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Dionysus
Brian Mashburn
October 18, 2009
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Dionysus
Laying behind so much of what we (rightly) call "progress" today is a priority that invisibly drives it called "ease of life".
The goal of "making life easier" (or more convenient, or more comfortable) explains everything from telephones to cell phones to iphones. It explains plumbing systems, sprinkler systems, indoor bathrooms. It explains frozen food, fast food, and dog food. It explains housekeepers, lawn mowers, and exterminators. It explains drink holders, drink carriers, and drink choices. It explains air conditioners, cushions, and posture-pedic beds. It explains hair dryers, automatic garage door openers, pooper-scoopers, and refrigerators, pain medication, maps, ventilation systems, staplers, shopping carts, shopping centers, online checking...come to think of it, it is hard to come up with just about anything that we might label as "progress" that doesn't have "ease of life" as at least part of the motivation behind it.
If worship is defined as sacrificial devotion to something, well, then we worship our comfort. How quickly we get mad at waitresses, how irritated we get at road construction, and how put off we act when someone in our family interrupts us only proves it.
It wasn't his official title, but the Greek god Dionysus represents to me the god of comfort. Officially, he was the god of wine and theatre, but his Divine Mission was to bring an end to care and worry.
Honestly, to me, that sounds great. To be free of all care and all worry...wow! That would make things, well, easier. Less burdensome. Lighter.
And while Jesus promises a "yoke that is easy" and "a burden that is light", His means to such a life is the exact opposite as that of Dionysus. Jesus says that the light, easy, abundant life comes from caring more. So much, in fact, that you would literally choose suffering (as opposed to ease) to get it.
There is a wonderful teaching in the true religion of Christ that says that "suffering is good". The very fact that this sounds so illogical, so wrong, so ridiculous is evidence that we take a knee to Comfort in holy worship.
It's one of the great American Idols.