Sweeter for the Waiting

There are some days when I want to break things. Punch things. Howl at the sky. Run for miles and not stop running. Fight until I can't stand up any longer. Those are the hardest days to stagnate.

I want to feel alive. To feel. To be part of something larger. To make a difference. But right now, there's a waiting period to get through.

And it feels so meaningless.

So needless.

Like I could be doing great things, making a difference

right

now.

But instead, I’m waiting.

Stagnating,

growing stale.

Like living in a cage.

Have you ever seen animals, wild animals, after they're first caught and caged? Their eyes. So frustrated, angry. Pent-up rage and ability. Not despair and not hope. Just eagerness, inborn desire, yearning for an opportunity to escape and live again.

And after a while, that look fades and hopelessness, resignedness takes its place. That, in essence, is what I am afraid of.

That I will have lived and learned and loved and died, without truly living.

Because life, true life, the life we were designed for, has purpose.

And my body cries out to fulfill that purpose.

But yet, I must wait. For a time.

But the end result, when the waiting is over and it's my turn to fight, it will be sweeter for the waiting.

May

I

Be

Ready.

May my sword be sharp, my quiver full, my nerves steeled and my heart ready. May the pureness of Him fill me until I cannot be tarnished by what this world has to offer. May this time of waiting be put to use.

In the words of one who's gone before,

"My banner will be clear."

Playing God or The Greater Good?

Stem cell research: a very sensitive subject. Is it wrong or right? Do the motives and benefits outweigh the cost? Are we “playing God” or saving lives with our research? I don’t claim to know, and, in many ways, I don’t think there is a black and white answer. It is a very difficult topic, but I will outline my own person views on the subject and the moralities behind them.

            First and foremost, I do not and will not ever support embryonic stem cell research. Life is precious and there is great reason that the Bible tells us “thou shalt not kill.”¹ While I do believe that there are specific instances in which it is permissible to take the life of another human being, this is absolutely not it.

            Secondly, I’m not sure where I stand on the use of adult stem cells for research. While this does not take a valuable life, it seems that it is still being used to “play God,” or in other words to manipulate mankind in ways God did not intend. I have concluded for the time being that, when being used to heal diseases of injuries, this type of research is personally acceptable to me. A good deal of this opinion rests in the known fact that adult stem cells have less plasticity than embryonic cells², making it more difficult to use them to “tweak” other things designed into the human body, such as gradual aging and death.

            God gave us all the technology we have for a purpose, and should we chose to use it for the wrong purposes, He chooses to give us that freedom. “The ultimate expression of love is freedom.”³ While, yes, He has given us all of our amazing medical technology, I do not believe that He gave this to us for the purposes we are using it for.  Tampering with things that God set in motion several thousand years ago in a way that does not bring Him glory is inherently sinful. Thus, attempting to remove “death” from the human life cycle or to create “enhanced” humans is wrong.

            I am of the mindset that tampering with human life for any other purpose than saving that life is an area probably best left alone. And regardless, it is certainly not an area to become comfortable in. This said, I recognize that there are other areas of research connected to this topic that I have not yet touched upon, such as invetro-fertilization, the practice of implanting a fertilized embryo into a woman’s body. I object to this because of the hundreds of thousands living embryos that are never permitted to reach adulthood, preserved for possible future use in scientific freezers across the globe.⁴ Adoption is perhaps a safer method with which to gain children, and has more blessings in the long run. God speaks over and over again of His love for the fatherless. They are the apple of His eye⁵ and one of the best ways we can show our love for Him is to love those dearest to Him.

A School Paper -- Mask of a Sociopath

“You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake.

You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else,

and we are all part of the same compost pile.”

 –Chuck Palahniuk, author and likely sociopath

            No conscience, no guilt, no social barriers, no desire to conform – the ability to do absolute anything at all, no matter how heinous a deed it is, and feel absolutely no remorse. Sound like someone you wouldn’t want to meet in a dark alley? Or to meet ever at all? But the truth of the matter is, there are hundreds of thousands of these people – stone cold, remorseless sociopaths – who walk among us every day. The statistics say that approximately 4% of our population consists of them. So who are the sociopaths in your world?

