BLOG. 2.27.13: “HOLLOW MEN” … OR, AUTHENTIC HUMAN BEINGS?

BLOG 2/27/13: “THE HOLLOW MEN” … OR, AUTHENTIC HUMAN BEINGS?

OK, so maybe I’m just an incurable contrarian, … but my response to the academy awards, as well as to the morning talk shows on the networks (and their ilk) is that they are just so very sad. The celebrity cult, what with expensive designer sets and clothes, with forced good humor, painted faces and painted smiles … all of which hide so much behind that artificiality.

But that’s not the world I live in. It is a fantasy world. It is an empty world. It is in all reality a very sad world. Those celebrities, out of the spotlight, seem never to be a peace with themselves. Is that unfair of me? It reminds me of T. S. Eliot’s poem: “The Hollow Men” of a half century, and more, ago:

We are hollow men

We are stuffed men

Leaning together

Headpiece filled with straw. Alas!

Our dried voices, when

We whisper together

Are quiet and meaningless

As wind in dry grass

Or rats’ feet over broken glass

In our dry cellar

Shape without form, shade without colour,

Paralysed force, gesture without motion;

Those who have crossed

With direct eyes, to death’s other Kingdom

Remember us—if at all—not as lost

Violent souls, but only

As hollow men

The stuffed men.

In my real world the people I want to be around (and the person I want to be) are those authentic human beings, whose lives are so genuine and free and transparent … that they don’t need to try to be other than what they are. I can remember those dear folk in all of the distressing economic and social inequities of our southern mill village, whose lives (both black folk and white folk) were those at peace with themselves, who were the incarnation of true love, generosity, kindness, listen-ability, and meaning. Their very modest homes were places of hospitality and utter unselfishness. Their tables were places of good conversation and ministry. And they didn’t need to try to be important, or seek power, or be in the limelight. They could operate quietly out of sight, and yet others loved to be near them.

Jesus didn’t come to create hollow men, or plastic saints. No, Jesus came to create men and women in his likeness, who are contagiously, and in all humility, the incarnation of meaning, of loving relationships, of hope, … to make them authentic as his own self-effacing servants, as the sons and daughters of the living God, out of whose lives flow rivers of living water—authentic humanity, and his glory.

About rthenderson

Sixty years a pastor-teacher within the Presbyterian Church. Author of several books, the latest of which are a trilogy on missional ecclesiology: ENCHANTED COMMUNITY: JOURNEY INTO THE MYSTERY OF THE CHURCH, then, REFOUNDING THE CHURCH FROM THE UNDERSIDE, then THE CHURCH AND THE RELENTLESS DARKNESS. Previous to this trilogy was A DOOR OF HOPE: SPIRITUAL CONFLICT IN PASTORAL MINISTRY, and SUBVERSIVE JESUS, RADICAL FAITH. I am a native of West Palm Beach, Florida, a graduate of Davidson College, then of Columbia and Westminster Theological Seminaries.
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