Three Things I Learned From Ender’s Game, Part Three

(See also Part One: The Loneliness of Genius and Part Two: The Danger of Empathy)

The Power of Words

“There are times when the world is rearranging itself, and at times like that, the right words can change the world.”

One of my heroes is Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the theologian-pastor who plotted to kill Hitler, and maybe more importantly, stood against him even back in the early days when the Nazis were changing things mostly through creeds and committee meetings. He thought deeply and wrote powerfully, using words that cut through empty rhetoric to get to the truth.

Hitler was mentioned in Ender’s Game. He’s always the one we look back on, maybe the one we will look back on forever into the future, as a person who accomplished despicable things because he had both clear insight into how people think and the ability to craft words and make them beautiful.

I have clear insight into how people think. I have the ability to craft words and make them beautiful.

I could be Hitler.

Or Bonhoeffer. Or Ender’s sister Valentine, who “could persuade other people to her point of view—she could convince them that they wanted what she wanted them to want.”

That same passage could be describing me. And that terrifies me. Because even if there is no chance that I will commit the atrocities that Hitler did, what happens if someone else does? Won’t I be responsible to say something, do something?

I am an ordinary person in (so far) ordinary times. Bonhoeffer had Hitler. Valentine had a corrupt world order. All I seem to have is an alarm clock that goes off too early, people who don't know how to merge, and an enormous heap of laundry. Hardly the setting for the rise of a hero.

Sometimes I don't want to be one anyway. Sometimes I wonder what to do with the intelligence, empathy, and words I have been given. And, probably the most common "sometimes," sometimes I wish I had more opportunities to be heroic.

Either way, I closed Ender's Game with the certainty of several things: I shouldn’t want to be a genius. I can’t take on all the suffering of the whole world. And I could still be a hero.

Three Things I Learned From Ender’s Game, Part Two

The Danger of Empathy

“I think it’s impossible to really understand somebody, what they want, what they believe, and not love them the way they love themselves. And then, in that very moment when I love them....I destroy them.”

Once, at Socrates’ Café, a discussion group at my college, we talked about which superpower we would rather have: truth or empathy. Truth meant that, when touching someone, they could not lie to you. Empathy meant that by touching someone you could either let them feel your emotions or feel their emotions yourself.

I lobbied pretty hard for empathy, because I thought I would use the truth ability in the wrong ways and for the wrong reasons. I was probably right about that. I also said that empathy would force me to see people as victims with stories, to understand why they do the things they do. Maybe I was right about that too.

But, when I read Ender’s Game a month or so later, I realized something else: if the truth ability would corrupt me, the empathy gift would crush me. What happened to Ender showed that pretty clearly. We can’t take on emotions that aren’t our own. We have a limited capacity for love, and too many things are broken. It would kill us.

There was a time my freshman year of college where I absolutely refused to sing “It Is Well with My Soul.” Partly because some people I cared about were going through a hard time, and partly because it was Social Justice Week. (It is not the intention of this week to overwhelm you with all the suffering of the world—from starvation to sex trafficking to domestic violence—but that does tend to happen.)

How I dealt with this is a long story that I’ve already told once. But the short of it is that I realized we can’t love the whole world. We have to settle for loving our neighbor, and that’s all that God asked of us in the first place.

Three Things I Learned From Ender’s Game, Part One

I had an existential crisis after reading Ender’s Game for the first time.

No, really. Immediately after the last page, I sat down and wrote about 3,000 words rambling about Battle School, fear, strategy, paradox, Hamlet, and the German nuclear bomb program. And also cried a little. Because that’s how I deal with intellectual/emotional crises (and it’s usually never just one or the other).

I will not make you suffer through that. Here, in a much more coherent form than that first journal, are three reasons why I found Ender’s Game to be beautiful and depressing at the same time.

The Loneliness of Genius

“Humanity does not ask us to be happy. It merely asks us to be brilliant on its behalf.”

