Deception and Disillusionment
Lisa
and I enjoyed a respite from Houston’s heat and humidity in mid-August after I
taped a couple shows for Focus on the Family (on the upcoming When to Walk
Away: Finding Freedom from Toxic People) and we drove out to Glenwood
Springs, Colorado for a few extra days.
Lisa’s
ideal vacation means five or six events a day, while my ideal vacation envisions
zero or one scheduled activities, so we usually compromise at four or five. On
our last day, after three very full days, Lisa figured we could fit in a “quick
walk” to go see Doc Holliday’s grave (after we picked up her morning
coffee at Deja Brew, of course). I had run thirteen miles the day before and
then went for a seventeen-mile bike ride with Lisa through Glenwood Canyon, but
a short walk sounded like a good way to stretch out some sore legs before driving
back to Denver and getting on a plane.
What
I didn’t realize until we arrived is that the sign we were walking toward
signified a trailhead; the actual grave, Lisa told me (after we got
there) was “one half a mile up the hill.” I hadn’t realized there was half a
mile or a hill, but now that we were there…
We
walked straight up to some wonderful views but my runner’s sense of distance
kicked in and I said, “this seems longer than half a mile.”
“Well,
it’s actually seven-tenths of a mile,” Lisa admitted.
“You
mean, you lied to me?”
She
put on her cute face. “I try not to.”
“How
do you try not to lie?”
“It’s
hard sometimes.”
I
laughed because after thirty-five years of marriage Lisa knew that the OCD part
of me wasn’t going to turn around until we got there. She had me and we kept
walking straight up.
When
we got to the top, the disillusionment set in. I’ll be honest—there was zero
draw for me to visit Doc Holliday’s grave to begin with. Holliday was a gambler
and dentist who became famous largely for a thirty-second gunfight at the O.K.
Corral. He died destitute and alone at the age of 36. Hollywood has kept his
legend alive (nearly three dozen actors have played him, and he was even
depicted in a Star Trek episode) but how can a gambler and failed
dentist who took part in a thirty-second gunfight be worthy of such remembrance?
Is that really a life to celebrate?
So
I was already skeptical when we finally got to the top of our climb and a sign
pointed left. What we came to, however, wasn’t a gravesite; it was a memorial
marker. Since Holliday died destitute, his grave was covered with a wooden
marker that had long since disintegrated. Cemetery records were lost in a fire
so nobody knows where Doc Holliday is actually buried. The monument says his
bones lie somewhere in the cemetery but even that’s a stretch; he could have
been buried in a nearby area called “the Potter’s Field,” so all they really
know for sure is that he is buried somewhere on the mountain where we
were standing.
Which
means, deception got me to a place that was a huge disappointment.
Just
like our end-of-vacation walk, much of life is built on deception and
disillusionment. What really matters in life and marriage, and what is truly
satisfying? If we don’t know the answers to these two questions, our families
will suffer accordingly.
I’ve
been reading William Law again and in convicting fashion he lays bare the folly
of most human endeavor. Law writes about how silly it would be, and how crazy
everyone would think this, if a man tired himself out, ignoring his family and
compromising his health, in order to say he died owning a thousand pairs of
boots-and-spurs. It’s almost funny—who needs a thousand pairs of
boots-and-spurs? Then he asks (which is where the conviction gets poured in)
how this is any different from someone who dies with a thousand pounds he or
she can no longer spend, and it’s not so funny; it’s painful.
This
is a world that tells us to value and pursue everything that doesn’t matter. It’s the great
deception. We’re deceived that there is something exciting and fulfilling at
the “top” if we’ll just keep climbing. The “top” could be wealth, fame, beauty,
health, excitement, pleasure, romance, or achievement. It must be
satisfying—everyone says it is—so we struggle through the climb to get ever
closer, avoiding a lot of other things, ruining or ignoring our relationships, only
to be radically disillusioned at the top when we realize it’s all an illusion.
