There Ain't No Rest for the Wicked - But There May Be Mercy

This morning, I was thinking about the sociological implications of the song Ain't No Rest for the Wicked. The song examines three sinners/criminals: a prostitute, and mugger, and an embezzler, highlighting certain similarities between them and commenting on society and perhaps even human nature. Yet, there are also noteworthy differences between the first two criminals and the last one.

The prostitute and the mugger are street criminals. The point-of-view character of the song describes encountering them on his way home, and they both ask him for money, either offering him a good time or threatening to shoot him. In both cases, the POV character chalks their lifestyles up to personal choices, asking them "Why'd you do this to yourself?" and "What made you want to live this kind of life?"

But personally, I'm not sure they had much of a choice. Granted, we always have agency. We can always, at least theoretically, choose to suffer and perhaps starve rather than break our moral principles. Yet, poverty can make people desperate, and desperate people often make desperate choices. Sure, theoretically the prostitute and mugger could have made different choices, but realistically, their life circumstances likely practically forced their hands.

Not so with the embezzler. The embezzler seemed not to be quite so desperate, and given another character detail we know about him, he should have known better. The embezzler was described as a preacher, having stolen money from the church he represented. The singer/POV character took a pot-and-kettle/glass-houses approach to the preacher and his crime: 

But even still I can't say much,
Because I know we're all the same.

Oh yes, we all seek out to satisfy those thrills.

But I'm not sure I see it that way, and I'm not sure God sees it that way, either. Naturally, I hope that sinners will receive some mercy for occasionally giving in to their natural inclinations, even their inclination to steal, but I'm not sure that's what's happening here. The prostitute and mugger were likely in a far more desperate financial situation than the preacher was. They weren't trying to "stuff[ their] bank account with righteous dollar bills." They were trying to feed their families and pay their bills. I think God would look more sympathetically on their situations and actions than He will on the preacher's.

The song seems to be sending a message about society and human nature, but the message I take away from it is one of sympathy and mercy. Those who are in bad situations sometimes make bad decisions. Maybe they had other options, but it can be hard to say. I have a good deal of sympathy for those who feel the need to steal or to sell themselves to survive. I have far less sympathy for those who steal in order to go from living modestly to living comfortably or luxuriously.

Yet, even then, perhaps I shouldn't be so quick to judge. Perhaps the preacher/embezzler was trapped with a desperation-inducing amount of debt. Perhaps the embezzler couldn't afford to keep his family homed, clothed, and fed unless he did what he did. God knows his (fictional) situation; I don't. Therefore, God should be the one to judge him, not me.

I was going to end my blog post by condemning the embezzler and saying that those of us who are blessed to live comfortable, if modest, lives shouldn't harshly judge those who are less fortunate, even when they commit sins and crimes to get by. But upon reflection, I've realized that we don't really know each other's situations, so perhaps we shouldn't judge anyone, no matter how blessed or privileged they appear to be.

We all need mercy and sympathy; some more than others. May we and God have sympathy and mercy on us all.

We Affect Each Other

There's a song that's been on my mind a lot lately, For Good from the Broadway Musical Wicked. As I understand it, not having seen the musical in full, For Good comes near the end of the musical, when the two main characters, about to part ways, sing about the effect that they've had on each other. 

I've heard it said
That people come into our lives
For a reason
Bringing something we must learn
And we are led to those
Who help us most to grow if we let them
And we help them in return.
Well, I don't know if I believe that's true
But I know I'm who I am today

Because I knew you.

I think this may be more true than we realize. We all have an effect on each other, and the people in our lives all have effects on us. These effects are often subtle, and the changes can happen so gradually that we don't realize they're happening, but we are all shaped by those around us, and we have an impact on others as well.

Both of these aspects are important to bear in mind. I makes sense to be aware of how others affect us, so we can choose friends who are a good influence on us. And similarly, we should be careful to ensure that the influence we have on others is a positive one. As long as we are changing people by our existence in their lives, we should try to ensure that we're changing them for the better and that they are doing the same for us.

I don't know whether or not we're led to people for the express purpose of affecting and/or being affected by them, but I know that we affect each other anyway, intentionally or not. Knowing that, we should be aware of the affect we have on others and the affects they have on us, and in both cases, we should try to ensure that the effects we have on each other for the better.

Practicing Coexistence with Pets

I don't like pets. I consider them a nuisance more often than not. They make noise. They make messes. They're a chore to take care of. I know that there are benefits to pet-ownership, but I'm willing to bet I could get the same benefits in other ways or learn to live without them. I don't need any pets.

But I do need to learn how to live with them. My family owns pets. Some members of my family love pets. It may be that I will have to share my home with pets for the rest of my life. So, as much as I dislike pets, I have to learn how to coexist with them.

Perhaps that the lesson I'm supposed to learn from pets: how to coexist with others, particularly those whom I dislike or whose habits I dislike. One cat keeps sitting in my laundry, and another cat keeps sitting in my chair, but that hardly matters. I need to remain kind to these animals I live with, partly because I know they don't know any better, and partly simply because it's important to be kind, especially to those to whom it isn't easy to be kind. That is what it means to be tolerant, to be able to coexist with someone of something, even it they bother you.

