Lower Wisdom

Like all good poems, the Pogues “Tuesday Morning” is derived from a Biblical theme. In this case, from my favorite Psalm. Psalm 13 says:

How long, O LORD ? Will you forget me forever?
How long will you hide your face from me?

How long must I wrestle with my thoughts
and every day have sorrow in my heart?
How long will my enemy triumph over me?

Look on me and answer, O LORD my God.
Give light to my eyes, or I will sleep in death;

my enemy will say, “I have overcome him,”
and my foes will rejoice when I fall.

But I trust in your unfailing love;
my heart rejoices in your salvation.

I will sing to the LORD,
for he has been good to me.

This Psalm unifies many of the most important Bible passages. I won’t enumerate the relevant passages, but Psalm 13 often comes to mind when I see people speculating about God’s justice or love. People want to know if God really loves everyone? How can you tell who is saved and who is not? “If He doesn’t save my apostate boyfriend, he’s a monster!” People wonder how God could take out the wrath that was due to us against an innocent Jesus. People ask themselves whether something is good because God loves it, or God loves it because it is good.

The punishment for such speculation is that people start applying the same absurdly reductionist paranoia to their human relationships. Your mother doesn’t really love you; she’s just obeying her selfish biological imperative. Did your girlfriend love you because you loved her first? Who selected whom? What attributes caused her to love you? What attributes should you praise in her so that she believes that you love her?

It’s insanity. It’s an insanity like psychosis, where the sufferer is incapable of even realizing that there’s a world different from his diseased fantasy world.