A second letter that’s actually written to you, not C.S. Lewis

Dear Mr. Lewis:

As I stated in my last post, I’m reading your amazing “Letters to Malcolm”.  Today I wanted to focus on a passage that I am just awed by.  I don’t have any disagreements here.  I don’t even have to much in the way of questions.  It’s worth noticing, though, that you were so amazingly ahead of your time.  Folks like Irwin McManus and John Eldridge, and countless others have reacted to the stereotype that being in Christ means we lose our individually.  Well before these guys were born, you had some pretty amazing things to say about this subject.  As you know, on page 10, you write:

“It takes all sorts to make a world– or a church.   This may be even truer of a church.  If grace perfects nature it must expand all our natures into the full richness of the diversity which God intended when He made them, and Heaven will display far more variety than Hell.”

Maybe my favorite part of that passage is the last part: heaven will display far more variety than Hell.  It’s so radical to claim that.  I think we all spend our lives thinking that Evil is so much more interesting than Good.  I wonder if this is because we think to be Good is to follow the rules and to be Evil is to ignore them.  It almost goes without saying that there are many more ways to break a rule than to follow it.

I wonder if the reason for your disagreement with this ordinary understanding is based in the early part of the quote.  What if being Good isn’t so much about following the rules as it is in discovering who we were meant to be?  Who we were meant to be won’t be rule breakers– (atleast, not breakers of God’s rules.)  So following the important rules certainly will be accomplished, but that’s such a small point along the way, the following of the rules.  We could have so much more. 

I hope I’m not being anachronistic here, and projecting todays values on to your thoughts from decades ago.  If I’ve got it wrong I hope you, or somebody else will help me get it right.

Yours in Christ,

Jeff, a wanna-be inkling.

 

A letter that only appears to be adressed to C.S. Lewis

Dear Mr. Lewis:

I have to tell you that I’m challenged, fascinated, and perhaps even a bit convicted by a passage in your book “Letters to Malcolm.”  I’ll recopy the passage here so you don’t have to dig up your original copies.  (Actually, I guess Malcolm has your original copies.)  This is what you wrote on pages 3-4

“It looks as if they (clergy) believed people can be lured to go to church by incessant brightenings, lightenings, lengthenings, abridgements, simplifications, and complications of service.  And it is probably true that a new, keen vicar will usually be able to form within his parish a minority who are in favour of the innovations.  The majority, I believe, never are.  Those who remain– many give up churchgoing altogether– merely endure.

Is this simply because the majority are hide-bound?  I think not.  They have a good reason for their conservatism.  Novelty, simply as such, can have only an entertainment value.  And they don’t go to church to be entertained.  They go to use the service, or, if you prefer, to enact it.  Every service is a structure of acts and words through which we recieve a sacrament, or supplicate, or adore.  And it enables us to do these thing best– if you like it “works” best– when, through long familairit, we don’t have to think about it.  As long as you notice, and have to count, the steps, you are not yet dancing but only learning to dance.  A good shoes is a shoe you don’t notice.  Good reading becomes possible when you need not consciously think about eyes, or light, or print, or spelling.  The perfect church service would be one we were almost unaware of; our attention would have been on God.”

Mr. Lewis, I’m afraid maybe I’m being defensive here, but I wonder if I can object, debate, and question a few of your points here.  If they weren’t so persuasive I wouldn’t be so captivated by them, so I hope you can see this as a sort-of flattery. 

As you may or may not know, in the year 2008, there a huge array of options for woshippers.  Lightened services, brightened services, shortened services, lengthened services, traditional ones, post modern ones, etc.  I totally hear what you’re saying about the idea that these should be a lense and not the picture, that these should not be our focus.  And your observation that this is about worship and not entertainment is huge.

But here’s the thing, Mr. Lewis.  Some of these services and practices speak to my every day life experiences.  Putting on a suit to go to church would just be like a kid playing dress up.  It’d be fake and false.  I could pretend, Mr. Lewis, that I’m moved by organ music.  But the thing is, I’m not. 

I think it’s a fair enough point to worry about trivializing worship and turning the whole thing into a dog and pony show.  But I have to tell you, I’d notice a service a lot more, not a lot less, if it didn’t speak to my life experience.  I’m considering what you’re saying around the idea that change just draws attention to the service and away from God.

