Coming Clean

… but certainly, somewhere, there’s a physicist who would say otherwise.

People say they remember things a lot, and while it’s not a lie - it’s not the truth either. I can’t remember the first time I saw pictures of a black Santa Claus or a black Jesus … but I can remember the shock of seeing a very clear depiction of something other than what I had always internalized as something like myself - like myself to a degree that it likely was (and is) false.

Today, I think I found myself on the opposite side of that coin. Some protestant friends of mine were asking me about the perpetual virginity of Mary - which means I implicitly have to give an account that dismisses the full-blood relation of “the brethren”. To be honest, I didn’t do very well, and I am disappointed in myself.

But what struck me was the … pure alien thought that married people would remain celibate. It’s not Mary’s perpetual virginity that gets them, really. It’s the Mary and Joseph abstaining part that really gets them. And they think they have a clincher of an argument that trumps, well, pretty much the entirety of Christian history minus Protestantism that says otherwise, in prooftexts of brethren and James and Thomas/Jude. Even with solid arguments rooted in language, translation, etc that satisfactorily argue the half-blood relation or cousin relation, in the end, it’s the abstinence between man and wife that really confounds them.

I’m not one to make the argument that it’s usual. But then, I’ve also never been one to argue that much about the Holy Family was usual. And, really, it’s their peculiarity that really sets them apart and makes them all the more beautiful.

Have you not heard of that madman who lit a lantern in the bright morning hours, ran to the market place, and cried incessantly: “I seek God! I seek God!”—As many of those who did not believe in God were standing around just then, he provoked much laughter. Has he got lost? asked one. Did he lose his way like a child? asked another. Or is he hiding? Is he afraid of us? Has he gone on a voyage? emigrated?—Thus they yelled and laughed

The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. “Whither is God?” he cried; “I will tell you. We have killed him—you and I. All of us are his murderers. But how did we do this? How could we drink up the sea? Who gave us the sponge to wipe away the entire horizon? What were we doing when we unchained this earth from its sun? Whither is it moving now? Whither are we moving? Away from all suns? Are we not plunging continually? Backward, sideward, forward, in all directions? Is there still any up or down? Are we not straying, as through an infinite nothing? Do we not feel the breath of empty space? Has it not become colder? Is not night continually closing in on us? Do we not need to light lanterns in the morning? Do we hear nothing as yet of the noise of the gravediggers who are burying God? Do we smell nothing as yet of the divine decomposition? Gods, too, decompose. God is dead. God remains dead. And we have killed him.

“How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us? What water is there for us to clean ourselves? What festivals of atonement, what sacred games shall we have to invent? Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it? There has never been a greater deed; and whoever is born after us—for the sake of this deed he will belong to a higher history than all history hitherto.”

Here the madman fell silent and looked again at his listeners; and they, too, were silent and stared at him in astonishment. At last he threw his lantern on the ground, and it broke into pieces and went out. “I have come too early,” he said then; “my time is not yet. This tremendous event is still on its way, still wandering; it has not yet reached the ears of men. Lightning and thunder require time; the light of the stars requires time; deeds, though done, still require time to be seen and heard. This deed is still more distant from them than most distant stars—and yet they have done it themselves.

It has been related further that on the same day the madman forced his way into several churches and there struck up his requiem aeternam deo. Led out and called to account, he is said always to have replied nothing but: “What after all are these churches now if they are not the tombs and sepulchers of God?”

Source: Friedrich Nietzsche, The Gay Science (1882, 1887) para. 125; Walter Kaufmann ed. (New York: Vintage, 1974), pp.181-82.]

Brought to us by the Internet Modern History Sourcebook

I honestly and truly love this parable. I love the madman. I love to stare into his eyes. He is terrifying and horrible, yet he speaks the truth as he knows it - and truth always carries a beauty with it. And I’m left to either agree with him yet while not knowing what to make of him … or to disagree and stand in contradiction to him. He mocks me, croons to me, and weeps with me. He is my enemy, and he is my brother. I love him. I pity him. And above all, I fear that secretly, I am him.

All Christians should meet the Madman, and they should never forget his gaze.

If in trying to find meaning, today is without any, then why should any of the others? I ask because today felt like a pretty meaningless day.

Whatever meaning there is, we should be able to relate to it at any given moment. Perhaps it is just the soft silhouette of a setting sun upon my childhood, but I seem to remember a time when I knew why all things were special yet reasons were unneeded.

It seems to me our hallowed souls have been harrowed hollow by the wisdom of the age. We know instinctively that there is something to draw us awake from our sleep, to put one foot in front of the other, and continue on with the trappings of life … yet when we ask ourselves what that is, the resounding echo of a faithless soul is too familiar and near overwhelming. For some, the words of faith come to us by rote and litany - as empty as that may seem, I can take comfort that there is at least that much.

It all makes the lyrics terrifyingly familiar:

There’s not time for hatred
Only questions:

Well I’ve got a message for and your twisted head!
You better turn around and kiss your hope goodbye
to life eternal
Angel

Individuality gives way to hedonism and self righteousness. Corporate identity gives way to thoughtless anonymity and slothfulness. Surely there is a middle way.

