What Was Wrong With Lamar

Something was wrong with Lamar.

There just had to have been. To commit suicide is bad enough. But to do it that way -- to walk out to a dark highway, to pick out the next pair of emerging headlights, to turn toward them, waiting, and then at last to step in front of them. I’d like to think that their eyes -- Lamar’s and the driver’s -- locked in that moment before impact. And the horror in hers helped drive the haze from his, granting him a nanosecond of clarity, time for one urgent “Forgive me, Father” before he had his life crushed out of him.

But that’s just wishful speculation. All I really know is that something was seriously wrong with Lamar.

What was wrong with him, of course, is what is wrong with me and you. I did a post last week about a writer who became fascinated with the preserved remains of a two-headed calf and how she came to associate that freakish image with our own divided natures as sinful human beings. She described how the calf’s own deformity had apparently worked to destroy it, how its one perfectly formed head had embraced life, and how its other head, misshapen and hideous, had sought death, to the point even of spitting out all the nourishment its counterpart took in.

The idea was put forward that we are all two-headed calves -- creatures burdened with split natures, each of our halves working against the other, always at cross purposes. There’s an answer to our internal division and it involves a Cross and a purpose. But if we do not avail ourselves of it, the death head will win out like it did with Lamar. It is only by the Cross that we will find life and wholeness.

The Two-Headed Calf

Wrapping our finite earthbound minds around infinite spiritual concepts is tough and that’s why metaphorical language is almost always necessary. To that point, I ran across a striking image recently that I believe offers an excellent depiction of our central dilemma as fallen creatures and I wanted to share it: It comes from a chapter in Alan Jacob’s excellent new book “Original Sin,” in which Jacobs recounts the true story of author Rebecca West’s journey to Yugoslavia in the 1930s to work on a history of the country. At one point, West and her husband visit a museum where they discover several oddities, including:

“...a stuffed two-headed calf in a glass case, an animal ‘strangely lovely in form,’ so that ‘it was a shock to find that of the two heads which branched like candelabra, one was lovely, but one was hideous…’ The museum’s custodian affirms that the calf lived for two days ‘and should be alive today had it not been for its nature.’ West’s husband expresses puzzlement at this statement, and the custodian explains that when they fed milk to the calf through its beautiful head, its ugly head spit the milk out, so no food got into its stomach, and it died. This account prompts West to meditate: ‘To have two heads, one that looks to the right and another that looks to the left, one that is carved by grace and another that is not, the one that wishes to live and the other that does not; this was an experience not wholly unknown to human beings…’”

Observes Jacobs of this story: “The whole history of Yugoslavia, West comes to think, is the story of a two-headed calf, and maybe the whole of human history … ‘[Quoting Alexasandr Solzhenitsyn] The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either – but right through every human heart.’ In other words, each and every one of us is a divided self, a two-headed calf … (West) sees with an absolute clarity our innate dividedness, the immovable and constant presence of an ever vigilant ugly head, always determined to expel nourishment and thereby to reject life and to choose death instead …”

A two-headed calf! It’s an image right out of a carnival sideshow. But like effective metaphors can do, it should stick with you, giving your imagination something concrete to work with in helping you make sense of a difficult spiritual subject. I know it has done so for me.

Fish tales

Before I launch into this, one disclaimer:

If you have one of those Ichthys fish on your car, I don’t have a problem in the world with it. There’s not anything inherently wrong with sticking a shiny Ichthys emblem on your bumper. It’s a symbol and conveys something about what you believe, similar in that sense to wearing a cross around your neck. You may fail to live up to your symbols, just don’t bow down to them. Our fellowship is using a symbol of its own, an open door, to send a message about what we believe, who we are and what sets us apart. But Christians, we’d all agree, should be known primarily for their words and actions, not by an insignia.

And that’s just where the fish gives me pause.

While there are more fish emblems and other assorted Christian symbols out there than ever, it doesn’t translate to a rise in Christian influence. Whatever the symbol means, it doesn’t appear to mean we’re changing anything. Starting humbly, from a few fishes and loaves, Christianity converted the Roman Empire from the ground up. Now our civilization is busy converting back.

That’s the irony of the fish. Centuries before some marketing savant foresaw a fast buck in it, it served as an identifying mark for first-century believers, allowing them to find each other when dangerous times demanded secrecy. As such, the symbol was a harbinger of a coming revolution.

With its modern reemergence, however, if there’s a revolution afoot, we’re on the wrong end of it. Christianity is rapidly losing its influence in the West. If it sends us back to our roots, though, the decline may not be an altogether bad thing.

The Spirit-driven early Christians won the west for Christ through words and deeds, one pagan heart at a time. The difference today, I believe, is while our emblems are everywhere, we don’t back them up with the words and deeds. We can pepper the world with symbols, but it’s no substitute for salt — for the purifying, redemptive influence only the Spirit-led sons and daughters of the King can bring.

At Open Door, with our focus on that first-century spirit, I think we have a clear grasp of this and are demonstrating our faith by keeping words and actions central. Let's pray we continue.