But I’m wondering something, Mr. Lewis.  I mean this as an open question, not a rhetorical one.  I’m a pretty new Christian who attends a church that’s not afraid to shake up its order of service, so maybe my image on this is all wrong.  But the thing I’m wondering about is this:

Doesn’t doing the same thing, in the same order, in the same way, for years and years, doesn’t this lead to going about worship on autopilot?  Is the risk of empty ritual any smaller than the risk of focusing on the service rather than the object of our devotion?

Mr. Lewis, if you’re not in a condition to answer, I wonder if maybe somebody else might chime in with their own thoughts.

Sincerely,

Jeff, a wanna-be inkling.

Wow.

So the little box over to the right says that there have been 9,996 viewers to this blog.  I know that there are people out there who get that many viewers in like a week.  (Maybe in a day, who knows.)

But I still find that amazing.  And actually, a little bit wierd.

So if you’re somebody who stops by to check out what’s happening at “Jeff’s deep thoughts” Thanks.  If you’re one of those lurkers who comes and never leaves a comment, it’s a great opportunity to do so. 

A commentary on “At the Wall”

I’m in an exceptionally pompous mood.  And that’s saying a lot.  I not only worked my name into my blog title.  I also added the implication that I’m full of deep thoughts.  So be forewarned.

 here I posted a poem recently.  To be honest, it’s one I’m quite proud of.

Poetry is a funny thing.  People tend to be afraid of it.  Somebody has remarked that poetry is the only art form that seems to have more people making it than actually watching it.  (I think that person didn’t know about blogging.  Or atleast didn’t consider blogging an art.)

At any rate, because the creation of this poem is still fresh in my brain, and because I want to do what I can to spread my love of poetry, and because I’m pompous, I thought I’d run through what I was thinking and why I wrote it how I did.

Even I wouldn’t be so arrogant as to say that this is the only way to read and think about poetry.  But it is one way… so here goes.  (Before I begin a brief commercial message: Billy Collins’ Introduction to Poetry is a brief poem with some really staggering insights about how to read poetry.)

So for the remainder of this post I’ll put my poem in quotes.  After every few lines I’ll comment on them.

“They have gathered before this wall,

It was a nondescript wall.

In the art wing.”

 

In the first verse, w’s started popping up.  Especially at the end word of each line.  A 3 line verse gave the little snap shot I wanted to; and brief stanzas that have an odd number of lines give a sense of unsettledness, to me: I wanted to establish the idea that this was a place in transition, recently made strange.

 

“Half a world away

They are gathered by a wall”

One of the guiding ideas in this poem was juxtaposing the wailing wall in Jerusalem with the impromptu wall that was created at the school.  I wanted an easy way to discriminate between which wall they were reading about.  I settled on using italics and 2-line stanzas.  2 line stanzas feel more complete than 3 line stanzas, and on a pragmatic level, I needed these to be shorter because I simply have less to say about the wailing wall than I do the high school wall.  I was conscious of mantain the alliteration of the “w’s” through this stanza.  (I wouldn’t say that I was actuallty conscious of trying to continue it, but I was pleased when it occured.  I think I must subconsciously shoot for devices such as alliteration, sometimes.)

 

 ”Now there is a piece of paper.

And an old coffee can

Into which a box of fresh, new markers was placed.”

 

The old coffee can and the new markers really struck me.  I think this is a return to the new/old; settled/unsettled contrast I’m setting up between the walls.

 

“There was God’s dwelling

And now it is all rubble except for this.”

I was clear that the first italicized stanza could leave some doubt in even informed readers minds.  I wanted to make it more clear, and I wanted to establish the sense of tragedy and loss: the wailing wall is all that remains of the second temple.  It’s a tragic thing.

 

“Squares and trapezoids of print

In the unlikely, bright colors

Have been blossoming on the page all day.”

 

The above verse might be my least favorite.  The actual paper was quite striking visually, all these bright, contrasting shapes on white.  I don’t know that I really caught how simply interesting it was to look at.

 

“Much is revieled by what it is you’d like to call this place:

Kotel;The  Wailing Wall; or Waqf Abu  Madiyans”

During my brief research in preperation for this poem I was struck by the fact that there are 2 english names, a Hebrew name, and an Arabic name for this place.  This struck me as fitting, almost symbolic, for the mutli-ethnic, confused nature of Israel itself.

 

“At the top,

In purple

It says “This is what we remember.” “

 

Much like stanza 2, I was clear that I hadn’t been fully clear about what the other wall was all about.  I figured this made it pretty clear it was a memorial to a student. 

