In her 1982 essay, "Living Like Weasels," Annie Dillard emphasizes the value of living instinctively, of pursuing one's life purpose with staid determination. She argues that life is best lived in the moment, forgetting all that surrounds you and embracing your time here with passion. One of her illustrations is a powerful one. She tells of a man who shot an eagle, only to find a weasel skull attached to its neck.The eagle apparently had taken hold of the weasel, which then instinctively turned for survival to bite into the eagle's neck.
Important to Dillard's essay is the contrast she strikes between mindlessness and consciousness, between living in "necessity"-- in spontaneous commitment to present circumstance with no regard for one's surroundings-- and living in choice, fully aware of the consequences of one's actions. It is a theme she lays down both here and as part of a memoir she penned five years later, called An American Childhood.
It is enticing to think about what one's life would look like if it was lived in complete instinct, and many of us regret the actions we never took to fulfill some dream or desire. Indeed, there is a longing in each of us to become that person we know were meant to be, a longing Dillard expresses by emphasizing the life of a weasel. At the same time, it is important to draw a distinction between an unabashed commitment to a life purpose, which represents this longing in Dillard, and a simply carnal response to one's passions. Like the rest of nature, humanity underwent a scarring of the worst kind when we violated God's law at Eden, one which left us more conscious of ourselves but which bound us perennially to the corruption we see so evident in this world.
It is easy to believe that one's heart, one's intuition, is a trustworthy guide to what is good and right; and while this can be true in many cases, given our continued awareness that some things are right and others are wrong, we are at the same time ridden with sometimes-imperfect motives, some of which are not always visible to us. In short, our hearts can be deceptive.
This is not to say that we should live under a shadow of uncertainty and doubt, which I believe is a common pitfall into which many Christians fall. Indeed, one of the reasons some of us welcome so readily the idea of following one's heart is that we are weighed down by our own guilt, filled with anxiety that our actions have led us inevitably to disfavor with God. We would never say so outright, but we live as though our actions fall on one or another side of a moral scale. One side represents our good actions, and the other represents our bad ones. If we can only outweigh the bad with the good, we will be right with God. We do not deceive ourselves without reason, however. Indeed, such a belief that we can outweigh bad with good gives us license to commit "bad" actions when we believe we have merited enough of God's favor with "good" ones. In the long run, though, there is little left in this lifestyle but guilt.
Importantly, it is often our hearts that express this guilt to us, not our minds. Indeed, any Christian with even a cursory familiarity with God's message would tell you that such a lifestyle is one of the main reasons Christ came to die. We cannot outweigh the bad with the good. When our actions alone are placed on this scale, it will always tip toward the bad. When Christ's sacrifice is included, it will always and infinitely tip toward the good, our own actions failing to register.
It is easy to misconstrue Dillard's meaning, then. Listen to her words here:
Important to Dillard's essay is the contrast she strikes between mindlessness and consciousness, between living in "necessity"-- in spontaneous commitment to present circumstance with no regard for one's surroundings-- and living in choice, fully aware of the consequences of one's actions. It is a theme she lays down both here and as part of a memoir she penned five years later, called An American Childhood.
It is enticing to think about what one's life would look like if it was lived in complete instinct, and many of us regret the actions we never took to fulfill some dream or desire. Indeed, there is a longing in each of us to become that person we know were meant to be, a longing Dillard expresses by emphasizing the life of a weasel. At the same time, it is important to draw a distinction between an unabashed commitment to a life purpose, which represents this longing in Dillard, and a simply carnal response to one's passions. Like the rest of nature, humanity underwent a scarring of the worst kind when we violated God's law at Eden, one which left us more conscious of ourselves but which bound us perennially to the corruption we see so evident in this world.
It is easy to believe that one's heart, one's intuition, is a trustworthy guide to what is good and right; and while this can be true in many cases, given our continued awareness that some things are right and others are wrong, we are at the same time ridden with sometimes-imperfect motives, some of which are not always visible to us. In short, our hearts can be deceptive.
This is not to say that we should live under a shadow of uncertainty and doubt, which I believe is a common pitfall into which many Christians fall. Indeed, one of the reasons some of us welcome so readily the idea of following one's heart is that we are weighed down by our own guilt, filled with anxiety that our actions have led us inevitably to disfavor with God. We would never say so outright, but we live as though our actions fall on one or another side of a moral scale. One side represents our good actions, and the other represents our bad ones. If we can only outweigh the bad with the good, we will be right with God. We do not deceive ourselves without reason, however. Indeed, such a belief that we can outweigh bad with good gives us license to commit "bad" actions when we believe we have merited enough of God's favor with "good" ones. In the long run, though, there is little left in this lifestyle but guilt.
Importantly, it is often our hearts that express this guilt to us, not our minds. Indeed, any Christian with even a cursory familiarity with God's message would tell you that such a lifestyle is one of the main reasons Christ came to die. We cannot outweigh the bad with the good. When our actions alone are placed on this scale, it will always tip toward the bad. When Christ's sacrifice is included, it will always and infinitely tip toward the good, our own actions failing to register.
It is easy to misconstrue Dillard's meaning, then. Listen to her words here:
"I would like to live as I should, as the weasel lives as he should. And I suspect that for me the way is like the weasel's: open to time and death painlessly, noticing everything, remembering nothing, choosing the given with a fierce and pointed will."When she speaks of "mindlessness," however, of an instinctive pursuit of life as it comes to us, she means that one should live in unashamed commitment to a purpose of one's choosing, as visceral in that commitment as a weasel with his prey. Only a short time later, she states,
"The thing is to stalk your calling in a certain skilled and supple way....This is yielding, not fighting. A weasel doesn't 'attack' anything; a weasel lives as he's meant to, yielding at every moment to the perfect freedom of single necessity."Fix yourself, nay, bind yourself to your purpose and never let go. Far from any "freedom" we might feel from allowing our hearts to lead us unchecked, we find a freedom in living in commitment to a life purpose. Remembering to commit that purpose first to Christ, knowing that such commitment subjects one's heart to his accountability, we can pursue-- in the freedom Dillard intends-- the purpose we so naturally, instinctively, and passionately desire.
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