Philosophy
Lose Yourself
This year, Benedict is taking his first philosophy class. Called Virtuous Manhood, it is a study of what it means to be a man in the context of self, family, and society. Pausing to think deeply about a subject is uncommon, even though for centuries the words of Socrates have warned us: “The unexamined life is not worth living.”
The trouble with virtue is that it requires more of us. Contending with difficult objective truths requires that we conform to them rather than they conform to us. We are quick to jettison ideas that become inconvenient, convincing ourselves that compromise will quiet the discomfort. But virtue and reality operate without needing our consent. However meticulously we reshape our perception, we encounter friction whenever it conflicts with the things that are right and beautiful and true.
Virtue is a metaphysical reality that cannot be changed. Its nature cannot be negotiated or compromised to accommodate us or our sensibilities. Something is just or unjust; an act is loving or it is not. There is no partial justice or semi-love. To be perfectly just, to be perfectly loving, requires wholeness.
Pursuing a virtuous life, however, is complicated. We can want, desire, and will it, but translating that into action is always a struggle because while virtue is perfect, we are not. I cannot hope to be perfectly just or perfectly charitable in this life, but what I can do is be consistent. I can choose a course of action, refuse to be defeated by episodic failures, and manage my life in a way that matches my desire even in my imperfection. When my choice brings discomfort, confrontation, or even isolation, those are the moments when I must recommit, knowing that I am working towards something worthy of sacrifice.
Virtue demands all of us because only when we lose ourselves to it can it give fully of its fruits. Pure love, pure justice, pure piety, these are things that possess raw power. Not the power to manipulate or control another, but the power to effect real change. We cannot take a dose of Tylenol and remain unchanged; how much truer that we cannot encounter real virtue and not be unaffected.
Choosing the virtuous life is not the easy path, and it is not free. It will cost us our ambitions, our misguided desires, and our complicated attachments. It is easier to do as one pleases, to declare thyself virtue, and live accordingly. In a measure of true courage, an act in the spirit of the Christian life, we can choose to surrender our imperfect selves and live a life of virtue. Not idleness and missed opportunity, but an extraordinary life worthy of the Love that chose to die to save it.
Two Paths
The breakthroughs in science and technology that we experience today are a direct result of the breakthroughs of yesterday. Our body of research grows in scope and understanding with each successive career, and when a new researcher enters into a lab, they do so with a big head start. It would be difficult to make any forward progress if every scientific fact had to be researched and understood anew with each scientist.
What the body of scientific research does for today’s scientists, faith does for humanity. What it means to be a human person, why we were created and what we are to do now that we are here, are no small questions. They are the questions that animate our existence, that pulls us outside ourselves, and place us within the context of the created world. Though they are simple in structure, the layers of meaning hidden within them would take our whole life to understand.
So we are presented with two paths. The first path is a life without and outside of faith. It is one in which the person must first determine who they are, why they are here, and what they are to do. No doubt it would take many years to find credible answers to any of those questions, but there is a deeper danger. There are far fewer correct answers than there are wrong answers. When a conclusion is reached, there is no guarantee that it will be the correct one. Then, even if the correct answer is found, what is its value? Is death near, and how will these lessons, rumination, and insights be handed on? There is no mechanism for sharing or teaching these findings. We die and leave it to others to find their path.
Faith offers us something much more certain. It is the culmination of generations of deep thought about these questions. When we choose the path of faith, we stand upon the shoulders of giants, benefiting from their wisdom. We accept a rich heritage and an identity as a member of God’s family. It does not make life easier or any more certain. In fact, faith is clear that rest and peace and joy are attributes of the next life, not this one. Instead, we persevere in this life, with full knowledge that our purpose here is to give of ourselves for the good of others.
The path of faith is a more difficult path to select, because it begins with the acceptance that we do not have all the answers. It’s an act of humility to admit that others have reached the proper conclusion and, as part of the self-giving that faith demands, share it now with me for my edification. It is in receiving this gift that we are to carry on the commission to go and do likewise.
Fortress of the Mind, Garden of the Heart
Castles occupy a special place in the modern world. These ancient structures, built with simple tools, stand long after the empires and principalities they were designed to protect have fallen. We consider these buildings to be places of strength and power, but they are ultimately just unique architecture. What is the use of a castle if there is nothing to guard, defend, and protect?
The Christian life is both gift and mystery. It is a multi-layered gift that must be unpacked one layer at a time. Each layer brings new meaning, significance, and understanding, a new joy to discover at every stage. It is mystery because while we can comprehend some of its deeper truths, it is impossible for us to fully understand it. The proposition is simple: accept the natural law inscribed on our hearts and follow God’s law, and we shall be truly free. They are rules written not to ensnare us or to subjugate us, but to foil anything which threatens our freedom.
