That question is not so unfamiliar. If I remember correctly, Rick Warren even opened off his commercially successful book with that very good question. Is there a Christian in this suburban wasteland called American Evangelicalism who has actually followed through on the real answer? Of course there are. They are the missionaries who have gone, and a few others who have ignored the critics and have followed their calling. As for the rest of us—I suppose I could do the Victorian thing…but No, not this time—As for the rest of us, we are the Hollow Men in T. S. Eliot’s poem, the stuffed men:
Our dried voices, when
Our dried voices, when
We whisper together
Are quiet and meaningless
So why do we not say out loud what we know to be true in secret? Why do we continue this charade of religious motion? Are we afraid of failure? I am. Are we reading the tea leaves and sticking our finger in the wind to see who will be left standing with us if we really come out and say it? What is life worth if we do not? What is this nonsense that we do together Sunday after Sunday? Is it not the whistling in the dark of a child who no longer believes that the monster is there? Well done, Livingstone! Bravo, Luther—You psychopath! Let’s call them what we think of them! Let’s say to the saints of history what we would say to them if they inflicted their passions on our shallow comforts here and now. Do not canonize with your lips what you shrivel at in your hearts!
Shape without form, shade without colour,
So why do we not say out loud what we know to be true in secret? Why do we continue this charade of religious motion? Are we afraid of failure? I am. Are we reading the tea leaves and sticking our finger in the wind to see who will be left standing with us if we really come out and say it? What is life worth if we do not? What is this nonsense that we do together Sunday after Sunday? Is it not the whistling in the dark of a child who no longer believes that the monster is there? Well done, Livingstone! Bravo, Luther—You psychopath! Let’s call them what we think of them! Let’s say to the saints of history what we would say to them if they inflicted their passions on our shallow comforts here and now. Do not canonize with your lips what you shrivel at in your hearts!
Shape without form, shade without colour,
Paralysed force, gesture without motion;
We know that part of the trouble is a lack of vision. Some of us have seen the fruit of someone else’s, and so we paint feverishly on a shrinking canvas, trying to reproduce, before the clock runs out on our second-hand colors. Do not say “It is not about outward expression; the Lord knows my heart.” You know very well what He sees in a heart that does not flow forth to seize all for His kingdom! He sees hypocrisy! He sees jealously guarded bones! He sees nothing left but the moths and rust that must always overtake our real treasure. There is no pulse because there is no life. I no longer care for the idea that we “get” this or that truth, but that it has not “translated” yet. Lie! If I woke you up at 3:00 in the morning, shook you by the neck, and said, “The house is on fire!” you would not demand the practical application “Therefore, Get up and get out of here!” You would know by instinct to run for your life. And you would do so because you know very well what it means for your house to be on fire. No, these are not the kind of truths that don’t translate. The truth is that the truth is not yet grasped.
The eyes are not here
We know that part of the trouble is a lack of vision. Some of us have seen the fruit of someone else’s, and so we paint feverishly on a shrinking canvas, trying to reproduce, before the clock runs out on our second-hand colors. Do not say “It is not about outward expression; the Lord knows my heart.” You know very well what He sees in a heart that does not flow forth to seize all for His kingdom! He sees hypocrisy! He sees jealously guarded bones! He sees nothing left but the moths and rust that must always overtake our real treasure. There is no pulse because there is no life. I no longer care for the idea that we “get” this or that truth, but that it has not “translated” yet. Lie! If I woke you up at 3:00 in the morning, shook you by the neck, and said, “The house is on fire!” you would not demand the practical application “Therefore, Get up and get out of here!” You would know by instinct to run for your life. And you would do so because you know very well what it means for your house to be on fire. No, these are not the kind of truths that don’t translate. The truth is that the truth is not yet grasped.
The eyes are not here
There are no eyes here
In this valley of dying stars
In this hollow valley
This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms
In this last of meeting places
We grope together
And avoid speech
Gathered on this beach of the tumid river
But it is hard! Yes it is—So is hell; hot too. Does this create despair? Does it tingle? That means it’s working. But it is hard, and it is hard for all of us. The real thing is hard. Very well, then go to Wal-Mart and grab 50 cents out of your pocket for a notebook! My kingdom for two quarters! Hard and easy. It all depends what you value. How do you get through college? How do you get through work? You know very well that you have spent your life taking in concepts and pouring over terminology much more complex than all of the Systematic Theologies ever written. But that is because there was a paycheck at the end of it. And the wages of sin is still death. What do you value? Where your treasure is, there will your whole being be also—mind, emotions, will, body. The truth is that deep down inside you not only know what it is for your physical house to be on fire, but by analogy, you also know what these words mean—“For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” [2 Cor. 5:1].
This is the way the world ends
But it is hard! Yes it is—So is hell; hot too. Does this create despair? Does it tingle? That means it’s working. But it is hard, and it is hard for all of us. The real thing is hard. Very well, then go to Wal-Mart and grab 50 cents out of your pocket for a notebook! My kingdom for two quarters! Hard and easy. It all depends what you value. How do you get through college? How do you get through work? You know very well that you have spent your life taking in concepts and pouring over terminology much more complex than all of the Systematic Theologies ever written. But that is because there was a paycheck at the end of it. And the wages of sin is still death. What do you value? Where your treasure is, there will your whole being be also—mind, emotions, will, body. The truth is that deep down inside you not only know what it is for your physical house to be on fire, but by analogy, you also know what these words mean—“For we know that if the tent that is our earthly home is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” [2 Cor. 5:1].
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
This is the way the world ends
Not with a bang but a whimper.
What will become of us hollow men and women? It can be very liberating to work from worse case scenarios. If one has Christ, he has all things. Thus, if all else fails, it turns out that such a person can then act as if there is nothing left to lose. We simply speak the truth and shake the dust off our feet when the bones and stuffing do not spring to life. Only the Spirit knows which way He will blow in this valley of dry bones. Judgment begins in the house of God—this house, my house. Something more than a whimper is required from me if I am to shepherd the bones off of the desert ground. What did people like Bounds or Ravenhill or Tozer say about the role of prayer and the Spirit in all this? I have heard their writings dismissed as simplistic, repetitive, and doctrinally amiss. I understand the point; but every time I heard them, my stuffing caught fire. I miss that.
What will become of us hollow men and women? It can be very liberating to work from worse case scenarios. If one has Christ, he has all things. Thus, if all else fails, it turns out that such a person can then act as if there is nothing left to lose. We simply speak the truth and shake the dust off our feet when the bones and stuffing do not spring to life. Only the Spirit knows which way He will blow in this valley of dry bones. Judgment begins in the house of God—this house, my house. Something more than a whimper is required from me if I am to shepherd the bones off of the desert ground. What did people like Bounds or Ravenhill or Tozer say about the role of prayer and the Spirit in all this? I have heard their writings dismissed as simplistic, repetitive, and doctrinally amiss. I understand the point; but every time I heard them, my stuffing caught fire. I miss that.
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