Whenever I read a book or watch a movie where there is a character who is a genius, whether it’s Cobb in Inception or Josh in Searching for Bobbie Fischer or Catherine in Proof, I want to be that person.

I want to be a hero. To be an extraordinary person in extraordinary times.

But then I realize that almost all geniuses are incredibly lonely. Cobb created a world, and it destroyed the person he loved most. Josh had his childhood taken away by others’ expectations for his chess performance. Catherine felt separated from those around her by the pressure of her ability to solve math problems. Their stories, at least the parts that focus on their extraordinary gifts, are not happy ones.

And then there’s Ender, the saddest of all. Ender’s Game is supposedly built around the concept of a team competition, but I have never read a character in all of literature who is more alone.

We were made for relationships with others. Battle School may have turned Ender into the perfect commander, but at what cost?

And would I really want that for myself? Would I really want to be exceptional when that also meant I would be longing for something I couldn’t name, crying at night for people who didn’t love me, understanding more than I could possibly feel?

No. No, I would not.

It's More Blessed To Receive Than To Give

If you think I made a typo in the title, you’re wrong. In a Christian culture that emphasizes serving others and doing great things for God, it can be a strange message. But, here it goes: STOP GIVING.

Or, at least, stop just giving. Contrary to popular belief, being needy is not a spiritual weakness. Sometimes, giving too much and refusing to ever take from others can actually be a sin.

You might think that sounds crazy, right, or at least mildly anti-Christian. But wait. Wait right there. I have C.S. Lewis on my side for this one.

Take that.

But, just in case name-dropping a popular Christian writer isn’t enough for you to blindly accept my claim, here’s the actual logic behind it.

This is a passage from The Four Loves, where Lewis talks about charity, the love that’s completely undeserved: “This, though a sort of love we need, is not the sort we want. We want to be loved for our cleverness, beauty, generosity, fairness, usefulness. The first hint that anyone is offering us the highest love of all is a terrible shock.”

The Problem of Judas

Judas Iscariot has always fascinated me. Every Easter, when I write blog posts and skits and devotionals, I keep coming back to him over and over again.

Sometimes, I think about how I would view him if I were one of the people who knew him best: his fellow disciples. I picture them, huddled, frightened on that dark Saturday, together but feeling very alone. They were thinking about Jesus, of course. Of what to do next. But I bet Judas’ name came up too. And I picture myself there and wonder what I would say.

If I am Matthew, I would be nervously cracking my knuckles, thinking—maybe saying—“I knew it all along. Remember? I told you. I knew he was stealing from us. The numbers didn’t add up. And when I asked about it, whenever I said anything about it, he’d just make some snide comment about how the Roman’s financial management system wasn’t the same as good, honorable Jewish math and maybe that was my problem. Like I was still just the resident tax collector, the friendly local cheat.”

But what I wouldn’t say, what I would just wonder, quietly, was: And look what happened to him. Did it start that way, you think? Just a few cut corners, a bit of pocketed change? With tiny justifications and self-righteous denials?

Maybe, all along, he wasn’t planning to betray Jesus. Maybe he just wanted things his way. Wanted to be in control, to not have to trust God. And every compromise got easier.

I know that feeling. If Jesus hadn’t called me away…. Face it, I was the friendly local cheat. What if I had been given responsibility for the money bag? Old habits die hard.

It could have been me.

Asking “Who am I?” With Dietrich Bonhoeffer

It seems like pretty much every Christian loves Dietrich Bonhoeffer. (Although maybe not quite as much as we love C.S. Lewis.)

And why not? He wrote some great (and short) books on Christian living, he had insightful thoughts on spiritual disciplines that he actually put into practice, and he joined a conspiracy to kill Hitler. Pretty much the coolest theologian ever.

I also love Bonhoeffer, and his writing, and his 90-year-old grandmother who I want to be like when I’m old. But sometimes, while reading books like A Celebration of Discipline, where Bonhoeffer is quoted all over the place as the expert on meditation and prayer and Scripture reading, I feel a little intimidated.