It is easy for us to accept greater than 90% of its precepts without concern or even much effort. They are those things to which we are not naturally predisposed and therefore are not a struggle. It is in the last 10% that our faith is won and lost. These are the parts of God’s law that we’d prefer to tinker with, those inconvenient things that get in the way of how we think our life ought to be lived. Though we do not possess the limitless vision of God, or His purest of pure intentions, we toy with a level of permissiveness of those very things that seek our destruction. He is the athletic trainer setting out the training program, and we are the unfit participant proffering our tweaks to the plan.
We are body, mind, soul, and heart. Our consciousness exists in our mind, that fortress of intricate design. It is where we live our daily lives. It is where our thoughts begin and are developed. All of this occurs quietly to the outside world and loudly to us. Everything that happens within our mind is between us and God, unreadable and unknowable unless we choose to share it with those around us. It is in this sacred and personal space that the Christian life, and love itself, is desired, willed, and chosen.
A castle is a powerful structure, but its value is not in its architecture or protective design. Its value is the ability to protect something worthy within it. The people, stores, foodstuffs, and goods kept safely behind its iron gate are its reason for being, so long as they are happy and healthy within its walls. A long duration siege is a battle of wills. The aggressor can simply wait until the food is gone, and the well has run dry. Then, lacking resources, the castle is less of a protective barrier and more of a prison for those who dwell inside.
The fortress of our mind is where we do daily battle to merit the rich heritage of which we are inheritors. It is where we choose those things that allow us to know, love, and serve God, and it is where we reject and defend against those things that seek to steal our joy and suffocate the life within us. But the fortress of our mind can only defend us when it is fueled by the garden of the heart. The garden is what provides those things that support and sustain our fight. It is the place where virtue is developed and strengthened, where the Word of God refreshes us, and where the good fruits we need to eat come into bloom. When our interior life is strong, when our garden is producing a perennial harvest, the fortress has something within it worthy of protection.
The garden of the heart must be attended to daily, weeds must be pulled, new seeds planted, fertile soil encouraged, and green shoots nurtured. All of that diligent labor on ourselves, on more perfectly forming our life to Christ, provides our mind and our soul the strength it needs to say yes to God and no to every other thing.
There are difficult days, there are moments when the lights grow dark and the negativity feels overwhelming. There are days, weeks, and months when it feels like we are about to slip beneath the surface, overwhelmed by the current and the height of the waves. But we only lose to the current when we stop swimming, the stores only run out when we stop growing, and the siege only succeeds when we give up.
In every dark moment, in every place of despair, in every moment of regret, at every point of failure, we do not reside alone in the fortress of our mind. We are accompanied by the God who gave everything for us. God who promised to be with us until the end of the Age, and said that nothing would prevail against us. God who designed not just the intricacies of the human body, but gave us the fortress of the mind to defend and protect us, and the garden of the heart to support and sustain.
Secrets of Peace
Our summer RV trip is over, but its events are now part of our shared memory and language. It was a vacation unlike one we’ve taken before, and it found its anchoring in the many holy places we visited along the way. These green hills, leafy valleys, and empty fields were the places where saints tread.
Pilgrimages are an ancient tradition, and while they cause us to think about pious processions, they do not have to meet a certain standard. Trundling down interstates, state highways, and country lanes, we found these spots nestled in the milieu of small towns across America. They are ordinary looking churches, built upon land where extraordinary lives were lived.
Religion, theology, and prayer are often regarded as boring. They are imagined to be dusty historical events without relevance in our lives, and to some, a colossal waste of time. Why drive hours to see an empty field when you can fly to an island or experience the thrill of a roller coaster. These generic-looking places are not worth the trip.
What’s missed in this misguided opinion is that these sites hold a treasure that cannot be found elsewhere. In a busy and loud world, these holy places are set apart. There is no need to worry about work, no deadlines to meet, no chores to complete. You are free to just be still and silent. These are intentionally slow places.
That’s not all. Standing in the field where St. Kateri lived is a profound statement on sainthood. It did not appear special, it looked like a field in my neighborhood. The short hike through the woods to the natural spring from which they drew water looked like the woods in my backyard. That is precisely the point. Sainthood, holiness, and goodness doesn’t require us to relocate to Italy or to spend all day within the sanctuary walls. Collecting water, cooking meals, mending houses, all of these chores are the ordinary path to sainthood.
Even more profound is to stand in the place where St. Issac Jogues ministered, was enslaved, and was murdered. It was all too easy to look down the hill where they dragged his lifeless body and threw it into the river. The same river that he and St. Kateri, decades apart, navigated as part of their daily life, the riverbed that served as his grave. To the average American, driving along the New York Throughway, it’s a generic river and a green hillside. The real story, is so much more interesting.
