It’s 0005. (That’s 12:05 AM, some
of you.)
I’m up due to circumstances
entirely within my control but outside my choice. You see, I’m in school, and I
work a night shift. So occasionally when I get a day off, I wind
up awake in the wee hours of the morning, blinking and wondering what on earth
I’m supposed to do. I certainly ain’t sleeping.
Of course, the answer always lurks
around every corner of every book on the floor and note on the desk: homework.
There is always homework. Outline this. Study that. Memorize this. And with term
finals starting in three days and plenty of work to still consider and the fact
that I really haven’t grown any more disciplined than the old days of “eat,
drink, and watch movies, for tomorrow is a test day” all piling up over my
head, homework seems less of a duty and more like a hulking monster. A great,
hungry, dragon-toothed, all-consuming monster; eating up all my joy, and time,
and energy. “You want to read a book for fun?” he snarls. “Ha. You have an
essay to write and a six-hour project due Thursday. You haven’t even touched
them. And there’s your summary due tomorrow. Done any of that? That’s in twelve
hours, mind. You want to talk to God about your future, your worry, your sins
and triumphs? No time for that, miserable fool! I have consumed it! I will
consume it all!”
Panic.
And when I panic, my habit is to
run to my old false gods. Entertainment. Oblivion. Had I lived a hundred years
ago, I’d be at the tavern, a large mug of something in my hand and two more
empty beside it. Fifty years ago, I’d still be at the mall beating a high score
on Pac-man or out cruising with the radio turned way up. Now I click a few
times and watch Facebook or Netflix fade into a thousand little pixelated
opiates; idols soothing and whispering, “Who cares about tomorrow? Dopamine,
not deadlines.”
Odysseus didn’t get it quite right.
Most of us don’t have to sail between Scylla and Charybdis, but between the
Sirens and Charybdis. On the one hand is the great sucking monster of duties
and obligations, pulling our effort, money, and time itself in like a great
black hole. But push your way outside of that and you drift into a misty,
golden-hued land of lotus fumes and soothing notes, promising to fulfill your
every desire. Of course, it’s a trap. Death waits there as surely as at the
bottom of Charybdis’ rotting, gaping maw. But it seems much more pleasant, and
far more gradual. Listen to them sing: Why die today, listener? Far better to
linger on in our voluptuous land of sensate stimulation. Are you not weary with
much toil? Your roommate’s asleep. No one will ever know, and food eaten in
secret is sweet. Come to us, and we will give you your heart’s desire. You wish
for victory and bloody triumph? We have a thousand varieties, enough for a
lifetime. You wish for a pretty companion? We have every kind, more than
Solomon’s whole harem, without a disagreement or misunderstanding to be seen.
You wish for peace? We have every Hallmark moment you could devise and ten
more, all with just the right chords playing in the background. Come to us, and
be free. Come to us and be happy. Come. Come. Come.
With that kind of siren call
pounding in my blood and no other prospects but Charybdis’ dark vortex of
school and work and endless chores, is it any wonder why I drift towards Siren Island so
often? There doesn’t seem to be any other way out. Damned to either work myself
to death or waste my life—I might as well pick the more pleasant option. There’s
no other choice.
That’s a lie, of course. There is a
way out, no temptation beyond what we can bear. But we have to find it, and it’s
not where we think it is. Unlike Odysseus, God doesn’t give us a vanishingly small
belt of safe sea in between our painful callings and our fleeting pleasures. We
don’t have to constantly trim sail to maintain course between two dangers. He
gives us an escape. There’s an exit sign flashing in the gloom. Unfortunately,
it’s right in the middle of Charybdis’ dark, slurping mouth. “No, wait,” we
think. “That can’t be right. God screwed up.”
If I can screw up, what chance is
there for you, child? Look to the ant, go to your labor. Dive all the way in to
it and hold nothing back. Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your
might. That includes work and homework and the dishes, you know—even every
second of your time. For everything there is a season.
“Wait. Don’t you want me to be
happy? What about pleasures and joy? Don’t the Sirens promise more of those
than that monster of work, Charybdis?”
Why this aversion to work, son?
Even I work in creating, sustaining, saving and beautifying. This is the path
of life, where at my right hand are pleasures forevermore. There is nothing
better than that a man should rejoice in his work, for that is his lot and my
gift to man.
Gulp. “If I go that way, there’s no
way out. I’ll die.”
Yes, you will, He chuckles. But
that’s all right. I’m in the resurrection business.
