"It Is [Un]Finished": Endō, Kafka, and the Crucifixion of Meaning

 

"For as the heavens are exalted above the earth, so are my ways exalted above your ways, and my thoughts above your thoughts...As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our iniquities from us." 

(Is 55:9; Ps 102:12)

I read Shūsaku Endō's Silence about twenty years ago, and it made an unsettling but lasting impression on me that to this day lingers like a specter in the shadowy crevices of my rock of faith. This was years before Martin Scorsese did his 2016 film adaptation (which I refused to watch) of the novel. Some left-of-center reviewers praised the film, traditionalists predictably condemned it, neo-conservative academics thoughtfully took a pass, while Fr. James Martin offered his trademark wily interpretation screened through the lens of heterodoxy. 

Endō was a Japanese Catholic (which seems like a misnomer of sorts,), who wrote Silence in 1966. His faith was one born in doubt, and his Catholicism a religion which was like that of an "an ill-fitting suit" at odds with his Japanese heritage, a faith and religion he always wanted to throw off, but never could. This theme of doubt (if one might call it that) weaves its way like a loose thread in the tapestry of Silence, which is a historical novel about the persecution of the Japanese Christians during the reign of the third Tokugawa and following the Shimabara Rebellion of the early to mid 17th century. It also centers around the life and faith of the Portuguese Jesuit missionaries there who are tortured both physically and psycho-spiritually, alongside their flock. 

The Japanese were savagely effective at inducing physical suffering in one way by hanging Christians upside down in a pit of excrement, slashing the forehead to vent the blood flow, and leaving them (sometimes for days or weeks) until they recanted their faith. But worse for the missionaries was the psychological torture of being bobbed the carrot of recantation in front of their face while their captors used the other Christians as a bargaining chip: Apostatize by simply stepping on the fumi-e (the image of Christ) and those whom you formed in the faith, these innocent people, will be freed. It would be an act of Christian charity to step, since one would save their flock. Or so the reasoning went in the dark night of temptation. And the young and fervent Jesuit protagonist, Sebastian Rodrigues, does just that, following in the footsteps of his predecessor Christovao Ferreira.

There is not only an existential, but a faint absurdist motif in the novel as well--extreme suffering in conviction can be born if the faith and its promises of eternal life are true. But what if it isn't? And what is "truth?" How can anyone sacrifice himself for for a false faith? the priest asks himself incredulously. In this dark night, the sophomoric religious fantasy of glorious martyrdom has given way to a far crueler and muted doubt--that the whole ordeal is simply absurd:

"This was a frightening fancy. . . .What an absurd drama become the lives of [the martyrs] Mokichi and Ichizo, bound to the stake and washed by the waves. And the missionaries who spent three years crossing the sea to arrive at this country – what an illusion was theirs. Myself, too, wandering here over the desolate mountains – what an absurd situation!"

Whereas Christianity may try to baptize itself in the broody waters of Existentialism where l'existence précède l'essence, Absurdism affords no such opportunity. Kafka--despite writing his entire life--never finished a novel, and even insisted his work be burned unread upon his death at age 40. The Metamorphosis (Die Verwandlung) is pointless--and that is the point. Camus, who was indebted to and greatly influenced by Kafka's work, said that there were only two feasible choices in the face of the philosophical problem of a pointless existence: suicide or rebellion. The Absurd hero must create their own meaning in the face of ultimate meaninglessness.

As far as the East is from the West is the Christian mind from that of the Absurdist. For Christianity, fully imbibed with a reason for being and on which it pins its hopes. It depends on meaning and purpose in order to hold, which is why novels like Silence are so unsettling--they touch a hidden part of our otherwise orthodox selves that we have stuffed to the back corner of a closet: what if all this is a sham? What if it's not true? We sometimes compensate by attributing to the external Devil these seeds of doubt when in fact the more horrifying prospect is that they come somewhere deep inside of us, needing no power of suggestion from outside the self. That we see those we know and those we love defecting and apostatizing all around us today touches a nerve, sends a shiver down our spines--if them, why not me?  

Endō spent much of his life trying to bridge this divide between two seemingly incongruent worlds--Japanese culture and his Catholic faith--but at some point I imagine it may have felt like the futility inherent in Camus' The Myth of Sisyphus. And there is a kind of absurdism in the crucifixion when it is divorced from any meaning or purpose behind it. That is why the Resurrection is so crucial for Paul, for without it, everything else about Christianity is preached in vain (1 Cor 15:14). Without it, the center cannot hold.

In some ways, we are living through an almost Absurdist period in the Church where we are coming upon not a crisis of doctrine, but a crisis of meaning. For the priest, the missionary, the modern disciple, the orthodox believer it becomes--why am I laboring out here for souls when nothing I do seems to matter, when everything is undermined and obfuscated by the absurdism coming out of Rome? What is the point? We double down publicly with rally cries for martyrdom, and even in our prayer lives we sink deeper into the comforting silence of God, refusing to believe that our hope is in vain, that our faith is absurd. Of course that is how the world sees us, but we are not of the world. Right? Right?