            After reading “The Sociopath Next Door,” by Dr. Martha Stout, I began my research for this book by trying to track down a few famous people who could perhaps fall under the label of having Antisocial Personality Disorder – not seeking to label, “box” or categorize them, but merely seeking to understand what goes on in their heads. You’ve already read the quote by Chuck Palahniuk above – he may or may not have Antisocial Personality Disorder, but the quote listed has a decidedly sociopathic flavor. I also delved into the lives of Ted Bundy, notorious serial killer, and Adolph Hitler.

            What is behind those so crudely labeled as “sociopaths”? What symptoms must they possess before psychiatrists can diagnose them as victims of Antisocial Personality Disorder? There are seven key symptoms (or symptom groupings) that Dr. Stout lists, and five or more of them must be found consistently in a person in order for them to be diagnosable as having Antisocial Personality Disorder.

• Deliberate failure or refusal to conform to social “norms” or standards – i.e., consistent disregard of laws and authority.
• Consistent deceitfulness – intentional lying, manipulation of others, and use of falsehoods to control situations.
• Impulsivity, recklessness, or lack of planning ahead.
• Overt aggression, anger or irritability, sometimes resulting in physical fights.
• Dangerous lack of safety precautions for self or others – recklessness.
• Lack of responsibility (or care for responsibilities), resulting in failures of obligations or at work.
• Lack of remorse for harm done to self or others, often rationalized coldly or “shrugged off.” A lack of caring, empathy or conscience.

In an attempt to better understand the concepts presented by Dr. Stout, I began an in-depth search into known cases involving those diagnosed with APD. They were chilling, graphic and incredibly “cold-blooded.” But as I searched, shivered and checked over my shoulder, I stumbled across something interesting – a blog by someone who claimed to be proudly sociopathic. He calls himself simply ZKMsocio, and devotes some of his time to blogging as a way to “rid (himself) of excess filth.” I read through his blog with a mix of fearful fascination and chilled horror. His comments allowed an interesting glimpse into the APD mind. A peek into one of his article yielded this: “The thing about me is I'm a thinker. I analyze everything and everyone. What they say what they wear and most importantly- what they don't say. I analyze what I say and its affect on a person or situation. One thing constantly mentioned in my blog is my use of conscious manipulation in social situations. Using all sorts of excess emotion and the expert ability to subtly express them Empaths manipulate each other constantly. The only difference between me and everyone else is I have to use different a different strategy. Just 'winging it' doesn't fly when you don't have the natural ability.” He goes on to say “Everyone's just playing their role in this ****** movie we call life. All the actors are cheesy and melodramatic. But hey, at least it's entertaining, right? What part do I play you say? Why, the director of course.”

Dr. Stout has a very secular view on the subject she presents, but the concepts she presents are fascinating. I have tried to “react” to them through presenting real life cases I have found and studied. She proposes that sociopaths (so she classes them, and so for the moment will I) are expert manipulators. ZKMsocio seems to agree wholeheartedly with her conclusion, as do I. Dr. Stout further proposes that sociopaths are often driven by a desire to have power over and control others overtly as well as subtly. ZKMsocio agrees to this as well, saying: “Controlling people is the only thing that gets me up in the morning. Everything I do is moulded around that goal. My choice of career, friends, activities- everything. What other motivator could there be to do something?”

Basically, Dr. Stout seems to be spot in each concept or point that she makes. I realize that I have quoted ZKMsocio quite a bit in this brief paper, but it is incredibly rattling to read something in the stolid pages of  “The Sociopath Next Door,” and at the end of it find real, living proofs of its truths in the world beside you. My hands are literally shaking and sweating as I type this, so shaken to the core am I by what I have found in the pages of ZKMsocio’s blog.

What do the concepts presented by the good Dr. Stout mean for our world? Not everything is as it seems, and there are some very dangerous people living alongside us. This disorder was caused by the Fall, and is only curable in Jesus Christ. Which leads me into a lot of questions about how sociopaths can be saved (does the Holy Spirit create a new conscience in them?), and why God allowed the disorder in the first place. This is not the best paper I have ever written, scholarly speaking, but there is more genuine feeling in it than I generally allow in a school paper. I am shaken, horrified, and downright afraid in strong part to what I have found in my research for this paper. You see, my uncle is a sociopath. This I knew already. And I don’t know how to reach out to him in the love of Christ without stepping into serious danger and trouble.

You asked for both feelings and thoughts in this paper. I provided both, perhaps to a stronger degree than desired. But this is a subject that matters strongly to me, and I hope you will understand.

