Self-denial is not very greatly recognized or practiced as a virtue in our society. Of course we hear all the time that certain habits or the consumption of certain foods may impair health, but the reason for self-denial in those cases, is plainly self-interest and relates to material wellbeing.
We exhort our children be careful about too much spending and not to become victims of the conspicuous consumption of our society but here, once again, the intention is not really moral or spiritual formation: it is to spare them the pain of subsequent debt -- the motive is practical.
The lives of many of us are passed in a gentle self-indulgence which would have shocked our predecessors, and which stands, incidentally, in dreadful contrast to the massive privations of existence in large parts of our world. Our culture now contains little or nothing which suggests that self-denial may be virtuous for its own sake, and the religious teaching which once considered it an important aspect of the spiritual life has largely been abandoned even in Christian circles. The gospel of prosperity reigns.
Many today regard themselves as entitled (the word of our decade!) to the good life. Rights, have a lot to do with it: the moral culture of rights, with with the catalogue of human rights at its center, is hardly likely to honor our personal privation, even when voluntarily entered into. Life today seems more and more arranged by social or economic or political need; it seems to be about not having what we want or deserve. Most of us would say that we want to be happy: freedom from illness, stable and secure relationships, personal comfort, and emotional satisfaction, for example. But what do they mean? What are the limits? I recently listened to an interview on NPR in which a woman argued that 10-year-olds should have the right to read books that showed different positions of the sex act!
It seems to me we live in a world in which expectations of our happiness are forever extending and where satisfaction is more and more illusory. On the other hand, to seek self-discipline in the small aspects of personal living is to cultivate moral and spiritual awareness of the need for the same quality in larger matters; self-denial becomes a precursor of wisdom, of learning how to live wisely, a life not based on wants or rights, but on appreciation and gratitude; doing without helps one appreciate what one has. What we need is not more but less. However, it is almost impossible to declare this in a culture which denies itself nothing.
Christianity has always recognized the truth of self-denial. Jesus told his followers to take up their cross; truth was achieved by arranging individual lives so that the manner in which a person lives assists spiritual understanding. The world is a place where lessons are to be learned; it is not an interlude of hedonism before everlasting bliss. What we become through the accumulation of spiritual discipline here is what endures for eternity.
Blessings,
Jeff
After a less than stellar first-run, The Shawshank Redemption has become a cult movie, certainly one of the most popular and beloved movies of the 1990’s. Yet many viewers have remained perplexed about the title, especially the reference to “redemption.” First of all, many people today don’t understand what the word means especially in a theological context; and secondly, who or what needs to be redeemed? And where does it show up in the film? Clearly, Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins) is the main character but he seems to be the one person in Shawshank Prison who needs redemption the least. In a harsh, hellish environment Andy remains, polite, calm, hopeful; he stands apart, almost above the fray, detached and enigmatic, a slight smile always on his face.
But something else is going on underneath Andy’s calm exterior; in the decades of imprisonment, in his own dark nights of the soul, comes a realization that he is guilty. He realizes that his own coldness, his aloofness -- insulated in his own self-contained world -- drove his young wife into the arms of another. While very much in love with his wife, he barely understood her, especially her emotional needs. So self-contained, content, and sealed-off was he that he had difficulty understanding need in others. And it is only then, after this pivotal recognition of his own culpability, his own very real guilt that Andy moves to escape.
And when he emerges from the sewer amid flashing light and pouring rain he raises his arms. He is exultant, clean and free. The success of the escape and the righting of wrong signifies absolution, a telling forgiveness from above (which is the Christian definition of redemption). Only after all of that is Andy suited for freedom, physically and spiritually.
But the process of “redemption” doesn’t end with his escape. There is more and it is beautiful. Putting what he has learned about himself, and life in general, Andy invites Red to come join him in Mexico when Red is released from Shawshank. This gesture constitutes the fullness of Andy’s redemption. He is ready to begin a mature relationship with another human being, which the picture makes clear is not confined to romance and marriage. In the remarkable closing sequence of the movie, as Red joins Andy on the Mexican beach, it suggests a mutual trust and delight in another -- which after all constitutes the very end for which people were created by God in the first place. The best thing to happen to Andy(and Red) is that one very thing that redemption is for.