Peace is a difficult thing to find in life. But to spend quiet moments in these places, to experience the serenity, is a clear sign of the holiness that is present. All of us are not called to spend our lives in these places full-time, there is other work and witness that must be done. But a great secret in life is that we do best when we take the time to travel to these places and experience a real physical connection with our heritage. The Catholic Church in America today is only possible, in part, because of the heroic virtue of these saints. To be where they were, to see what they saw, to understand how close they were in proximity to our lives, is a special thing.
All Things Bright and Beautiful
Over the last several months, I’ve spent a lot of my time ruminating on aesthetics. This particular branch of philosophy focuses on the nature of beauty and taste. Society usually thinks of beauty in terms of physical looks and attraction, and only in the context of what that beauty can do for it. But aesthetics recognizes beauty for what it truly is, a good unto itself.
I find aestheticism to be an easy way to communicate to my children about the things of God. Latin chant, holy architecture, a brilliant sunset, the green canopy. All of these things are beautiful in and of themselves, sharing a good that is not consumed, but savored and evergreen. To paraphrase the poem by Cecil Francis Alexander, all things bright and beautiful are the things made by God.
This makes a clear contrast with the things of evil: darkness, fear, oppression. Things of an evil or dark nature drag us down or cause us to shrink inwardly. An unmistakeable marker, the dark things in life destroy beauty and leave us feeling sad.
Perhaps the greatest good thing in the world is the human person. We, hopefully, want to be good ourselves, and for our children to be good. It’s why we spend nearly every minute of every day working to form them into good people. But being good isn’t just saying no to yourself. It’s choosing to engage with the bright and beautiful. What’s the point of life if it’s filled with emptiness, sadness, and a sense of meaninglessness? Joy is not the absence of sadness, it’s meaningful sorrow as we long for the good things, for justice, for mercy, and for reconciliation.
Why we naturally gravitate to things that are not bright and beautiful is a paradox. We are made in God’s image and likeness, and invited into relationship with Him. Indeed, His passion, death, and resurrection were not for His edification, but done out of a love that is laser focused on enabling us to live a life centered in Him.
The truth is, among all the bright and beautiful things God has made, we are intended to be one of them. We get to choose, in ways big and small, whether we will take our place among the good things, or if we reject Goodness itself. Our beauty is core to our nature and true to our being, if we are willing to get out of the way and share our goodness with the world in which we live.
Bloom
Early last winter, Alison planted tulips in our backyard. There was an area of dead space where a sandbox sat for untold years. My yard is very shady and struggles to thrives, so instead of fighting the uphill battle, it became the default planter for our tulip bulbs. After months of cold hibernation, the bulbs are starting to bloom.
For the moment, the view is lovely. Every season has its merits and its beauty, and the pure brilliant white of crystalline snow has given way to the symphony of floral colors. I know, though, that before too long, the flowers will fall to the ground and all that’s left will be green leaves.
All of that work, months of waiting in cold darkness, and the tulip bulb produces a single flower per year. For the rest of its time above the surface, its leaves pull in as much sunlight as it can to produce next year’s flower. In a way, it feels like a waste. 11 and a half months of plainness and anonymity for two weeks of color. What’s the use?
If you want permanent beauty, buy art. Landscapes, flowers, even abstract pieces offer bursts of color that can be enjoyed and interpreted day after day. This is not the role of the tulip. The tulip is to remind us of the magic of creation all around us. The lifecycles in our biosphere that quietly roll on, year after year, without our intervention. If the tulip were in bloom for weeks or even months, it would lose some of its sweetness. The yellows, reds, and pinks would fade into the landscape. The point of the tulip is to savor its richness while it is in full bloom.
The tulip is just one flower. There are countless varieties, each on their cycle, that grow out of the ground, leaf, and flower, before starting the cycle all over again. They bloom at different times throughout the season, offering wave-upon-wave of new growth. They are meant to be appreciated, enjoyed, and savored apart from all other flowers.
Our existence within creation is filled with these little delights, scatted throughout the calendar and seasons. Little reminders of God’s goodness, and the brilliance of His work not only in us, but in the created order. There is a time and season for everything, and we are given the grace of experiencing it all, year after year.
Open to Discomfort
Perspective is the hinge on which our lives turn. We see this in the story of every saint. These men and women faced adversity of every type and kind, some more cruel than others. They lost friends, family, endured exile, suspicion, and torture, gave up the quiet and the comfort for the uncomfortable. Through that crucible, they were remade.
