I’d been writing about Martin Luther. Not Martin Luther King; he was one of the good guys. I mean the Martin Luther who founded Protestantism and became the father of modern-day Evangelicalism – which is the doctrine of salvation by grace through Faith. Luther is much revered today . . . but he really wasn’t a very nice person. And he wasn’t in it to help people, as Mr. King was; he was in it to see that people toed the line and Obeyed The Rules of God and the Church. The line to be toed was the defense of the absolute authority of the Bible, and against those whom Luther considered enemies of Christ. He was firm about that, to the point of denying people who thought differently the right to live. Luther was a bright example of the Authoritarian Personality . . . but that’s a topic for a separate conversation.
At one point, Martin Luther had had a transformative experience. And, according to him, that transformation was like being reborn. Wow.
I had a similar sort of experience last August after I collapsed with episodes of cardiac syncope. I was taken to the hospital, and came back home five days later with a pacemaker device installed under my left clavicle. I came home to a wonderful feeling of peace. I might have died but I hadn’t. My worldly worries fell away. It was as though all the mental noise I’d been surrounded by to such an extent that I had stopped hearing it ceased . . . and I was lost in blissful silence. I saw the Promised Land. I felt a wonderful sense of Liberation and Calm. I lost my desire to eat compulsively. The only responsibility I really felt was to inhale and exhale. I even wrote about all that in one of my early newsletters. I guess it was like feeling reborn. I say “I guess” because I have no other similar experience of my own to compare this one with.
The thing is . . . my old life came back after a while. Unsurprisingly, getting back to my work all of a sudden, with its responsibilities and appointments and deadlines . . . You know: the concerns. The worries. The bills. The people and things depending on me. ALL of these things had fallen away during my “re-birth”. But none of that had gone permanently away. And all my old habits came back.
Well, the body and the brain want to revert to homeostasis; they always want to go back to the way things were.
I don’t know if it works any differently for anyone else who’s had a born-again experience. Martin Luther started out as a radical and reformer, but ended up as a reactionary and authoritarian. In other words, he started out as “reasonable” but turned into someone who in the second phase of his life was known for being combative, opinionated, intransigent, and inflexible. He had his epiphany right between those phases . . . or so he said. As far as human beings go, having a major insight and turning point is generally accompanied by feelings of liberation and going easy on one’s self and others.
Martin Luther did not exhibit those symptoms for very long. He did NOT remain a tolerant, softer, easier-going man who had a wider appreciation of the complexities of life. He did NOT love his neighbor; in fact, if Luther’s neighbor disagreed with him, he was all for eradicating him. Like you-know-who also does.
Speaking of “change”, I have a friend who is a very smart and argumentative Conservative. He can vigorously defend some intellectual positions that make me cringe. Years ago, he used to be a passionately argumentative Liberal, and even a Radical. He told me that he experienced a crisis shortly after he, as a young man, got married: he was now in a position of having to take care of a wife and partner, but certainly not in a position to do so economically. Arguing in support of Marxism will do that, it seems. My friend emerged from this crisis — like a caterpillar emerging from a cocoon in the shape of a moth — as a Conservative . . . with greatly expanded economic possibilities. And he took advantage of them. Unsurprisingly, he was just as passionate and argumentative as ever.
It was an interesting insight for me when I first understood that he had been an intellectual gunslinger and . . . he continued to be an intellectual gunslinger. That didn’t change at all. He was just wearing a different uniform and gunslinging for a different team. Well, external changes seem to be easier than internal ones, and his desire to win remained unchanged.
One hears of people who have been in prison and “finding Christ” or something equivalent. They return to society with a newfound need to be helpful — and not to escalate their previous motivations, fury, intransigence, irresponsibility, and lawlessness. Of course, such transformations are accomplished slowly, over time. Perhaps years. Martin Luther’s experience was sudden, and seems to have had a short half-life. After the honeymoon was over, he doubled down. Fiercely. And he was both incapable of admitting error and unwilling to apologize for it. That’s a lot like, well, you-know-who. Both Luther and Trump seem driven by something that eats them from the inside . . . but that they are in denial about. And probably without the capacity to be self-aware. It’s sort of like someone who has leprosy but has no idea that he has it.
I’m wondering about how long a half-life others’ experience of anything “liberating” has lasted. Did they really become different people because of their re-birth? Have you ever had such an experience”? Did it stick? Was it permanent?
I don’t know; it might have to do with how “rebirth” is defined. I know of several men who have had very intense combat experiences who, after they left the military, vowed to live a life that was devoid of ANY further violence or killing; they’d seen and done enough of that. You might think that qualifies as being “reborn” . . . although while it does leave one with a different attitude and focus it does not alleviate them of any of the problems, burdens, or worries about daily life. They get on with life, without any spiritual or religious afterglow. If they have been lucky enough to find God, it’s only after having been unlucky enough to need to do so. And in none of the cases I know about was the transformation accomplished in a moment. It took a year or two.
Does finding Christ (or having any other kind of rebirth) put one on a path that is free of burdens? I ask not to cast aspersions, but because I really don’t know. If any of you out there have any information about the being reborn thing, I’d like to hear about it. All I can tell you is that I had what amounts to a heavenly vacation — but, for me, the experience of caroming off a single life event (my cardiac problems) as a changed man did not last automatically. I’ve had to work hard to reclaim and reimagine it. After a while I needed to go back to work and pick up my shovel and get my hands dirty and start sweating again, if I can put it like that. That sort of messes with bliss.
Of course, I’m a Taurus, so maybe being reborn just won’t stick.
But I do know one thing: if you want to change something, it takes practice and repetition. One has to practice, and to have a practice. Unless we’re talking trauma, a one-shot intense experience is like newspaper headlines: possibly exciting, but old news by the next day.
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COMIC RELIEF: here’s a joke that might tickle you:
THE LAW OF DIMINISHING RETURNS:
1. The sport of choice for the urban poor is BASKETBALL.
2. The sport of choice for maintenance level employees is BOWLING.
3. The sport of choice for front-line workers is FOOTBALL.
4. The sport of choice for supervisors is BASEBALL.
5. The sport of choice for middle management is TENNIS.
And . . .
6. The sport of choice for corporate executives and officers is GOLF.
The amazing fact is that the higher you go in the corporate structure, the smaller your balls become.
There must be a boatload of people in Washington playing marbles.
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More later.