{"id":361,"date":"2014-10-25T15:48:10","date_gmt":"2014-10-25T20:48:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/visions-of-vocation\/?p=361"},"modified":"2014-10-20T15:51:23","modified_gmt":"2014-10-20T20:51:23","slug":"frail-people-that-we-are","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/visions-of-vocation\/2014\/10\/frail-people-that-we-are\/","title":{"rendered":"Frail people that we are"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

Originally posted at the Washington Institute for Faith, Vocation, and Culture<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

\"IMG_0138\"<\/a>I still remember feeling really sick. So I decided to call off my trip for the week, and just get in bed\u2014with \u201cDavid Copperfield\u201d by Charles Dickens.<\/span><\/p>\n

While I was feeling horrible, there was a pleasure in entering into the imaginative world of Dickens and his David. As I followed the story from his early sorrows, on through more heartaches and disappointments, I watched him grow from a boy to a young man. Slowly, slowly, he began to find his way. And then, sigh as I did, he married Dora, sweet young thing that she was\u2014and of course she didn\u2019t have much staying power, and died too early. There is much, much more to the wonderful story, but what I remember the next week, on my delayed trip, was feeling like everywhere I went I saw someone from the novel. There was Mr. Micawber, and over there was Uriah Heep, and then all of a sudden James Steerfoth came into the room, and of course, there was Betsey Trotwood too. They were all there, populating my world.<\/span><\/p>\n

Perhaps it was the first time I remember thinking about the argument, \u201cBad books lie. They lie most of all about the human condition.\u201d Walker Percy told his tales more than a hundred years after Dickens, but they saw the same reality\u2014and even better, wrote their stories knowing that it was true.<\/p>\n

This past week Meg and I have been watching the BBC version of \u201cBleak House,\u201d another Dickens novel. I find myself thinking the same thing. The stories he tells, the characters he introduces, are the world that I know. They are the people of my life, and I see them all day long.<\/p>\n

At the heart of the story is a long, complicated court case, one that has taken years to hear\u2014and of course, has cost a lot of money, \u201clawyers\u2019 fees and all.\u201d A fortune is at stake, and every Tom-Dick-and-Harry wants a piece of the pie. The novel offers this story through the characters of Richard and Ada, a young couple deeply in love, and even more deeply in love with their \u201cprospects.\u201d The best plans, the most sensible ideas, the wisest counsel, all are set aside for \u201ctheir prospects,\u201d for what someday might be. They don\u2019t choose to have a life; rather they spend their life imagining a life.<\/p>\n

Given who I am, and what I do, I see that. The twenty-something years are rife with temptations, and that is one of the worst. Finding the responsibility of life harder than imagined, we hope against hope that \u201cif only\u201d that would happen, or perhaps this\u2026. and miss what is honestly before us.<\/p>\n

I have lived my life for dreams of what might be, of what could be, of what someday will be. So there is nothing in me that disdains dreaming. But we have to be people who understand the holy tension of life, the place where hope meets history. We have to live in the world that is really there, the one with ordinary lives, and ordinary responsibilities. If we fail there, then who really cares what our dreams are?<\/p>\n

Dickens understood that. One of the best lines of \u201cDavid Copperfield\u201d comes when Dora is dying, and David is contemplating their sad, short life together, concluding, \u201cTrifles make the sum of life.\u201d I was caught by those words, and said them so often, Meg eventually cross-stitched them and framed her work for my birthday one year. It still hangs in our dining room, reminding us all of what is real and true and right\u2014and frail people that we are, we need to remember that that was not only true for David and Dora, but for us. Yes, frail people that we are.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Originally posted at the Washington Institute for Faith, Vocation, and Culture. I still remember feeling really sick. So I decided to call off my trip for the week, and just get in bed\u2014with \u201cDavid Copperfield\u201d by Charles Dickens. While I was feeling horrible, there was a pleasure in entering into the imaginative world of Dickens […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1734,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[62],"tags":[6,110,111],"class_list":["post-361","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-meaning","tag-calling","tag-dreams","tag-plans"],"yoast_head":"\nFrail people that we are<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Originally posted at the Washington Institute for Faith, Vocation, and Culture. I still remember feeling really sick. 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