Damn Masks

             “Psychopaths are vastly over-represented among criminals; it is estimated they make up about 20% of the inmates of most prisons. They commit over half of all violent crimes and are 3-4 times more likely to re-offend. They are almost entirely refractory to rehabilitation. These are not nice people. So how did they get that way? Is it an innate biological condition, a result of social experience, or an interaction between these factors? Longitudinal studies have shown that the personality traits associated with psychopathy are highly stable over time.  Psychopathy seems to be a lifelong trait, or combination of traits, which are heavily influenced by genes and hardly at all by social upbringing.” (Craig)

            As I delved deeper into the world (and diagnoses) of Antisocial Personality Disorder, the same theme continually reemerged, refusing to go unacknowledged – the lack of a conscience or “moral compass.” At first, I shoved this aside as an obvious part of the disorder – after all, it is one of the defining keys of the disorder. Then in it brought me up short. After all, what is a conscience? What is a moral compass? These were doctors using these terms, not the usual type of person you would expect to use a term tied to religion – a moral code, after all, implies both right and wrong, both of which must eventually lead to a god.

            I read (or rather, have not yet finished) a book entitled “What We Can’t Not Know,” by J. Budziszewski (Bud-ah-ches-ski), on how we are unable to escape the code of morality written within us. The author states that no matter who we are, or in what culture we live, there is the notion within us that some actions are better or worse than others – that we all have within us the ruthless drive of moral law and God-given conscience, whether we choose to deny the existence of the giver or not. (Budziszewski). I had not questioned that notion until now. Though the DSM-IV-TR does not directly state that those with Antisocial Personality Disorder have no conscience, the consensus of expert psychologists seems to murmur it in a low undertone. (DSM-IV-TR) Are the sociopaths of our world those who were born without that internal compass? Was Budziszewski wrong in his diagnosis of the moral code woven within us all, or do some of those in our world manage to lose that compass and create something new for themselves? It is a question that bears pondering.

            There are not many suggested treatments for those with Antisocial Personality Disorder, and even fewer with any rate of success. I attribute this partially to the nearly complete lack of interest that the people termed “sociopaths” have towards any form of treatment. I have gleaned many things of interest from the blogs of self-purported sociopaths, key here being that they see the disorder as something of a “super-power,” and disdain we the “empaths” for our lack of it.

            What treatments are there? There are two known sociopaths in my extended family, and the suspicion of another, so I’ve had ample opportunity to observe and ponder possibilities. When I asked my mother (sister to one of the above mentioned) about possible treatments unearthed in her research, her response was “a lobotomy.” You may gather from this that our family has been put through a lot from these two.

Icepicks aside, there are very few detectable symptoms of Antisocial Personality Disorder that can be found physiologically. Professor Adrian Raine of the University of South Carolina has unearthed some interesting potential clues heretofore unnoticed.

In a retrospective study, Raine and colleagues studied 101 50-year-olds, 17 of whom had antisocial behavior as adolescents but had stopped criminal behavior. Seventeen others with antisocial behavior as teens continued criminal activity into adulthood.

Those who desisted from criminal behavior had the higher electrodermal and cardiovascular arousal, while the group that continued the criminal behavior had low autonomic arousal. In psychoanalytic terms, he said, this suggests a physiologic marker for the presence or absence of a superego. “If you are anxious about doing something wrong or afraid of hurting someone, getting caught, or being the subject of parental disapproval, you would have a higher autonomic response,” he said. “Somebody who is physiologically different probably does not have that kind of anxiety in response to doing something criminal.” (Raine 25) However, he gives no suggestion for the treatment of said disorder.

It is difficult, to say the least, to offer help to anyone who does not wish to receive it. It is infinitely moreso to offer help to one who strongly believes that they are in no need of help and have no logical reason to submit themselves to it. Now imagine that the person that the person you are endeavoring to help has no internal conscience and may very well live to manipulate people. By standing firm in your desire to help this patient, you place yourself in potential harm’s way. Having taken this into account, Glen O. Gabbard, M.D., at APA’s 2003 Institute on Psychiatric Services in Boston suggests that the clinician immediately moves to correct the patient’s downplay of antisocial thought patterns and behaviors, taking immediate action to also tie external actions to internal states of being and mind, as well as internal states of mind to external surroundings and interactions. As with most personality disorders, there are frequently situational factors that worsen or increase certain behaviors and reactions.

