The Simple Truth…Is It Logical?

While listening to my Ipod on shuffle today as I cleaned the house I heard Supertramp’s The Logical Song.  (Yes, I am a closet Supertramp fan!  Don’t judge.)  As I focused on the small beige tiles while scrubbing the bathroom floor, the lyrics resonated with me.

When I was young, it seemed that life was so wonderful,
a miracle, oh it was beautiful, magical.
And all the birds in the trees, well they’d be singing so happily,
joyfully, playfully watching me.
But then they send me away to teach me how to be sensible,
logical, responsible, practical.
And they showed me a world where I could be so dependable,
clinical, intellectual, cynical.

There are times when all the world’s asleep,
the questions run too deep
for such a simple man.
Won’t you please, please tell me what we’ve learned
I know it sounds absurd
but please tell me who I am.

Heartbreaking isn’t it?  It made me genuinely sad.  Pretty deep stuff for the guys who sang Bloody Well Right.  In light of some recent conversations I’ve had with friends about the importance of perspective I started to think about the song lyrics.  In the darkest of times one person’s perspective can bring joy and another person’s perspective can bring total despair.  When we’re children and before our hearts become weighed down by life things do look very different.  When we’re children (until we learn differently) the picture that we look at is drawn with brilliant colors, but something happens between childhood and adulthood that causes us to lose that wonder and makes that picture look a lot more drab.  Sadly, our view of the world can become like the thorny soil Jesus spoke of, and it can choke the life out of us.

Watching my two-year-old son has given me a whole new perspective.  I see that he notices the smallest details.  He’ll stand for a long time to watch a spider and will kneel down in the grass to pick the tiniest flower.  He is thrilled by the sight of ants or lizards and desperately wants to hug squirrels.  He will stop to listen to a bird’s song or pick up a tiny rock or seashell.  He finds joy in the faces of strangers and can make even the most cranky old man smile.  The world is new to him, and he can see that it’s a beautiful place.  Looking at things through his eyes reminds me of those small delights that I’m quick to pass over.  He takes the time because he has it, and he revels in the pure and innocent joy of simply admiring what’s around him.

It seems that as we age and “mature” we are in danger of becoming afflicted with some form of tunnel vision.  I know for me it has been true, and many times my eyes have become fixed on my worries until I can no longer see anything else.  I lose perspective.  A few months back I read George Eliot’s Silas Marner. It’s a story about a man who’s been hurt and wrongfully accused by those he loves best.  He moves to a far away place that is purposely nothing like his home and begins a new life.   A kind and tenderhearted man by nature, he becomes the hermit “Old Master Marner” to the townsfolk and stops making any attempt to gain the friendship or fellowship he once considered sacred.  He is a weaver and becomes content to only work at his loom and store up wealth.  The eyes that were once worshipers of beauty are now satisfied to only see the cloth in front of him.  “He seemed to weave, like the spider, from pure impulse, without reflection…Silas’s hand satisfied itself with throwing the shuttle, and his eye with seeing the little squares in the cloth complete themselves under his effort…to reduce his life to the unquestioning activity of a spinning insect.”  It’s not until his wealth is stolen that he is jarred into opening his eyes to the beauty of the world once again.  And he is given something much more precious than gold – life, purpose, and most of all love.

Like Silas Marner’s weaving, at times I tend to fixate on whatever my current “thing” is.  Whether it’s health issues, job issues, relationships, or finances it can become my own private universe and my eyes (once filled with dreams and visions) become content to only see the square piece of cloth and hear the whirring of my loom.  I forget about listening to the birds in the trees singing beautifully.

Christ asks us to be like children and to remember our native language- the one we spoke when we were children.  It is the language he put in us from the beginning.  When we’re children we’re dependent on him.  We see things in their simplest and purest form.  When we’re children we can see him in the beauty around us and we take the time to acknowledge him.  We need him and we delight in him.  When we’re children, we’re connected with his nature that is in every detail around us.  The longing to see those things and finding joy in them is at the core of who we are.  Is it logical?  I think so, but it’s much more than that…it’s magical.

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