Have
you ever asked yourself why the most famous people usually end up with the most
messed up lives of addiction, multiple failed marriages, and ruined health? They are the
few who have “won” the race everyone says matters, but at the finish line they
realize it’s not fulfilling and the race isn’t worth running, let alone
winning. There must be something more, so they turn to drugs or alcohol, or
another romantic tryst…
While
in Glenwood Springs, Lisa and I spent an early evening at the Iron Mountain Hot
Springs. In one pool, Lisa and I heard a group of women discussing an
astonishing number of medical options to keep women looking young. What they
did to their faces, injected into their bodies, paid to undergo treatments, and
the effort they spent investigating new options (“this is what all the
Kardashians are doing now,” one woman opined) was quite astonishing.
Lisa,
who is often mistaken for my daughter to begin with, asked me if I wished she
was more into that stuff. “What were you thinking listening to them?” she asked
when we got into another pool.
“All
I could think of was William Law’s admonition that women and men should earnestly
pursue humility, patience, generosity, faith, compassion, courage, kindness,
and forgiveness with the same intensity that those in the world pursue wealth,
fame, worldly achievement, and physical beauty.”
The deception is that looking like you’re twenty-five when you’re fifty, or
fifty when you’re seventy, is somehow worthy of more time and money and
attention than growing in Christlikeness whatever your age may be. It’s not
easy to employ self-denial and then to value the things of God more than the
things of this world, which is probably why so few of us ever walk that
path—even those of us who call ourselves Christians.
This
is why we have to beware of disillusionment: the empty promises of the world
never deliver. It’s like an infatuation that is so intense for a few
months but then mocks and taunts us as it fades.
Doc
Holliday is celebrated, but really, why should we care? Should we erect grave
memorials to the many modern-day gang members who have survived numerous
thirty second gunfights?
If
you spend your life pursuing things that don’t really matter; if you think a
successful life is defined by how much money you leave behind; how many people
you were able to sleep with; how many dresses you wore that received
compliments; how many shoes are in your closet, or how low your handicap was at
golf; when you die, will any of that matter? Will you look as silly as the man
who ignored his family and health to ensure he died with a thousand pairs of
boots-and-spurs?
Everyone of us is being lied to. I believe if we are not “seeking first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” as Jesus urges us to in Matthew 6:33, we are settling for a lesser life, a life based on deception that will result in disillusionment. When we see the glory of the Kingdom unfiltered, and the beauty of life when everyone lives in submission to God, we will ask ourselves, “How could I be enamored with any other world or any other way of life?”
The
Christian classics urge us toward a spiritual discipline called “the
remembrance of death.” John of the Cross, for example, lived with
skulls in his cell (and even fashioned one into a bowl) to remind himself of
where he was—and all of us are—headed. When we are on our deathbed, how will we
have wanted to live? Will we celebrate the sins we gave into or will we mourn
them? Will we regret the works of faith we did or will we be thankful for them?
Will we wish we had made better use of our time or will we be grateful for the
mindless entertainment and trivial conversation that took up so many of our
hours? (After this blogpost, we’re going to post two chapters of an excerpt
from my book Thirsting for God that covers this discipline, if you want
to read further in this area).
If
you want to avoid deception and disillusionment, base your life, marriage, and family
on truth and hope. Jesus is the only teacher who knew what life outside of
the space/time continuum that we call “earth” is like. The apostle Paul got a glimpse,
but Jesus could tell us what to expect and therefore what to live for in a way
no one else ever has or could. If we base our life on His agenda, seeking first
the Kingdom of God, we are following the only teacher who truly knew what He
was talking about, the very definition of “truth.”
If
you pursue a deception, you’ll eventually wake up disillusioned. Don’t blame
your marriage or your spouse for the disillusionment; just wake up to the
truth. Spiritual health is cultivated by regularly asking ourselves, every
day, “Is this true?” and “Is this pursuit important?”
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