The Tree of Life

Sorrow is knowledge: They who know the most must mourn the deepest o'er the fatal truth, the Tree of Knowledge is not that of Life. ~ Lord Byron 

Klimt's "Tree of Life" 

Truly we live in the age of information. The amount of people who have jobs in data or analysing data astounds me. The number of statistics or the sheer fact that people have spent time collecting certain kinds of data amazes and overwhelms me a lot of the time. Sometimes data and information are helpful, life-changing and saving even. Sometimes I think it just overwhelms us and causes fear, or is skewed and not interpreted in healthy ways.

You see, information is amoral... it's not good or evil... it waits to be used and interpreted for good or evil ends. It's great that the same types of arguments are used about guns. Sometimes twitter and facebook can feel like machine guns and grenades, and while it's easy to scoff it off, it's much more difficult to scoff at the number of student suicides from cyber-bullying.

I'm not the first person to argue that the anger that words and information can produce are the true weapons of mass destruction in our world today. The emotional and psychological damage, as well as the lack of development in our social and emotional psyches caused by constantly arguing and feeling that we're in a state of conflict is completely unhealthy.

I will be the first person to admit that I like to win an argument. I like feeling smart, and not just feeling smart, but smarter than other people. As I've gotten older, however, I've tried to use my intelligence for benevolent purposes and not to be an asshole. I've also gotten several healthy doses of "actually there are lots of smart people" and been amazingly and rightly humbled in my own opinion of my intelligence.

Still, I love learning and reading and taking classes--classes in anything from pottery to astrophysics. I love reading poetry, history, theology, and steampunk novels. I just love to learn.

But while I make reading lists for myself and daydream about degrees I'm going to one day get and certifications (everything from first aid to rock climbing to Victorian literature), life might be passing me by. I have to ask myself if I am, as Whitman wrote "contributing a verse" to life's play or merely watching and commenting on the sidelines?
As King Solomon said:

"And I applied my mind to know wisdom and to know madness and folly. I perceived that this also is but a chasing after wind. For in much wisdom is much vexation, and those who increase knowledge increase sorrow." Eccesiastes 1:17-18

It truly seems that the more information we have access to, the more anxiety-ridden our society becomes. We do know better, or we think we do, so we stress and snap and fight and argue and we pull our soap boxes over to our friend's tables unwanted. Love and understanding seems to exist less and less as we all get "smarter" and "more-informed".

Bill Johnson, in a blaze of political fury kindly spoke "Step back and decide how important your opinions are verses the people you claim to love." He was, I believe speaking in the spirit of Saint Paul to the Corinthians:

So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God. Give no offence to Jews or to Greeks or to the church of God, just as I try to please everyone in everything I do, not seeking my own advantage, but that of many, so that they may be saved. 1 Cor.10:31-33 

I don't think he meant that everything is ok and we don't need to be offended by anything and that we have to be ok with everything. For in 9: 22 he says again "I have become all things to all people, so that I might by any means save some."

I believe he's trying to say that he's going to try to see things from their perspective. He's going to give things a go their way and love them where they are so that he has a better chance of showing them God's love. Love is, after all, the most "the most excellent way" 1 Cor 12:31. As Plato so amazingly said, "Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a difficult battle." 

So just as in the Garden of Eden, on a daily basis, sometimes moment to moment, I find myself between two trees in a lush Garden... The Tree of Knowledge with all of it's prestige tempts me with it's luscious fruit, and the Tree of Life, with it's fruit of the Spirit, the Tree of Life, who is Jesus, my Lord, who lures me to him gently and with grace and truth and forgiveness and justice shows me the path of love when I would choose anger and fear. 

It feels so freeing to not have to be angry all the time, to not have to judge people, to not have to feel so conflicted. I just have to love people and listen and try to do my best. I don't have to have all the answers. I don't have to be the authority. I don't have to be right, I just have to love, which is always most excellent.