I could never be like him. I am weak. I spend my time worrying about things that don’t matter. I want to want to love God, but I’m a few steps removed from a deep relationship with him by my own selfishness. There are days when I feel close, when I feel brave enough to love God and people, when I get my priorities right. But not every day, not with the consistency I imagine people like Bonhoeffer had.

So, when I read a biography of Bonhoeffer last semester, one of the most surprising things it told me was that, for most of his life, Bonhoeffer struggled with depression.

Really? I remember thinking when I got to that part. But he spent so much time in prayer. How could he…?

How could he not be everything that his pristine image in other Christian devotional classics make him seem to be? How could he have a weakness? How could he be like me?

Four Steps to Being a Hobbit

I decided, in a flurry of motivation yesterday, that I will make a New Year’s Resolution after all.

Therefore, in the presence of these witnesses, I hereby resolve to be a hobbit.

If you wonder what this involves, or if it just sounds so intriguing that you want to join me in this year-long adventure, then read on. Here are four ways I’m going to be a hobbit in 2013.

Domesticating Evil

“What do you think about evil?”

It was a question my Gospels professor asked a classroom full of junior and senior Bible majors, who always have deep thoughts and several cross-references to back them up (sometimes they’ll even throw in a little Greek). So I knew it would be an interesting discussion.

Several students shared about how they’ve learned a lot about trusting God in hard times, and that suffering has given them the ability to minister to others who are suffering and bring them hope.

But the professor kept pushing. “But what about really terrible evil on a large scale—like natural disasters or trafficking of child slaves or genocides?”

Or an entire class of elementary school kids in Connecticut murdered on what was once a normal school day. What about that?

And the answers came again, this time more along the lines of how God can bring good out of even the worst evil, like with Joseph. Sometimes natural disasters like wildfires are ultimately a benefit to the land. We can’t fully understand what God is up to so we just need to trust the He has a plan.

In a way, I think all of those things may be true. But I raised my hand anyway, because I just couldn’t leave it at that. There was something more that I felt needed to be said, so I said it. “Sometimes I think we need to let evil be evil without saying that it leads to something good.”

Dirty Laundry List

Here are two really good options for how to have endless blog content: either be an expert on something or be a failure at a lot of things.

In case you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m the second one.

No, I mean it. As I was looking through entries to find ones I wanted to include on my Blog Birthday Top Ten List, I realized that many of my posts are about all the ways I mess up.

Here is a short list of some of the personal weaknesses and failures I’ve talked about. See any you can identify with? Doubt some of them really describe me? Read on, friend. Read on.

I am . . .

Arrogant: (Just a Little Heresy)

Paranoid: (Demonically Motivated Self-Censorship)

Generally a Jerk: (Tiny Heresies, Little Sins)

Afraid of Grace: (Low-Fat Grace)

Socially Awkward: (The Art of Accepting a Compliment) 

A Control Freak: (Learning the Hard Way)

Emotionally Needy: (Compass Hearts)

An Approval Seeker: (Living for Applause)

Self-deceived and a Compulsive Liar: (Just kidding. If this was true, then you wouldn’t be able to believe any of the other faults I identified in myself.)

People Are Interesting

Several times in the past few days, I’ve said the phrase, “People are interesting.”

“Interesting” is one of the best words in the English language, the one time where having a word with multiple vague and even contradictory meanings can be useful. It can describe nearly any range of emotion. Conspiracy theories, as presented by a sincere believer in Area 51? Interesting. The lecture about the effects of the Industrial Revolution on roaming tinkers? Interesting. Your uncle’s tie-dye blazer? Interesting.

Really, when you say a person or thing is interesting, for all real purposes, you are stating that it exists and that you have an opinion about it. What that opinion is, and even if it’s positive or negative, is totally unknown (although tone and body language might give a hint).

