"Of Lions and Lambs" - On Life's Contradictions

Homer was more realistic, that "wolves and lambs have no concord." Well, we know why, but notice that lambs just picked up another enemy in the wolf. Of course, lions come out best, as "kings of the jungle" and models for maleness, especially the warrior. An Arab proverb declares that even "Death is afraid of one who has the heart of a lion."

A biblical vision uses the wolf to forge an unusual utopian image with a lamb, that the two would "dwell" together in an age of peace. The month of March is said to "come in" like a lion, and "go out" like a lamb, and, indeed, March is given to gusty winds that diminish into April's warmer showers and the arrival of Spring. Of all months, April is more the lamb.

At the heart of all these images are seeming contradictions, as are day and night, life and death, and so on. The Eastern concept of yin and yang is life as best understood by its opposites: we value more the light when we experience the dark, as during the inconvenience of electrical blackouts; and we know better the value of love when we experience hate or are treated hatefully.

LIVING WITH CONTRADICTIONS
Even human nature seems in conflict with itself. Pascal called us, "…a novelty!…a monster…a contradiction. Judge of all things (though) a feeble earthworm, depository of truth (but) a sink of uncertainty and error, the glory and shame of the universe." Gee, thanks, Blaise; we needed that reminder. Indeed, we are fated to live with contradictions, though we don't like them; to deny them is deny reality. John Gay of long ago (d. 1732) said "When we risk no contradiction, it prompts the tongue to deal in fiction." Santayanna, with great cynicism, said, "The world is a perpetual caricature of itself; at every moment…the mockery and contradiction of what it is pretending to be." Dostoevsky called even beauty a "terrible thing… because it has not been fathomed, (and) God gives us nothing but riddles (where) all contradictions exist side by side."

So much of religion denies life's contradictions. When tragedy occurs, people often say it is a matter of "god's will." Salvation and resurrection are viewed as waking up after death as if nothing had happened. Consoling as this may seem to survivors, the harm to the psyche is real. It is in facing, not denying, reality that makes us stronger emotionally and religiously. Religion solely as a comfort that denies loss and bereavement, weakens the fabric of our soul-strength.

PHILOSOPHY AND COMMON SENSE
Fascination with contradictions and opposites goes back a long way. From the get-go, I had a lot of trouble with math, but I noticed that mathematicians had a happy occupation: coming up with, or hearing about, new and interesting theorems--and proving them. Philosophers aren't like that: they like to refute what each other think. You can guess who has the most friends, and my money is on mathematicians: if like to be argumentative, or show up other people, don't look for many party invitations.

But philosophers gave us logic, the purpose of which, in its earlier days, was to argue with common sense. For example: the notion that reality is one thing only, not two or many, and is eternal, continuous and unchanging: that was one of the first common sense ideas. And when someone denied that, logic came into being, and it got real interesting when one philosopher might first agree with another, then declare his notion absurd, and why.

It really got nasty over the idea of gods, and Plato offered "proof" that gods exist-but it wasn't what everybody expected. Common sense said gods must exist because most people believe in them. Plato said even were everyone to believe in gods, that were not "proof" because everybody can be wrong. He said their existence was based on the idea of Motion, of which he named ten kinds, and that each motion had a soul and each soul was a god. But this idea totally lacked sex appeal, and was ignored by everyone, including philosophers. But they all had a good time arguing with each other, because that's what they do.

WHY LOGIC ISN'T FOR EVERYBODY
But logic isn't for everybody. The average mind really doesn't like to think very much. The mass of humanity uses very little of its brains; luckily, there are a few people who use a lot of theirs. When my first course in Logic started out with the idea that a "simple" affirmation and its simple denial are considered "contradictories," and one has to be true and the other has to be false, I thought, hey, I'm looking at a real career, here. But when they went on to say that universal affirmations and their denials are "contraries" and cannot both be true-but their respective contradictories can be true, I said, okay; we're done here--and religion became more of an option for me; after all, any cockeyed notion can be called a religion, and we're all supposed to be tolerant of it, even though it may be quite, well, absurd. And there's your first clue why a lot of religion doesn't help the world very much. Too much of it has no logic at all, and worse, doesn't even make much sense.

DEALING WITH CONTRADICTIONS
But contradictions never go away. We have to deal with them almost daily. And the way we look at the world has a lot to do it. We see lions and lambs everywhere. Sometimes the lions are the world's tyrants, politically tearing apart and terrorizing the vulnerable lambs of the poor and oppressed, even their political opponents. And tyrants don't like change.

The notion that nothing really changes, or that change isn't good, allowed for things like caste systems, and the belief that it is virtuous and good to stay right where you are, avoid complaining, and accept your fate. This is related to the old idea that reality is unchanging and continuous. Thankfully, Hegel saw that the struggle between contradictions is what makes for progress, what he called "dialectic."

Now, you and I are used to the idea of change. We believe in it. We believe that we, or anybody and anything, in the world, can change. That is the basis also of social justice and social action. But that has not always been popular, and those who are threatened by change because it may take away some of their power, privilege, and wealth don't believe that change is good. But they have a vested reason for thinking so, and they know change can happen, so they oppose it and the dialectic goes on-a struggle out of which comes a new synthesis.

RELIGION & CONTRADICTIONS
Sometimes, the lion is a natural disaster, like a tsunami, and anyone in its way is a lamb for the slaughter: helpless, vulnerable, victims. And due to a tsunami in recent memory, we are reminded of the differences in religious thinking, because it was a part of the world comprised both of Buddhists and Christians. When such disasters occur, people often turn to religion to answer the inevitable questions: Why did this happen? and What should we do about it? One is a "meaning" question and the other an "action" question.