For the three days of silence between the crucifixion and the resurrection, the disciples of Christ hoped and prayed that there's was not an absurd and misplaced faith. But did it have that guarantee? Or did they, too, struggle with what it all meant, what it all was for, even if it was only for a flash moment that was not acknowledged but lurked and circled like a fox in the shadowy recesses of their consciousness? 

For the Christian, our faith in Christ is as much a faith in the meaning of his death as it is the purpose of his life--that this death was not pointless, not futile, not suicidal--not absurd. And, by extension, that ours will not be either. We are hemmed in by doctrine and fortified by dogma, yes, but now we are living through a period in which the walls of this doctrinal certainty seem to be bowing out under the weight of the nonsensical utterings of the Pope, the throwing under the bus and hanging out to dry of the faithful (like Cardinal Zen), and the ecclesiastical apostates who justify their lack of faith and are not content to be alone in their damnation.

In the final pages of Silence, Ferreira is living comfortably in an magistrate's palace after his apostasy and is found by a priest, who "recalls his sadness." 

"In the course of their conversation, Ferreira had said not one word about the poor Japanese martyrs. Of course he had deliberately avoided this issue; he had tried to avoid any thought of people who were stronger than himself, people who had heroically endured torture and the pit. Ferreira was trying to increase, even by one, the number of weaklings like himself--to share with others his cowardice and loneliness." 

Either/Or

 

In my first Systematic Theology course in grad school, my professor introduced himself as a "filthy Thomist." I didn't know what a Thomist was, but as a sinner saved by grace I knew what it meant to be filthy, and putting two and two together the implication was that he was a respected member of the largely left-leaning faculty but a bit of an outlier because of his Neo-Scholastic foundations. 

It's not hard to see why Neo-Thomism is hardly the leper-in-the-room in orthodox Catholic circles today, but rather given pride of place. If you're a twenty-something traditionalist, your sharpest chisel in the pouch to carve a name for yourself is the Summa. Want to get mad subs as a YouTuber? Start a channel called "Pints With Aquinas." Want to get blotted? Take a shot with your buddies every time Fr. Ripperger begins a sentence with "St. Thomas says..." in one of his conferences and you'll be wishing you chose a different drinking game before the night is over. 

It's not hard to see the appeal of classical Thomism. The world is a mess, confusion reigns, relativism is King, and the air of post-modernity is what we all breathe. For Catholics who seek clarity and truth in a world gone mad, why wouldn't you turn to the reigning heavyweight champion of the Christian intellectual tradition, the Angelic Doctor himself? 

I'll be the first to admit that I have never read the Summa, never identified with Neo-Scholasticism, and would never identify as a Thomist. Not because I don't respect the formidable intellectual tradition or the good saint Thomas himself, but because I would be nothing but a complete poser for even wading into these deep waters and purporting that I knew what I was talking about.  I'll leave that work to groups like the Thomistic Institute, who are doing fantastic work in forming and exercising the intellectual muscle of ordinary Catholics with their engaging and accessible videos and workshops. 

I'll also admit in full discloser that the biggest influence in my ruddy spiritual and theological formation and writing was not even a Catholic, but a melancholic 19th century Danish philosopher named Søren Kierkegaard who personified a kind of anti-Thomism. 

Whereas objectivity epitomized St. Thomas' thought and work, Kierkegaard was a staunch subjectivist, for "Subjectivity is truth, and truth is subjectivity" (Concluding Unscientific Postscript to Philosophical Fragments). While St. Thomas wrote categorically, illuminated by the lamp of reason, Kierkegaard bore his conjectures from under the shade of existential doubt. 

For St. Thomas, one could know the Truth because it could be observed outside of man; for Kierkegaard, the only truth worth knowing came from within. St. Thomas' scholasticism promises formulaic understanding and assurance. Kierkegaard sacrifices such divine assurance on the Abrahamic altar of the absurd, with no possibility of redemption until, by faith, one fully commits to burying his knife to the hilt in the heart of one's proverbial only son.

These two men are not equal in standing. St. Thomas' theological, philosophical, and intellectual history is near-timeless. He stands as a Doctor of the Universal Church, and his personal sanctity is beyond reproach. 