 

“If they do not rend their garments they say

That which they have been told to say:”

I found that the assumption is that Jews will rend their garments at the ruins of the temple.  I was captivated by the saying, which occurs later, which they say if they choose not to rip their clothing.  In the verse above, I wanted to lay the ground work for this amazing piece of found poetry.

 

“They have gathered before this wall.

In groups of twos and threes and fours.

They are crying, some of them.”

 

The little community that the wall created was the catalyst for this poem.  I finally began describing it here.  I was going for an understated effect, here.  Knowing that the next verse wouyld be so flowerly and powerful.

 

“Our Holy Temple which was our glory,

 in which our forefathers praised You was burned…

 

Frustratingly, the whole saying did not fit into the 2 line stanza.  I decided to mantain the structure I’d set up and split the saying across a couple verses.

 

“They are holding

Each other and they are rubbing backs

And crying, some of them.”

 

I wanted to capture how affectionate and physcial but not sexual the kids were.  I also hadn’t really paid much attention to sound in several stanzas, and I wanted to emphasize the tears the kids shed, and so I echoes the idea that some were crying.  I also thought about the way it makes it clearly that I’m understating, to use that phrase “some of them” twice… in a way it’s like if you say “some” twice, you kind-of mean almost all of them.

 

“and all of our delights

 were destroyed.”

 

The good news about breaking the traditional saying up, and leaving just this little piece for the next stanza is that the small lines and small stanzas gives the words lots of emphasis and power.  I also liked that the end word of the 2 lines were heavy in the “d”s (A bit like the “w’s above.)

 

They are holding

Hands and leaning into each other

And looking up at the paper.

 

 

 

 

Some of them are crying and some of them with

Prayers, rolled up small and tight on scraps of paper

I knew at some point I wanted to begin to bring the narratives together.  Here, I create a few paralells.  Paper, and renewed echo that some of them are crying. 

They seem to know

An instinct, perhaps, a hidden signal.

When it is time.

I wanted to bring the American wall closer to the wailing wall by invoking the air of the sacred.  One of the things that works in this poem, I think the American narrative gets boring right when the Israeli one gets interesting, so I mantain some tension.

 

They place them in the cracks

Of what remains of the wall

 

Solemnly, ritualistically,

They approach the paper.

And they add whatever it is they had to add.

These last two stanzas just continue to bring the narratives together.

 

They walk away leaving there prayers behind them

Is there a symbolism here?

 

It is song lyrics for some of them.

It is a love letter for some of them.

It is a long, rambling attempt at constructing meaning.

Again, both of the above could have applied to either wall.

 

It is a long

Rambling attempt at constructing meaning.

 

Plattitude and sincerity

Rub elbows like the jock and the goth here

Rub elbows like the messages from those  who did and did not know her.

Though I lost generality above I wanted to focus on the idea that the American wall become larger than just the girl it was about.  There was an important distinction in the mourners, but both those who did and did not know her were there.  I also liked the musicality of “jock and goth” and “those who did and did not know her”

 

In my dreams I approached the wall.  I wrote:

 “Our Holy Temple, which was our glory,

was burned and all our delights were destroyed.”

I realized early on that the final stanza would be a union of the conciets I’d adopted for the different narratives: it’s 3 lines like the American narrative, but italicized like the Israeli narrative.  Ending it with that complete saying that I found so powerful seemed like the way to go.  I wonder if it’s clear that I treat  the girl who killed herself as a symbolic temple. 

Wow!  What a clunky, self-indulgent, ugly little beast this turned into.  Makes me thankful for the purity and ambiguity of poetry left unanalyzed.  

In the shadow of loss

Saturday night a student at the high school I teach at killed herself.  I hope you’ll join me in praying for the whole school community as we struggle to understand this action.  I didn’t know the young girl.  It’s funny how actions of people you’ve never met can end up impacting you.

The school has this really amazing response to this sort of event.  They put this big giant sheet of paper (do they still call it butcher paper) up along the wall.  At the top, in large letters, are the words “What we remember.” Kids are allowed, even welcomed, to not only write memories, thoughts, feelings up on the paper.  And more than that, they stay there for a little while… sometimes a long while.