Outside of Gabbard, I have found almost no one else with a possible solution to offer. Antisocial Personality Disorder is a strange and dangerous disorder to deal with. If fact, there is only one other mode of treatment I have found – one that I whole-heartedly promote, but would be laughed out of any medical school for.  This is prayer.

It sounds strange, foolish to some. But I honestly believe that the grace of God is the only true cure for sociopathy. The story of John Newton comes to mind here, and of the stories he told after his conversion, stories that fairly reek of an absent superego (in the words of Dr. Raine). The grace of God turned his life around and made him a new man with a powerful message and of great use to God. “I am not what I ought to be, I am not what I want to be, I am not what I hope to be in another world; but still I am not what I once used to be, and by the grace of God I am what I am.” 

I found another quote from ZKMsocio, the self-admitted sociopath and blogger. He has allowed me quite the glimpse into his unique mind through the elegant words put on paper. This from November of the year twenty-eleven. “I'll admit, I feel a bit lost. Not myself. A stranger in a strange mind. Two and two never quite equals four for a sociopath, but we sure can be damned convincing it's five. Morphing people into my reality is half of my survival.  Yet the further I spiral into this rabbit hole of self-delusion the more I have to question if my reality really is in my control at all.” He went on to say, “It's hard to write from behind a mask when it's begun clinging to your skin. I can't show you what's beneath when I can't pry the damn thing off.” He speaks of himself as a hollow shell of humanity and I feel pity within me. Is this what he wants? Mayhaps. But still, whether he cares to admit it or not, he was created in the image of God. Loving ZKMsocio and my uncles is not a safe thing to do – there is a good reason why I love these relatives of mine from an increasing distance – but it is something that must be done. There is only so much that Gabbard’s methods will accomplish, but God can soften the hardest heart and fill the emptiest vessel. So until Christ comes again, I wait, I watch, I hope and I pray.

Pain, the Problem of Evil and John Hick

            “Evil – whether it be an evil will, an instance of pain, or some disorder or decay in nature – has not been set there by God, but represents the distortion of something that is inherently valuable. . .  This understanding of evil as something negative means that it is not willed and created by God, but it does not mean (as some have supposed) that evil is unreal and can be disregarded. On the contrary, the first effect of this doctrine is to accentuate even more the question of the origin of evil.” –John Hick

            Brilliance and madness are often not far removed. This being said, philosopher John Hick (not to be confused with Sir John Richard Hicks, 1904-1989, British Economist. Or with John Charles Hicks, former American offensive lineman.) is an exception, though much of what he purports in his teachings of philosophy and theology I hesitate to fully embrace. The man is beyond intelligent, daring to wrestle with one of the most fearsome issue that man has ever dared to undertake – the problem of evil. Allow me to summarize this problem briefly with a quote from Hick: “If God is perfectly loving, he must wish to abolish evil, and if He is all-powerful, He must be able to abolish evil. But evil exists; therefrom God cannot be both omnipotent and perfectly loving.”

            Hick moves swiftly from there to the description of evil with which I began this paper. He is far more rational than to stoop to the argument that some have proposed – this being that “evil is all an illusion.” Instead, he chooses to break down the simplistic term “evil” into two further categories, these being “moral evil” and “non-moral evil.” To say moral evil is the same as to say wickedness. It denotes human depravity, while non-moral evil denotes the suffering and pain that go on around us. Moral evil requires some level of freedom to act on one’s own will – in order to commit an act of moral evil, one must also have the ability not to commit the act in question.  I pose a question of my own – is it possible for an all-powerful, all-knowing and all-present God to create beings with a free will? After all, for the God we are thinking of to exist, He must know all – past, future and present. Where, then, does this leave free will? There is the possibility that He sees all the ends of all the possible choices. But the forum for that discussion is within the classroom, or within the confines of another paper.

            Why does non-moral evil exist? What purpose does it serve? There was wonderful enthusiasm in the way Hick rose to his point as he expounded upon his beliefs in this arena. Here he hit home with me, and here I will leave, for a moment, his “beaten path” to share with you the benefits of this peculiar labor.

Pain is a gift. Admittedly, the gift that nobody wants. But a gift, none the less.

