neurological dryer lint

now this perked my eyes up. or something. tycho from PA got Wild At Heart for Christmas from his mom. his reaction was predictable.

i won't say that he's wrong. because clearly not everyone - even Christians, to whom the book is less-than-subtly-aimed - likes the book, or Eldredge's theories on the 'problem' with men. it's not my place to judge his opinion. it's hard to relate to a book that demands a certain priority of things in life when you don't carry those same priorities. much in the same way that i probably wouldn't enjoy a book by the Dalai Lama on how to improve things, because we don't share the same ideas on what's true and what's important and whatnot.

here's the thing, though. and be forewarned - i consider WaH to be one of the most significant, moving, powerful books i've ever read, and contemplating the ideas it presents with my close friends has changed the course of my life's ship to a new heading. so i guess i'm biased, if you want to call it that, although who isn't biased about anything?

anyway, that thing i was talking about. Allow me to summarize in the best way that i can Eldredge's main point in the book: men are essentially wired to be a certain way. not all men are the same, but we have the same programming, the same OS if you will, and we all have certain tendencies that we share. living from this programming, from our nature, makes life just work a little better, makes things fit together a little more solidly. in fact, the reason we do everything is because of the things we want out of life, the things we're hard-coded to desire. doing them makes us happy and satisfied and fulfilled. not doing them makes us unsatisfied and discontent. we have also been hurt by life and the people around us. allowing those hurts to be repaired (which Eldredge contends, and I support, can only be done by the God that made us, as we are incapable of fully 'repairing' ourselves) will get us back into action and allow us to begin to live the way we're wired to.

now it makes sense for someone who doesn't really think God's relevant to anything to read His name in a book and immediately disregard it - but it doesn't sound like that's what Tycho's done, although it'd be pretty easy to concoct a complaint with the core ideas of the book and attribute your attitude to those complaints, when it really just comes from avoiding God. which is something everyone does, be them a follower of Christ or not, to some extent. but i keep seeing more and more evidence that every man on this planet suffers from the same problem, the one that reduces us to 'dry and damaged husks', as Tycho calls it. no one's really very happy or satisfied. a small minority of Christians, maybe, but on the whole, we are all screwed up. to deny that is to lie to your own face in the mirror, to reject reality. maybe you don't feel as damaged as you think others are, and well, that's your right. but can you say you're as satisfied as you could be? there's nothing missing? the battle, the adventure, the things that Eldredge claims we're wired for - you don't see those desires in your heart? as a gamer, it couldn't be more obvious to me that i long for those things.

and i guess what it comes down to is this - Tycho says that Eldredge suggests a 'template' for the right way to live. i guess you could call it that. maybe it is a way that works for some and not for others, and it happens to work for me. it doesn't claim to be that, though. the priorities in my life, the way i live, the things that are important to me, that 'template', is based on a model. that model, Jesus, claims that the 'template' works for everyone, that there isn't a single person on this planet that wouldn't be in a far better place following him, with their life bound to his. he says he's it, he's the one, and that everything else in this life is garbage compared to a life with him.

now that's a hard theory to test without actually trying it, to be honest. it's really an all-or-nothing decision. there's no beta, you can't test-drive or try an evaluation version. you jump in with both feet and never look back. well, that's really not true. you can look back. you do. but the other path, the alternative, the disaster my life would be without Jesus, makes me laugh to think i'd ever go back. thing is, a majority of people that 'sign up' don't ever see the full potential of their new life, kinda like getting a $5000 workstation for free and using it to play Solitaire. i like to think i'm making good use of my life, but none of us really do it justice. Jesus was the only one that did. we're not the 'template' - he is. he's got more to offer than any book or any set of ideas or morals, and it's better than any person can describe. but there is significant risk in handing the reins to someone else - the fear of that is usually what stops people.

that is, they say, the rub.