I was moved by the scene.  Kids crying, trying to laugh, kids holding hands, hugging.  If you work with adolescents, you know that sexuality just drips off of everything they do, think, and say.  Yet in this place, it was like the hormones just got turned off.  I saw them holding each other close, rubbing each others backs, just there, fully physically present, but it wasn’t like there was some PG-13 rating to the whole deal.

It was almost holy.  I guess that these things strip away our pretenses and anhilate the insignifcant.  They burn away our delusions about things that seemed so important just a few days before.

What it reminded me of, as much as anything, is what I know about the wailing wall, the last remnants of the second temple in Jerusalem.  I tried to express all these ideas in the poem you can find here.  I wanted to express these ideas in prose, though, too, because I know that people can sometimes tune out poetry, and this was just so powerful, and holy, and sad… I wanted to share it.

The messages ran the gamut.  There was the cliched, and sentiments that felt rehashed and rehearsed.  There was the brutally raw.  Their was profound observations, and there was ramblings that just didn’t make any sense.  There was incredible stuff, sweet and kind and tender.  

But the piece of paper… it was just a piece of paper.  And the things were written on it, they were just writing.  For me, this was sort-of a decoy, almost an amazing, wonderful, Godly bait-and-switch.

This community was created in the shadow of the loss.  That was the point.  That was the amazing part, that was what the kids needed, and that’s what they got. 

At the wall

They have gathered before this wall,

It was a nondescript wall.

In the art wing.

 

Half a world away

They are gathered by a wall

 

Now there is a piece of paper.

And an old coffee can

Into which a box of fresh, new markers was placed.

 

There was God’s dwelling

And now it is all rubble except for this.

 

Squares and trapezoids of print

In the unlikely, bright colors

Have been blossoming on the page all day.

 

Much is revieled by what it is you’d like to call this place:

Kotel;The  Wailing Wall; or Waqf Abu  Madiyans

 

At the top,

In purple

It says “This is what we remember.”

 

If they do not rend their garments they say

That which they have been told to say:

 

They have gathered before this wall.

In groups of twos and threes and fours.

They are crying, some of them.

 

“Our Holy Temple which was our glory,

 in which our forefathers praised You was burned…

 

They are holding

Each other and they are rubbing backs

And crying, some of them.

 

and all of our delights

 were destroyed.”

 

They are holding

Hands and leaning into each other

And looking up at the paper.

 

Some of them are crying and some of them with

Prayers, rolled up small and tight on scraps of paper

 

They seem to know

An instinct, perhaps, a hidden signal.

When it is time.

 

They place them in the cracks

Of what remains of the wall

 

Solemnly, ritualistically,

They approach the paper.

And they add whatever it is they had to add.

 

They walk away leaving there prayers behind them

Is there a symbolism here?

 

It is song lyrics for some of them.

It is a love letter for some of them.

It is a long, rambling attempt at constructing meaning.

 

It is a long

Rambling attempt at constructing meaning.

 

Plattitude and sincerity

Rub elbows like the jock and the goth here

Rub elbows like the messages from those  who did and did not know her.

 

In my dreams I approached the wall.  I wrote:

 “Our Holy Temple, which was our glory,

was burned and all our delights were destroyed.”

What books shaped you?

I was wasting ti- uhm, I mean, I was surfing the net, and came across somebody who asked the question “What books shaped your view of the world?” (I’m not sure that was his exact question.  But I like the wording) When I say “world” I don’t mean just Earth, of course; I mean reality, existence, etc.

So: What books shaped your world?

And I’m just going to call you a show-off ninny if you name the bible.  We’ll assume that goes with out saying if you’re a Christian.  However, if you’ve got a favorite book of the bible, I guess we’ll call that permissible.

Maybe I’ll post mine in a future post.

 

Getting out some iron shapening tools

I guess I’m looking for a bit of a debate.  But at this point I’m not grinding an axe so much as trying to get where folks are coming from.

The things that’s on my mind is psychiatric medications.

It seems like particularly in Christian circles, there’s this distrust or disbelief in them.  I disagree that in principle psychiatric medications are a bad idea.  I agree that the way we implement them is problematic and that their use is much more of an art than a science.  But the way we implement them is really an indictiment of the way we do health care as a whole.  And the fact that they are more of an art than a science is equally true of lots of things in the medical field.

So here are my questions:

#1) How do you feel about the idea of psychiatric medications in principle?

#2) How do you feel about them in practice?

#3) Do you agree that behavior, mood, feeling, and perceptions have atleast part of a root in the brain (as opposed to the mind)… In other words, do you agree that our thoughts are atleast partly rooted in the body? 