I’ve written many times about comfort and trust, two themes that play out more poignantly each month in our world. It’s easy for us to forget the anxiety of our parents and grandparents as they endured two global wars for freedom, the threat of nuclear apocalypse, and economic collapse. Life today is no simpler, but it is markedly comfortable.
When we’re comfortable, we drift towards mediocrity. Unchallenged, we fall into a malaise in which there is little movement, small momentum, and no growth. The periods in our lives that we look back on with the greatest satisfaction are the times in which we pushed through the difficult things and came out the other side, shockingly, better.
Wincing from pain or shying away from difficulty is a natural reflex. It’s our humanity’s attempt to shield us from danger. But glory is not in idleness, nor is it in sameness. Glory is in the discomfort, where we are pushed to our limits and, at that moment, come into contact with the grace from God to surge us to the next higher level.
Being open to discomfort is an act of courage, and a recognition that we are called to constant renewal. We cannot be truly good, or make room for the better part, if we do not let go of and clear out the things that hold us back.
Freedom
Political science, philosophy, and human history is full of yearning for just governments. While it would be ideal for the perfect government to always act justly, perfectly balancing individual liberties, free markets, and the collective good, our broken human nature puts that possibility unreachable. Governments tend, more often than not, to ignore their citizens and instead focus on the constituency of one: themselves.
Hard as it is to admit, we tend to get the governments we deserve. In democracies, elected officials represent the people who elect them, in nearly every sense of the word. Countries are big places, and there are the selfless and the selfish, the serving and the self-serving. It shouldn’t offend of sensibilities to see in our government a mirror, although it might nudge us closer to virtue.
The story of Christianity, and the reason the religion is so difficult to accept, is its raw paradox. God, the omniscient and omnipotent, uses His power to… become a human. God, in His completeness, chose to create and dignify humanity and is at pains to have them live in relationship with Him. He is the ultimate bridge-builder and chasm-crosser, and His relentless and loving pursuit of us confounds the human mind.
This timeless truth extends further. We long for good rulers and governance, though it is never within our grasp. What does it say that our King governs justly? He only prohibits things that hurt us, no matter how sweet they might seem. He gains nothing from obedience to the Commandments; He’s already complete. Instead, He gives us guardrails for our own good, edification, and glory.
When we look at our government and see ourselves reflected, it fills us with a sense of uncertainly and unease. How much happier we would be to look in the mirror and see God’s goodness reflected in ourselves.
Push Harder
For the last six years, I’ve built out my collection of pocket knives. The result is an incredible set of American and Italian hand tools designed and built to perfection. Each one is unique, and most are built to last beyond my lifetime. It’s a joy to manage the collection, and select the knife that I’ll carry for the day. This Lent, I gave it up.
I picked one knife that, starting Ash Wednesday, would be the only knife I would carry. For the most part, I haven’t interacted with my collection at all. I think about the other knives three or four times throughout the day, which offers me simple reminders of the season we’re in.
Last weekend, for Laetare Sunday, our pastor had a letter in the bulletin about the significance of this mid-point. The starkness of bare altars and violet vestments give way, for a moment, to flowers and pink vestments. It’s a reminder that though we are observing the penitential season of Lent, the victory is already won. It’s also an inflection point, where we turn our gaze from the desert towards Jerusalem.
When I picked just one knife to carry, I chose one that was easy. The locking mechanism is simple to operate, the blade moves freely, and I knew I could just send it off to be sharpened when all was said and done. That note on Laetare Sunday offered me a new idea. What if it wasn’t easy?
Having no choice in my daily knife is a reminder, but what if I chose a knife that wasn’t easy to open? What if I chose one that I had to mindfully open because its mechanism was built for tolerance, not speed? What if I chose a knife that, at least until I use it much more, would be difficult to open? It’s a shift; easy to hard, Good Friday is coming.
I liked the idea of layering in one more tangible reminder, in the middle of breaking down boxes or cutting a thread off a shirt, of what I’m actually here for and what I’m working towards. Life should not be hard all the time, but choosing something slightly harder, and ignoring the path of least resistance, is a sure path to growth.
Reign
It is said that discipline is destiny, though it is one that few choose to pursue. Discipline is uncomfortable, difficult, and at times, unpleasant. Its fruit, however, is the sweetest of all. A man who fully commands himself is not subject to the agenda of another.
Life is a blank canvas, shaped by our daily choices. Everything about us flows from our choices, and the consequences that they bring into our world. At every daybreak, and even at every moment, we have the power to alter the course of our lives by our choices.
Self-control and discipline, the things Pope Benedict XVI talked about as self-mastery, is not easy. Though it may not be easy, we have sovereignty over our lives. Will we sell that sovereignty for a bowl of beans or a fleeting thrill, or will we reign as kings, and live like one?