There is a rare disease called CIPA (Congenital Insensitivity to Pain with Anhydrosis). Those born with this disease have no ability to feel pain, whether it be car accident or paper cut. The first time I heard of this disease, I admit a longing for it. My desire was less for the escape of physical pain, and more for the escape from deep, searing psychological pain. I longed to be numb. Several years later, I stumbled across the disease again, this time within the pages of an exceptional book -- “The Rook,” by author Steven James. The character plagued by it spoke hauntingly of the death of his sister at the hand of the same disease, unable to feel the agonizing pain that the unnatural twisting of her spinal column in her sleep should have caused, she became paralytic and died soon afterwards. Too late, I realized the danger of numbness – physical and psychological. Now there is often the struggle to “feel” as normal people do, watching strong emotions and reactions in others and mimicking them as needed. Numbness can turn you into a master manipulator, the silent observer or the jovial fraud. It is difficult to have any sort of real relationship, difficult to even allow yourself to come back to gift of pain, knowing the distress it causes. So you fluctuate back and forth between the two, seeking to make a choice, knowing it will determine much about the rest of your life. Rather than “To be, or not to be,” it is “To be fragile, or not to feel.”

A friend had this to say on the subject: “In a weird way, pain is a gift. It allows us to feel what is wrong in a human way. A broken heart is supremely human. A dead heart is not.” From the numbness, I have begun to learn the beauty of pain. From the ashes of non-moral evil, Hick rose with the maturation of the human soul and a greater good out of decay.

Hick was quick to point out that this world, if created merely as a place for us to be “happy,” is a miserable failure. The same applies if this world were created to be “perfect” in the normal sense of the word – a world without harm, pain or loss. Hick moves from there with the grace of a dancing master into to true purpose of creation – perfection of a different, purer and deeper type. He embraces the Irenean philosophy, or the “soul-making defense,” which states that the purpose of creation was indeed perfection – specifically to allow souls to grow and mature from the image of God into the likeness of God through the things placed in this world. According to Hick, to be merely in the image of God is to have within you the ability to possess knowledge of God and a relationship with Him, which must be fulfilled through the progressing into the stage of “likeness of God.”

Herein is both Hick’s solution to the problem of evil, and his explanation for the gift of pain. Hick does hold God ultimately responsible for the non-moral evils of pain and suffering, but holds them up to us as something than may not be, in and of themselves, truly evil. He posits that they may be merely the gateway to a maturation of the soul and of a closer walk and harmony with God, that we may grow to become more like Him through the sufferings we endure.

"Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us."

Romans 5.1-5

Medical Marijuana

Medical marijuana; a touchy subject. Some are for the use of it, many others are against. Both sides have valid points and reasons behind their reasoning, and both sides have flaws. But who is right? And do the benefits outweigh the cost?

            "The evidence is overwhelming that marijuana can relieve certain types of pain, nausea, vomiting and other symptoms caused by such illnesses as multiple sclerosis, cancer and AIDS -- or by the harsh drugs sometimes used to treat them. And it can do so with remarkable safety. Indeed, marijuana is less toxic than many of the drugs that physicians prescribe every day," says the highly esteemed Dr. Jocelyn Elders, the former United States Service General. Her opinion seems to say that marijuana has merely acquired a very bad reputation due to the help of addicts throughout our world.

            But Dr. William Friest, an M.D. in his own right, has a very different opinion. He states, "Although I understand many believe marijuana is the most effective drug in combating their medical ailments, I would caution against this assumption due to the lack of consistent, repeatable scientific data available to prove marijuana's medical benefits. Based on current evidence, I believe that marijuana is a dangerous drug and that there are less dangerous medicines offering the same relief from pain and other medical symptoms."

            My own opinion lies somewhere between the two. While I am usually quite skeptical of people who choose the middle road, in this case I believe a compromise is not only acceptable, but also the more intelligent of the two choices. A Christian worldview states that our bodies are temples of the Most High God, and as such should be kept clean and unpolluted. Marijuana is  dangerous substance which should be treated with high respect and care. Thus I propose that, in all situations where licensed doctors deem it to be the more usable painkiller available, the drug should be administered by a practicing physician and signed off on by at least one of his colleagues.

            As always, we were given our bodies as temples of the Holy God to care for and maintain – they should be treated as such. The cases where marijuana is  used should be limited and observed carefully. We are not our own.