#4) Should we pray more for certain types of healing than other types?  For example, why do people pray that God will take Bipolar disorder or Cancer from them but not pray that God would take away their need to wear glasses?

I realize that these questions might sound argumentative, but at this point, I’m just trying to get where the other side is coming from. 

On Toons and Hypocrisy

 

Like virtually any corporate giant, Disney is a controversial organization. I’d like to focus today on a Disney Creation that I haven’t seen too much focus on: Toontown.

Toontown is an online game/environment thingy. It’s one of these websites where players from all over the world interact, sort of like Web Kinz starring Mickey Mouse. Toontown, however, features a narrative, an over arching mission for players to engage in.

As I was watching my kids play and asking questions about the world of Toontown, quite an interesting (and hypocritical!) message emerged, hiding underneath the story.

 

At first glance, there’s nothing wrong with the message implied in the game. In broad strokes, it‘s archetypal. Arguably, the framework for this story is lifted right out of Genesis itself.

In the time before the game begins, toon town was this happy, colorful place. Like Eden, maybe., except that they use jellybeans as currency.

Something went wrong. The perfection became corrupted. The town was invaded. Buildings began to be taken over. These were robbed of their colors and turned into places that made more of the “bad guys.” The players are called to resist the invasion, to find new, joyful ways to combat the evils of the invaders, reclaim their land, repell the invaders.

So far, so good.

 But let’s explore the invaders a little bit. Collectively, they are called cogs. The cogs are made up of variety of types. These include telemarketers, micromanagers, head hunters, ambulance chasers, and yes men. The cogs use weapons such as rolodex, fountain pens, and brain storms against the players.

In short: the villian of the game is corporate America.

The idea is that Corporate America is coming like a virus to rob the joy, color, and life from the world.

This is emphasized by the terms of the battles which go on. The players lose battles with the cogs when they run out of happiness before there gags (thrown pies, squirting flowers, etc.) cause the opponents to explode.

A player who is defeated in battle is sad. He is returned to the playground, and rather creepily, can’t leave until he’s happy. (There’s probably a whole post alone in the subtext of a utopia based on the happiness police enforcing the joy  but I’ll save that for another time.)

The thing is, I can’t say that I completely disagree with this subtext. But it seems like the height of hypocrisy for Disney to be espousing this view. It seems like using a billboard to advertise for the “Billboards are evil” Campaign.

Without the real yes-men, micrmoanagers, and ambulance chasers in Disney’s employ, Toon Town never would have been created. I can see three possible objections to this critique: #1) Maybe Toon Town is created b y maverics who are trying to take the giant down from within #2) Corporate America owns the platform; anti-corporate voices have to use the platform in order to get their message out.

Obviosuly, if I thought that if any of these objections were valid I wouldn’t have written this. And I want to be clear. I just intend this post as food for thought. I’m not saying that we ought to boycott Disney. I haven’t even banned my kids from the game. But I have discussed it with them.

At any rate, I can imagine somebody pointing out that Disney has a long history of subversive artists working from inside the corporate structure. We all know how those wacky cartoonist snuck dirty parts into Disney movies. The argument might be made that maybe this Toontown’s subversiveness (is that a word?  Maybve it’s subversion )is for a better cause.

The problem with this argument is that corporate America has infected the arhitecture of the game itself. The basic version of the game is played for free. But my kids quite frequently remind me that all the cool stuff on the game is members-only. You have to fork over some cash if you want to access a variety of functions that make you a better player.

Bottom line: You have to send an enomorous corporation even more money if you want to be effective at fighing the imaginary, symbolic forces of Corporation within the game. If there are in fact maverics trying to subvert the corporation from within, they have been outmaneuvered by the cogs.

A slightly different objection to my post is that if anybody wants to critique corporations, they have to use the corporations to do it. The idea is probably half way true. For example, Shane Clairborne writes against consumer culture. He realizes he’s a part of that system he opposes when he sells his books to a publisher.  Which will then chop down trees to print his book and try to convince everybody that they need more stuff.   Or consider a quite a different example: George Lucas utilized the motion picture industry. And yet the message in the more recent Star Wars trilogy is quite anti-industry in a variety of respects.

