WE HEAR innumerable pleas for balance and symmetry. But like most other theories symmetry does not always perform all the wonders we expect, simply because we do not realize the rather unsymmetrical process by which symmetry comes to be. For life gets on by jerks and bounces quite as much as it does by the gliding process.
Bushnell said that a superior prose style "ought to have a good thumping motion," and not contain simply mild, sweet-sounding, and agreeable terms that have an even beat. John Fiske has spoken of the ordered way of nature that has cast such a spell over the average mind as to make it almost oblivious to the leaps and jolts for which she is preparing and the new enterprises upon which she sometimes embarks. And our own lives speak to us of greater things to come though not always in that way of regular unfolding upon which we have set our hearts.
A scientist prepared a long and carefully written discourse on the reasons why as a scholar he found it difficult to believe in immortality. But he concluded by saying that he did believe in it after all, though he admitted that in so doing he felt the awkwardness of his position. The reader goes unmoved through all the pages of his consistency, but just at that moment of the author's awkwardness he feels he is really beginning to get at something. He wishes that instead of closing the book there the writer would go on and produce another volume from this uncomfortable point of view.
The apostle Paul is the finest example of life that frankly and early accepted the principle of awkwardness as a vital and creative one. If he was convinced of a truth that was too great for language to express, he let go the language and grasped the truth. If a great liberating experience was coming upon him that was illogical in the light of his past experience, it was the past which he made to endure the embarrassment rather than the new joy.
Few minds pass in regular stages from the lower experience to the higher. There is most often a break, a cutting loose. At the very beginning Paul accepted the fact that he would have to stand again and again in what seemed a ridiculous position before the whole world if he were to attain to the high purpose God intended for him.
The modern man, if he is to achieve his plan for a better world will need Paul's frank doctrine of foolishness. All around us belief yearns for expression, but it is sup pressed simply because it cannot be voiced without some manifest inconsistency with one's habitual way of speaking. Many are weary of their skepticism about everything, yet they still keep it up because they have a record for that sort of thing. They move under the tyranny of what people expect of them. Inwardly many have long since departed from their negativeness, and they wish with all their hearts to come out with some cordial affirmation. An awkward thing to do, certainly.
The morbid dread of departing from a traditional position keeps many from speaking out their substantial agreement with some significant truth of which they have long since become convinced. Thus everywhere men who belong together are standing apart from one another. A little awkwardness would mend the rift.
The Captive Listener
Of another sort is the awkwardness of the person who is a captive listener to stories reflecting unfavorably on some minority group. At a dinner occasion to which a few members of a particular Southern congregation were invited some years ago, one woman known for her racial arrogance had such an anecdote to tell. A grotesque story, heavy with dialect, it appeared to have been put together solely as a means of ridiculing a minority group. Its glum disclosures were amusing in a wry and absurd way. As the story proceeded, the face of the hostess registered pain, others fidgeted. But when the tale was done, all laughed boisterously except for one man.
Turning to him, the storyteller said, "I see you are not laughing. Perhaps you don't like my sense of humor."
"To be frank," he replied, "I don't. I don't like the philosophy of it. I think it is unbecoming to a Christian to promote sentiments of this kind against other people."
Commenting afterward, he said that he knew that his words were not what politeness would have called for, but he knew also that by laughing his approval he would have lent his influence to this tortured point of view. When he remarked to the hostess upon leaving that he regretted the unpleasantness but felt he had to stand up for conscience, she replied that she too did not appreciate the story and was relieved that he had the courage to speak out.
The apostle Peter in his early days was apparently a strong racialist, a narrow nationalist who lived behind barriers of border and breed and birth. Then the experience of the years took him into a larger world, more ample than the Hebrew world. A new planet swung into his ken, the world of the Gentiles, and the larger world of humanity. That world could not be enclosed by old fences. So he discovered a larger vision; large enough to fit the expanding experience into which his Lord had brought him. The dimensions of this larger faith are recorded in his words: "Truly I perceive that God shows no partiality, but in every nation any one who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him" (Acts 10:34, R.S.V.).
The surest evidence for Christian belief is in the Christian believer. When Columbus returned to Spain from his first voyage, he had to prove he had reached another world. His crowning evidence was the new kind of people who returned with him, American Indians. The crowning evidence of Christianity is a new kind of people. But the realization of a changing attitude, the coming joy of a new kind of conduct, the touch of a new leading—all have embarrassments as well as profound delights. Which shall we make paramount? When such a problem confronts us, we can best serve our fellow men by choosing that course which will bring us the greatest joy, rather than the one which will give our friends the same satisfaction of still finding us consistent. Symmetry may become an awful delusion and a very pure form of selfishness, unless it is seasoned every now and again with generous dashes of clumsiness.
It is especially true that some such door as this is the only way out of a cold heart and cramped affections. There are homes and there are friendships just on the point of bursting out into greater love, if only we knew how to let them. But we have gone on a long time in a different way, and it is hard to say the first word which betrays the new prompting. Our friends may not know what to make of it if we suddenly exhibit a new spirit that is really a part of us. Perhaps they will say to themselves, "It is not like him," which is just what a Christian life ought frequently to give others occasion to say.
There are tendernesses that have been a long time mounting up within us which no one suspects, and forgiveness which we are always on the point of granting. We must do something about them and after all, the best way and about the only way is by being a little awkward and blurting it out.
The church cannot discharge its debt to its immediate community by sending missionaries to the South Sea Islands, to India, to Africa, or to any other distant point on the globe. And it cannot fulfill its mission by anonymous contributions to charitable projects in the domestic sphere. The obligation to the community must be met in a personal way, right at home, perhaps through these awkward contacts for Bible studies, branch Sabbath schools, and Vacation Bible Schools. No matter what else we do or how well we do it, this one obligation ought not to be left undone.
This debt to the community cannot be discharged simply by the erection of a house of worship, the appointment of hours for worship. The injunction of Jesus was not only to preach the gospel but also to go and carry the glad tidings of salvation to those who would not of themselves come to hear. How to get people who are by choice not affiliated with a church is of course part of our awkwardness.
When sorrow, sickness, or death enters the home of a neighbor, the faithful Christian living nearby is sure to know of it, and through the awkward sentence or two by which he conveys sympathy he registers an impression; he makes an impact for his faith that would have been otherwise very difficult to do.
The Awkward Superintendent
To one church there came early in the year a little girl ten years old who wished to be baptized. When questioned she told briefly of her Christian experience and her desire to unite with the church. The Sabbath school superintendent was especially interested in how the little one would deport herself, so he talked with her. Her answers were eminently satisfactory, and to none more so than the gentleman who had accompanied the child. Turning to him, the superintendent said, "And what are you doing here?"
"Why," the man smiled, "this is my little girl."
"Do you think this is a wise step for her to take?"
"Oh, yes," he replied. "We at home are fully satisfied that Lillian is a changed girl, and we are glad to have her join the church."
The superintendent then said, "If it is good for the child, how about the father? And what sort of help is she going to get at home?"
"Well," he said, "I have been thinking about that."
And the result of these awkward, embarrassing questions was that a little later the mother and father and an older sister all came into the church.
There certainly is something to be said for making the unusual contact, speaking the embarrassing phrase, and standing awkwardly by while the effect of our words is determined. Many people will enjoy everlasting bliss because someone was willing to be thought a bit awkward, a trifle clumsy, a little inconsistent, perhaps unbalanced, for the sake of his fellow men and his God.