I think I’ve lost taste for mere ideas. I want to see the example I seek living before me. And I pray I’ll be found willing to follow.

I do one of two things:
- try to be as mindless as possible
- try to be as engaged in thought as possible

Being mindless is easy - turn on the TV.

Being engaged is easy - find a puzzle: a game, a thought problem, a book.

Thing is, when I have time to myself, I seldom think to pray. I doubt this phenomenon is rare. Often, I try to pass off reflection of the theological/Biblical variety as prayer. While interesting and often educational/insightful, I don’t think it really counts as prayer.

So, then, I’m left wondering what is prayer, and how I can I know it to be worthwhile. So many times, people tell you it’s suppose be you and God time. God’s been really quiet these days - leaving me to wander back to the reflection stuff more than giving me the sense of some kind of communing. Very frustrating. But in absence of the perception of the presence of the Person, what am I to do? It all seems very backwards and counter-intuitive for what it is suppose to be about.

The witness of Christ will stand in relation to the faith as Christ stood in relation to the mystery of His Father in its revelation. To testify to the faith is to participate in the revealing action of the Incarnate Christ who spoke for the Father. The believer shares in that ministry of spreading the knowledge of God.

Bishop Donald W. Wuerl Fathers of the Church

The last sentence is an old idea to me. The preceding sentences define it in a powerful way that had never really had any hold on me before. Scary cool.

They seem to have left (or been forced out of) our cultural consciousness altogether.

… and, no, charismatics do not qualify as mystics. I’m thinking more along the lines of the monastic.

Every now and then, He shows up in my babies as they embrace the faith. Faith, hope, and charity - pretty amazing stuff when it manifests itself in little ones.

‘course, when they decide to turn off the narrow way … yeah … life is hard.

And life is hard. But for kids we think it so simple. Yet the awful confusion of it all even in that simplicity really should set our expectations for everything else to come when life becomes so much more complicated

Josh’s money quote (from about six months ago): “I want to be good, but I don’t want to be good.” We related this story later that day to the archbishop who laughed and said, “I think St. Paul said something like that.”

I know there’s a lot of desire to be ecumenical and “kumbaya” between various Christian sects. That’s all well and good. I think it’s a good thing. But I don’t think it’s going to lead anywhere, really. Not in any kind of corporate, meaningful sense. (Label me the skeptic/cynic)

Every Church or denomination has a sense that the way to be a part of their community is through Christ. And all of our ecumenicism should be about our mutual understanding of Christ. But how far can you really get when you’ve got something as fundamental as Christ as Eucharist dividing you?

I’ve heard the theology of the Real Presence of the Eucharist called an interesting hermeneutic. I disagree. It’s THE hermeneutic that separates modern Christians from those who could be considered in communion with the universal Church since the time of Christ or not. It is a question, fundamentally, about Christ.

No answers … just this nagging sense that this is the real issue: Christ as Eucharist. Secondly, how we know that. The rest flows naturally afterward. Yet so few people (Protestants especially) seem to tackle this question … well, and remain Protestant … that I’ve found, anyways.

I had my first blog dream last night. I dreamt I was at Mass, I think. And across the way I saw Rachel and her family and Matt and crew.

I got so excited to go across and finally meet them face-to-face.

And then I woke up.

And then I was sad.

I really like Matt and Rachel’s blog because they (on the surface of their blogs) seem like genuinely beautiful people … not in the sense that they are attractive in their physical features but in the sense that they exude Beauty in their writings about their thoughts and daily lives.

****

Last night in the parish parking lot, I saw my friend Tony, the grandfather of one of Lisa’s best friends. He is perhaps one of the most beautiful people I know. We talked for a bit, and he was telling me the joy he had found in working with the teens again: teens were receiving his love and finding love in him, the Church, and our Savior and reassuring his love. Some had adopted him as a grandparent figure as their own grandparents had passed on.

I told him that it wasn’t hard to believe - he’s one of the most beautiful people I know. For me, at the moment, that’s a pretty big compliment.

Maybe it was a lack of context of the thoughts I’ve had lately … maybe it was because of self-doubt … but it seemed to me that he drew back from my statement. And I saw, for a moment, a mirror of my own self-doubt.

****

I’ve been thinking a lot about my last post lately. Mainly wondering how willing I am to accept the call to Love and Beauty. And while I think I’m an alright guy, I have a real difficult time looking at myself as Beautiful.

I have never really thought of myself as having a problem loving myself, loving my being … but when I want to go so far as to say that I can see, in myself, Beauty … I honestly can’t do it. I don’t see it. I know my wife sees … something. I know others do, too. But me … I can’t see it.

Maybe I’m scared to see it. Regardless, there’s a lot that remains un-Beautiful in me … maybe seeing myself as Christ sees me is the first step towards solving all these questions and doubt. And for once, I can see a real need for prayer beyond a sense of duty from the exhortations to pray. If I am to see as Christ sees, it will only be through prayer.

U2, be my muse, one more time:

I’ve seen you walk unafraid
I’ve seen you in the clothes you made
Can you see the beauty inside of me?
What happened to the beauty I had inside of me?

Thanks for saying it, Bono.