Uncreated Creator at the center of all that is. As we come to worship this One True God of Israel, we are more likely to believe that relationships are about love rather control, living flesh rather than deadly suffering. We will imagine relationships looking more like the life of resurrection rather than the blood of the cross.
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