Rights and Gifts
Words framing ideas framing life...
This week I’m stepping into the mess. Purposely and with full knowledge of what might come in return. I think it’s important, sometimes at least, to get into the mess and see if there is anything that can be made of it. So here we go…
I saw a statement a few days ago that got me thinking about language. We live in a time in which the underlying trust which allows language to function as a productive form of communication has been taken for granted (at the least) or outright dismantled (at the worst). The statement was on twitter – a platform of statements. Here, I purposely follow people from many different traditions of belief, thought, and action. As I was scrolling, an image caught my attention. It had the words, “The first right is the right to life,” on it.
I’m going to go slowly here as I attempt to work out my thinking on this.
First, I know what the poster was trying to say. The anti-abortion message is clear. That is not what caught my attention. The thing that got me thinking was the framing. Life is a right. The framing of life as a right is interesting as it puts life in the same category as other rights – free speech, bearing arms, and voting for example. Although, notably in the American context at least, life is considered an unalienable right – something worth differentiating from other rights that are then, by definition, alienable. The framing also sets up whatever dialogue one may have around this topic as something that must happen in the political sphere – the place in which rights are debated, codified, and ultimately enshrined in law. Maybe that’s necessary. But I think it is equally necessary to take a look at what looking at life as right, and nothing else, might assume.
Looking at life (or anything else for that matter) only as a right brings along with it a number of assumptions or axioms – things that must be true in order for the idea “life is a right” to be true at the exclusion of or preeminence to anything else. Here are a few that come to my mind. If life is a right then life is given by the same person or entity that grants any other right. If life is a right then life may be taken away by the same person or entity that limits any other right. If life is a right then the power over life is found in the same person or entity that has power over any other right. If life is a right then life can’t really be anything else, if the same person or entity that has power over rights has power over life.
Is there something else?
There may be another way of looking at life that reconciles the legal needs of the law, in the matter of this case, with the more transcendent realities of existence. Here are a few different things to try on as possibilities:
Life is a statistical anomaly.
Life is a miracle.
Life is a gift.
I’m going to look at all three of these statements, but my thoughts are circling around the third, so I’ll spend most of my time there.
Life is a statistical anomaly
This first statement centers the numerous variables that must align in just the right way for life to happen. In language that is not spiritual at all, the statement highlights the idea that life is not guaranteed, nor should it be taken for granted. So much must happen for life to begin, let alone for life to continue. This seems like a solid perspective of the uniqueness of life, but impersonal on its own. Here, life is but a game of chance.
Life is a miracle
This second statement centers the more spiritual or unseen forces that some (like me) may believe are at work to align the many variables needed for the sake of life. There are many writers much more adept at defining miracles – C.S. Lewis has a whole book on the subject. I will just say that miracles don’t only account for the things we can’t explain, they are the language we have to accommodate a disposition of awe and wonder. Isn’t life a wonder? If we were to stop and really think about it, life is beyond comprehension. All the hurt, all the joy, all the struggle, all the generosity – wonder. It somehow never allows itself to come to a simple explanation. No, life is full of things that make us stop and think. Some would say that’s the whole point. I might say that that is just the beginning. A disposition of awe and wonder of life, especially on account of it being incomprehensible, just begins to scratch the surface of what miracles we might be able to experience.
Life is gift
This third statement does a few things differently than the first two. It has to do with context. The first statement contextualizes life in the world of probability. The second statement, in the general spiritual realm. This third statement contextualizes life in the context of personal relationship. To have a gift you must have two parties – a giver and a receiver. The giver of the gift gives the gift, and the receiver receives it. In the context of relationship, there is the possibility for all the things that only relationship allows. Things like anger and pain, gratitude and love, fracture and reconciliation, and offense and redemption.
Life is not always an easy road. For some, life may not seem like a gift at all. Instead, they might see it as a cruel joke. Still others, with what might look like very hard lives, are able to carry a kind of deep joy with them. The framing of life as a gift is purposely challenging. In the best of moments and the hardest ones, framing life as a gift gives rise to deeper questions. These questions might include the following:
Who is the giver?
How might I complain about this so-called gift?
What kind of person are they?
To what end would they give such a gift?
How might I express gratitude for this gift?
These are all good questions, and important to seek (and ultimately find) answers to. The answers to these deeper questions are actually the thinking upon which the rest of this exploration is built. Imagine a world in which the giver of life is impersonal. Imagine one in which the giver of life is personal and a tyrant. Imagine a world in which there is no giver of life, just spontaneous happenings. Of course, these ideas are at work in our world today, and produce many different kinds of results in the people and communities that hold, grapple with, or act upon them.
For the follower of Jesus, the giver of life is God, and our ideas of who God is, are probably the most important ideas to inquire about. When we are set before the face of God, who do we see? We might read that God is love, but have not really ever experienced that. We may not have interacted with the world as if that were true. What would we do differently if our bones believed that God was love, as opposed to only right or powerful, mean or vengeful, or even true or faithful?
How could we come to a life with God, if we don’t even like him?
In my own journey it took a really hard time to come to terms with the fact that I had some fairly distorted views about God. I thought they were correct, and acted on them, and my life showed for it. Thankfully, I was given the time and space to begin to rethink things, and things changed. It was quite amazing how that worked. Even a small shift, something that started with sincere seeking – an honest inventory of where I was and what I thought, and turned into a new idea to be acted upon, did wonders. Sometimes it is encounters that make us stop and think, and change. Sometimes it’s a gift.
Want to go deeper? I’ve launched a companion newsletter to The Notes, entitled Asking the Questions. Here I’ll be sharing more specific questions that I’ve found helpful on the theme of that week’s note – exclusively with paying subscribers.