So, do I think people are interesting in a good way, or in a bad way? Both, and not because I enjoy ambiguous, middle-of-two-extremes answers (although I do). Because that’s just the way reality works. Sometimes, I see a friend do something unexpectedly kind or I have a great discussion with a group of people or I listen to a concert that makes me happy to be alive.

And other times, I turn on the news and see violent protests, war, genocides, and, worst of all, political campaign ads. That would be depressing enough, but even in my daily life, most of my stress and anger and insecurity is related directly to other people.

I Am Always Right All the Time

I was going to title this post “How To Gracefully Be Wrong,” but there’s only so much hypocrisy that I can tolerate on a daily basis. As I’ve said before about a few topics, whatever I know about this subject, I know by not doing it.

I am, however, an expert at obnoxiously insisting on my own point-of-view, even when presented with other reasonable alternatives that I didn’t really listen to before repeating what I just said, but louder and with more gestures.

Thus the title.

Debating stuff is fun, and at college, it tends to happen a lot (or maybe this just happens to be true around the people I’m friends with). Despairing professors, take note—we really do think about important things sometimes. And there would be no need for this post if we all had similar opinions on important things.

But we don’t. Ever.

Tiny Heresies, Little Sins

It was one of those gloomy days, where I stare at the raindrops trickling down the window, sipping a cup of tea and cynically reflecting on the dismal realities of life.

(Okay, fine. I don’t actually ever do that. But it sounds cool. Maybe I should try.)

It was actually a bright and sunny day, and I was walking down a quiet, rural Indiana street, thinking about the dismal realities of life, when I had a startlingly pleasant thought: In heaven, all of our relationships will be healed.

The damage I’ve done to others will be fixed in spite of me. There won’t be any awkward meetings. No bitter exchanges. No subtle undercurrent of competition in every conversation.

I want to get there so badly. Because, in the Fall, we ruined the most beautiful things the worst, I think. God is love, so we chose hate. Our relationship with God was distorted forever, and so were our relationships with each other.

Sometimes it hurts a lot. Not just dramatic betrayals or arguments or heartbreaks, but the daily grind of sniping comments, lonely Facebook posts, jealous thoughts, meanspirited letters to the editor, and disappointed expectations—everything that tells us things weren’t supposed to be this way.

Study people enough, and you’ll see it: the tiny ways we hurt others, often the ones we love most. Study people enough, and you’ll start to see it in yourself too.

Messing Up the Greatest Commandments

I’ve always thought that I’m safely within the bounds of orthodoxy when I say that the Christian faith is about loving God and loving others.

I was wrong.

I realized this as I read an article about the brilliant poet Percy Bysshe Shelley. (And yes, I understand that this is essentially a declaration that I am a hopeless literary nerd.) The author said that, like many genius intellectuals, Shelley had a fatal flaw: “He loved humanity in general but was often cruel to human beings in particular. He burned with a fierce love, but it was an abstract flame and the poor mortals who came near it were often scorched. He put ideas before people and his life is a testament to how heartless ideas can be.”

I’m an idealist. I love ideas and the power they have to shape our thinking. That’s one important reason why this blog exists. So this concerned me, because I never, ever want to be like that.

I Am Not Captain America

There’s something about The Avengers that works.

When Thor tries to persuade his brother to reconcile and come home, when Captain America blasts Iron Man for his selfishness and arrogance, when Black Widow is willing to do just about anything to save Hawkeye, we cheer. Courage, determination, self-sacrifice…it’s all there, and we love it.

I want to say that it’s because we believe in these things, deep down where it matters, in places where only stories can reach us. And maybe we do.

But we also traipsed along with a band of unruly pirates for four movies, cheering for the very dishonorable Jack Sparrow because, well, he was funny. We rooted for bare-faced revenge when the one after it was Inigo Montoya. And very few of us would describe James Bond as a man of character.

Our cinematic protagonists aren’t always, or even often, very admirable. So I can’t honestly say that fiction will always show our better side by reminding us that we ultimately want good to triumph over evil. It’s just not the way things are.