There are distinctions between Clairborne and Lucas on the one hand and Toontown on the other: reasons that it’s more valid for somebody like Lucas or Clairborne to say that they need the corporation’s platform in order to denounce the corporations.  The reasons why this excuse doesn’t work for Toontown follows:

A) It’s clear that Lucas’ and Clairborne’s vision began in one person who actually atleast partially wanted to bring about change through their vision. This is not clear about Toontown.

B) Clairborne turned his profits over to his community.

C) Lucas sought to create new companies which didn’t inherit all the evils of the current system.

D) Clairborne recognized the difficulties with his position; he named the elephant in the room.

Is Toontown the most evil force in the world? No, of course not. But it is presents a world view that is radically oversimplified and quite hypocritically delivered. It’s easy to miss that, though, if we’re not paying attention.

This post was submitted to Watercooller Wednesdays, a cultural blog carnival over at Ethos, Randy Elrod’s blog.

Forcefully Advancing

I’ve been wondering all day about whether or not I’m going to post this.  The reasons I almost didn’t is because I think that it’d be easy to assume I’m either bragging or feeling sorry for myself.

I can’t fully deny the latter charge.  I hope you’ll take my word for it that the former– bragging– truly isn’t what is on my heart.

I am sore.  Beat down physically sore.  My back is stiff and hurting.  Over the last two and a half years of dealing with this messed up back, I’ve developed a calf problem as a result of walking funny.  My calf too is quite painful.  I hurt quite often.  I am really sick of it.

I originally got hurt breaking up a fight in the behaviorally disordered class I taught.  Two kids were going to jump a third.  I don’t actually remember making the decision to get between them.  I remember the stuff before that decision quite vividly.  I remember the time after equally vividly.  But I want to be really clear about the whole not-bragging thing: I don’t deserve any credit because I didn’t make a decision.  And even if I had, I’m not 100% sure it would have been the right decision.

The kids were tough adolescents.  They probably would have been fine if I’d not gotten involved.  But me?  I’ve paid quite a price in a lot of different ways.  I spent three weeks on disabality.  It’s probably not an exageration to say that I haven’t gone a single week, in over two years, without feeling the results of this decision physically.  On a couple occasions I’ve had pretty creepy flashback to the trauma of being in the middle of that fight.    At the end of that school year my contract was not renewed at the school I taught at.  I’d been warned of this by people who knew the system better than me: the school would not want me around, I was a legal liabality.  Family members who were less niave than me encouraged me to get copies of my personal file.  I didn’t do that.

And truthfully, in the time since this injury, I could have (probably should have) sought out more medical help.  I should get rid of my bone headed doctor and find somebody who’s going to work with me.  I should invest time in more physical therapy.  I should get in better shape.   What I’m trying to say is that I’m not just an innocent victim here.  I’ve made mistakes.  And God has taken care of me.  There are so many people who I could have never made it through that time if they hadn’t been around.  God put those people in my life, and he worked through them.

But I’m not the only one who made mistakes and bares some blame in that whole ugly affair.  The guy who was my classroom aide, he behaved thoroughly ineptly at the time.  The administrators behaved imorraly after.  The kids caused the fight.  But I don’t believe that any of those people are baring any of the wieght of this event.  Most probably hardly even remember it.

Me, and my family, we pay the price every day for this event.  There are times when this gets me angry.  There are days that this doesn’t seem fair.  One of the reasons I’m posting about this, though, is to share one of the things that has encouraged me through all this.

At the time when I could barely sit through a church service because I was in so much pain there was a sermon that the pain meds prevented me from really hearing.  But some friends summarized it later.  It was around Mark 11:12 “12From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has been forcefully advancing, and forceful men lay hold of it.”

Usually, that verse is taken to express how powerful Heaven is, how irresitible God’s work is.  But the people who shared this with me shared the observation from the sermon that this disregards the full context of why Jesus said it.  John the Baptist was improsoned, and presumably discouraged.  Previously he expressed no doubts about Jesus identify.  But his followers go to Jesus, looking for assurance.  The verse above is what Jesus says in an attempt to help John through his trials.

Taken in context, the verse seems to be a warning “It’s not all sweetness and light.  The act of bringing about the kingdom is a violent event.   Sometimes the crap hits the fan.”

These good friends shared that they’d thought of me as they heard this.  Nobody things I’m John the Baptist.  But I was suffering.  And I was trying to do the right thing.  And it didn’t feel very fair.  It still doesn’t.

But I’m trying to keep my chin up.  And realizing that it’s going to get ugly sometimes helps.