We all have to learn how to coexist with each other, especially with the people whose ideas and behavior we dislike. It can be difficult to tolerate some people, but that's why tolerance takes practice. If it was easy, it wouldn't really be "tolerance." We need to learn to coexist with each other (and each other's pets), even when we think we'd be more comfortable if we didn't have to learn to coexist.

My family members' pets are teaching me the virtues of tolerance, coexistence, and patience. And if I can learn to practice these virtues with pets, I should certainly learn to practice them with people, too.

A Tireless Mind

I'm tired. I've been tried for hours, which unfortunately makes it more difficult to come up with things to blog about. I'm grateful that my resurrected body won't have this problem. We're often reminded that our resurrected bodies will be physically perfect and tireless, but I thin that they'll be mentally tireless, too.

Right now, I'm having a hard time keeping my eyes open and forming coherent sentences. I'm glad to know that, when I'm resurrected, I won't have these challenges and shortcomings anymore.

Righteous for the Reward

I keep seeing these ads for Biolife, a company that pays people to "donate" plasma. I put "donate" in quotation marks because is it really a "donation" if you're getting paid? But the main message of the ad prompts a similar question from me. The ad says that "Generosity is rewarding," but I wonder, is it really "generosity" if you're doing it for the reward?

I'd say that it's still Good to "be generous" and "donate" plasma, even if you're doing it for the money, and apparently I'm not alone in that opinion. God offers blessings for the righteous, but is it really "righteousness" if we're "being righteous" just for the blessings. Arguably not, but the good still gets done anyway. Those who donate plasma for payment still save lives, and that life-saving work should be rewarded. Hence the payment, the rewards, and perhaps even the blessings.

Naturally, God wants us to be good out of the goodness of our hearts, but some of us occasionally need more motivation than that. That may be partly why heaven exists, and it's almost certainly why God told us about it. He knew that we would additional motivation from time to time, so He offers us great blessings, and He tells us how we can earn them, perhaps trusting that that which we initially did for rewards, we would eventually do out of habit, and that which we do out of habit, we would eventually do because doing so is part of who we are. So, God offers us blessings in exchange for righteous actions, trusting that we would form righteous habits and develop righteous hearts.

We can do something similar. Apparently, Biolife does. We can offer rewards in exchange for the behavior we want to see. Is it manipulative? It doesn't have to be. It can be no more than an offer, a promise, and an option - take it or leave it. Is it shallow? At first. Those who do good for the rewards start out doing good only for the rewards. Their heart isn't really in it. At this stage, it is crucial that the good behavior is rewarded with good outcomes. If someone does good solely for the blessings, and then the blessings don't come, or at least don't seem to, then they may be tempted to wonder whether there's any point to doing good. Yet, if the good behavior is rewarded, it may be repeated and rewarded again, leading to a self-reinforcing cycle that can ultimately become a habit and even a part of a person's personality.

God offers blessings to people in reward for righteous behavior, so I doubt that many would consider it wrong to do so. And if it's not wrong to make the offer, I doubt it's wrong to accept it. It's okay, and even Good, to do Good, even if only for the blessings. The good gets done either way. I personally don't see any problem with the idea of being righteous for the sake of the rewards.

Cultivating Our Soil

It's fairly well known that the Parable of the Sower, found in Matthew 13, Mark 4, and Luke 8, is really more about the soil than the sower. Some seeds fall on good soil and grow, while other seeds fall on bad soil and get parched, choked, trodden, or eaten. As the interpretation goes, we are the soil. Some of us are receptive to the knowledge and wisdom of God, while others are not.

Yet, something that I heard recently reminded me that we don't have to always stay whatever kind of soil we are now. We can change. Through diligent effort, we can change for the better, and if we're not careful, we can change for the worse. If our ground is stony or thorny, we can remove the stones and thorns. If our ground is hard, we can plow it. But if we don't water and weed our soil, it can become bad ground, even if it started good.

I'm grateful to know that we won't always remain the way we are now. People change. If we are wise, careful, and diligent, we can change ourselves for the better. We can cultivate knowledge and wisdom and weed out falsehoods and foolishness. We can become better soil if we choose to. I'm grateful to know that progress is possible and that I don't always have to remain the kind of soil that I have been.

How to Help an Overwhelmed Introvert

One of the challenges of being introverted is that help can become unhelpful. Sometimes, I get tired, cranky, and overwhelmed. At those times, my family sometimes, generously, offers to help. They try to help me not be overwhelmed by assisting me with one of my tasks, or perhaps they simply offer me comfort and support. Yet, despite their good intentions, their offers to help can backfire. Every offer of assistance and comfort is another (albeit small) social interaction that can drain my energy even further, when it's already dangerously low. Every text they send me, offering comfort, support, or worse, advice, is a text that takes social energy to read and answer. I can't tell you how many times I've wanted to snap my phone in half or throw it across the room because of a poorly timed but well-intended text.

I don't expect most people to understand this, but when I'm feeling overwhelmed (and I hope it's obvious that I'm overwhelmed, because I'll likely be too overwhelmed to explain it), sometimes the best thing people can do for me is to give me some space. I'll get my work done (preferably without help), I'll calm down if I have to (preferably without further agitation), and I'll manage my emotions and energy levels as well as I can (preferably without people draining what little is left of my social and/or emotional energy). It's good that people what to help me, and I'm grateful for their desire to help, but sometimes, the best way to help me is, paradoxically, to leave me alone.