Some Christians believe in a single, all-powerful god that made all of this and wants nothing but good for the world and the people in it. But it raises a contradiction: Why did God let this happen, and how does it fit into the Big Plan? And the questions get a tad testy too, as in, how can this evil come from a world made by a "good" god?-especially from people who expect the world to stay the same, with only minor inconveniences; that is, who believe that reality is unchanging. That this notion still survives in a country as highly developed as ours, is the real miracle of our religion.

President Lincoln struggled with this: after the second battle of Bull Run, his Attorney General said Lincoln was "…almost ready to hang himself." In his own words, Lincoln mused that both sides in the war may be wrong, and one surely is-that's how he explained to himself the contradiction of that war. He reasoned that, "God cannot be for and against the same thing at the same time;" therefore God's purpose must be different from what both sides were fighting for. In his worst moments he thought that "God will(ed)" the war, because if God wanted to, "He could give the final victory to either side any day. Yet," said Lincoln, "(the war continues)."

KARMA AND SUFFERING
It is instructive to see the attitude of the Buddhist towards the tragedy of the tsunami. As we know, the Buddha did not consider the question of "god" to be important; what was important was people and their suffering. If the Buddha was not an atheist, he surely was an agnostic. His worldview was one of constant change, and of karma, the law of cause and effect, and how karma affects suffering. Instead of praying, one meditates on the cause, or karma, of events. Since the world always is changing and will change, what we do can affect the outcome.

A great example of that teaching is in the Baghavad-Gita. The Gita takes place on a vast battlefield, a metaphor for the battle of the soul or spirit. Before the conflict begins the hero, in his chariot, looks around at the immense armies gathered on each side and is horrified to see that among both of them are family, relatives and dear friends. He realizes the horror of the situation and wants to call off the war. But beside him is the driver of his chariot, the god Krishna, who informs him: you can't do that; everything you and they have done before has brought you to this moment. And you have no choice but to fulfill that destiny and suffer the consequences. The rest of the tale is a dialogue on karma and how to change the future by changing its causes.

Whatever we may think of the UN and its effectiveness or lack thereof, it is an attempt to change the karma of nations, so that their disagreements are not merely endless conflicts but a dialectic of discussion, of mutual hearing and, hopefully, of resolutions that may be to the relative satisfaction of all.

THE GREAT CONTRADICTION: YES & NO
So, after the tsunami, Buddhists reflected on it the way they would any kind of suffering. They know we cannot fathom the complexity of the world, or have all the answers, but it is important to try. I would say that one element of karma important to natural disasters, is science. Again, not many people dedicate their lives to understanding how the world works, and how natural disasters may be understood, predicted and protected against. But such people are as religious as any, regardless if they claim a religion or not--certainly more religious than people who use catastrophe to proselytize for their own faith. And, again, one's world-view has much to do with that. So one kind of faith acknowledges a world of lions and lambs; another sees them as a contradiction that violates their notion of a perfect world.

Perhaps the most important contradiction is that of Yes and No. Another theory in logic holds that certain contradictions actually are on the same continuum, like beginning and end. We use rings to honor relationships like friendship, love, marriage and other bonds. The ring is a circle and symbolizes eternity. But where is its beginning and where is its end? When water is hot or cold, even to the extreme, as its temperature lessens or increases, is it not already becoming the other thing even while still in its prior state?

We see life as Yes, and death as No. And we often see even life challenges as No; but so many people, through courage, determination and optimism turn the No to Yes; turn tragedy and defeat into personal victories. There are countless examples of this, and I am amazed at all of them: those whose families have histories of cancer that they turn into life learning and closer bonds; those who insist that they are not "confined" to a wheelchair, that the chair instead has freed them to be in society again; and others who say they do not "have" to wear a prosthesis, but choose to do so, to embrace it as the power to walk again. When we think of these courageous people who say Yes to life, all the more should be churches' courage to make faith and worship more accessible to them as the power to be among us with the ease and comfort that we enjoy-to add our Yes to their Yes. How can congregations do otherwise?

I think of the Amish, who are considered the most inspiring people of last year for their "incredible Christian forgiveness, charity and love" after a neighbor shot 10 of their little girls in their own schoolhouse. One of the victims offered to be shot first in hopes of saving the other lives; and later, the Amish brought food and comfort to the killer's family before coming together to help each other through their grief. I think also of another beautiful child, five year-old Kai Harriott, hereafter without ability to walk as a victim of street violence, but in a Boston courtroom last April, looked straight at the man who fired the bullet and said, "What you done to me was wrong, but I still forgive (you)." And the remarkable Truth & Reconciliation commission in South Africa, where the cruel perpetrators of apartheit were promised: if you face the families of your victims, in the presence of the community, and tell them what you did, we will forgive you, and punish you no further.

Can we embrace life's contradictions; struggle against things as they are, especially when they are wrong or limiting; and believe in the possibilities of good change? Only in a perfect world are there no contradictions; only in a perfect world do the lion and the lamb lie down together. And the world is not yet perfect.

Terry C. Muck is the scholar of Buddhist-Christian Studies referred to. His "Karmic Event: Buddhists and the Tsunami" appeared in Christian Century 22 Feb 2005.

On Lincoln's struggle with the causes and perpetuation of the Civil War: Ronald C. White, author of The Eloquent President: A Portrait of Lincoln Through His Words.