In the film SHADOWLANDS, C.S. Lewis tells his flock of eager followers at a lecture near Oxford that “God Sculpts us with pain.” This was his primary answer to the many people who asked him why God allowed so much relentless suffering in the world. As the movie climaxes and his wife dies a slow, agonizing death from cancer, Lewis changes his mind and says (paraphrasing) “No, I think pain is just pain after all.” This brings me to the topic of whether or not God actually intervenes in the physical world, or are we sort of on our own?
I have been reading Robert Pirsig a lot lately. His writing, in its own beautiful, tortured, “classical and romantic” way – is as much of a Bible to me as those manipulated Scriptures they place in motel room dressers. For those of you not familiar with the fascinating life of the author of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance and Lila, this brilliant man with an IQ of 170 went to the edge of insanity and beyond and paid the price for it, as they performed electric shock therapy on him time and time again to completely erase his entire personality, Phaedrus – as he calls him now.
The world’s smartest person, from an IQ test perspective – is a woman named Marilyn Vos Savant. She has actually scored over 220 on the test. 220. It hard to grasp in terms of problem solving, analytical intelligence. She rejects certain parts of geometry as being unreliable. It never dawned on me to either reject or accept math. People write in to her from all over the world to ask questions. This would be mine: Would you like a beer? I mean that with a certain bit of humor but not really. I was going to ask her to tell me the secrets of our universe, but that may be too much even for her. I am of the belief that experience is more important than intelligence, even ideas. Ideas are wonderful and can shape or break the world. Mr. Pirsig had too many ideas as Phaedrus, particularly the concept of redefining QUALITY. This one idea literally pushed him over, away from his family, urinating on himself on the floor as the labeled him paranoid schizophrenic. To him at the time, he was on the brink of true revelation, discovering a new truth to share with the world. The world wasn’t so keen on the idea, and opted to shoot large amounts of electricity through his body. All that remains is Robert, with images and stories of who he used to be. Intelligence almost cost him his life.
Marilyn, the queen of the IQ test – we need your help. Please, come out from where you are hiding. Tell the politicians that the way of the Native Americans must come back – that we must use all of our technology that is good and combine it with a way of life that was murdered and with it, the murder of the Great Spirit. Please, Marilyn – they won’t believe it if I say it. But they might listen to the world’s smartest person. I’ll let Chief Ten Bears say it better than I ever could. From the Medicine Lodge council of 1867, this is a small part of what this Comanche Chief said to the assembled tribes and to Washington:
The White Man has the country which we loved and we only wish to wander on the prairie until we die. Any good thing you say to me shall not be forgotten. I shall carry it as near to my heart as my children and it shall be as often on my tongue as the name of the Great Spirit. I want no blood upon my land to stain the grass. I want it all clear and pure, and I wish it so, that all who go through among my people may find peace when they come in, and leave it when they go out.
Robert Pirsig and his late son, Chris – on one of their trips, before Phaedrus died.
There is no intelligence without compassion, humility, and one hell of a sense of humor. That is my quote for this day, and it is a good day to be alive.