Kierkegaard, on the other hand, never transcended the sickness unto death. He was a gaunt, awkward melancholic who fixated obsessively on an unrequited earthly love. His personality inspired no one and his work was largely only recognized posthumously. His legacy as the "father" of existentialism was earned, but rather than raising up saints it bore the atheistic step-children of Absurdists like Camus and Nihilists like Nietzsche. Whereas in Holy Scripture we read that justice and peace shall kiss (Ps 85:10), in the world of Kierkegaard it is faith and doubt that live in eternal and tormented embrace, for "doubt is conquered by faith, just as it is faith which has brought doubt into the world" (Journals and Papers, p. 399)

While I respected my "filthy Thomist" professor in grad school, I could never sit down and wax about the Summa with him, or talk classical theology, because I was out of my depth, though I do wish I had more of a foundation in theological scholasticism the way Picasso trained as a formidable Realist before immersing himself in the world of abstractionism.

When I sat with my ex-girlfriend's father (who was a Philosophy professor at a small Catholic college and who wrote his dissertation on Kierkegaard) on his back porch, though, it felt like an ocean of potential conversation. What is faith? How do we exercise it? What do we risk to live a life of integrity? What do we do with doubt? If we are called to give up everything to follow Christ, doesn't that entail what we believe about him--that is, the roles we assign him as earthly king and victor? It's as if the scholastic theologians lived in the light and assurance of the historical and soteriological Resurrection, while Christian existentialists endure the unbearable tension of the three days in the tomb between hope and despair, triumphalism and abject failure.

Of course, I wouldn't have become Catholic if I weren't at least on some level indebted to the scholasticism of St. Thomas and invested in its magisterial legacy--a solid rock on which to build an objective faith. But there is a part of me that is also wary of the "x plus y always equals z" approach to faith and reason lived out, and that everything always has an answer or makes sense. 

That is why I can appreciate novels like Shūsaku Endō's Silence or Graham Greene's The Power and the Glory. It's why I love the book of Job, the righteous man of God who rejects the pat reasoning of his friends Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. It's why Abraham Lincoln was my favorite President, because the weight of his melancholy and subjective suffering did not break him, but instead transformed a nation. It's why I try to enter into the mystery of paradox in scripture, which is the thread Christ uses to weave the tapestry of his public ministry, and why the yuródivyy (holy foolishness) asceticism of the Orthodox makes room for mystery in how faith is lived out with divine integrity--even when it looks absurd to the world.

Like everyone, I'm tempted to make sense of my suffering, and I want to know beyond a doubt that God exists and prove it to all my friends. I want to have a left-brained faith that is neat and tidy and ordered and objective and watertight, and envy people who do. I want to be an eternal optimist, a cheery idealist. I wouldn't mind being an intellectual heavy-weight. 

Instead, my scales tend to weight in favor of the subjective. I know God because I have experienced Him, not because I read a proof of His existence. I am obnoxiously right-brained--emotive, messy, vacillating, despairing while simultaneously bursting with hope. I have had to fight to live and trust in Love to keep breathing. I can't prove anything-in fact, the longer I live, the less I feel like I know for sure. That doesn't threaten or undermine my faith in Christ or his Church. But it does bring me closer to Him in the sepulcher when I'm not sure if my all-chips-in wager is going to pay off. 

In a postmodern world, we crave certainty and the assurance of knowing our faith, because the lived alternative to this point has been, let's face it, cacophonic. Black and White, like cheap grace, is in high demand today; shades of grey, passé. But Reason is a good. The Natural Law is a good. God is an objective reality, testified to by faith. 

But faith is also a wager, and grace is not cheap and tidy. Presumption is an ever-present temptation and snare of the elect. And doubt is not necessarily the death-knell of belief, a line destined to snap. Instead, it holds tension that to lose life is to find it (Mt 16:25); to die is to gain (Phil 1:21); the kingdom of God is within us (Lk 17:21); and to lean not on our own understanding (Prov 3:5-6). It cries out in anguish with the Son to the Father who holds back His arm and remains silent: ‘Eloi Eloi Lama Sabachthani’…”My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

I'm not a mystic, nor a theologian, and not a Thomist either. I think, though, the more we learn to live with this tension, the more we enter into the dark night of true faith, holding the hand of the Savior to guide us even as we don't know where we are going, or by what way, or to what fate--that's enough for me to go on right now. This sickness will not end in death (Jn 11:4).  

"Anxiety Is The Dizziness of Freedom"

 

Years ago I read the quasi-philosopher Ayn Rand's novel The Fountainhead. It was a thick, curious, cold and bleakly-bizarre book. It is humanist in nature and completely irreligious, and not a book I would recommend reading for a Catholic, but it made me think nonetheless.

Rand's Objectivist philosophy is a strange mix of unfettered capitalism, self-serving egoistic moralism (opposed to altruism of any sort), and staunch individualism anchored in personal integrity. "My philosophy," she wrote, "in essence, is the concept of man as a heroic being, with his own happiness as the moral purpose of his life, with productive achievement as his noblest activity, and reason as his only absolute." If one were to transfer it to a political school of thought, I suppose it would be most in line with today's Libertarians. 

From Wiki: 

"Rand's stated goal in writing fiction was to portray her vision of an ideal man. The character of Howard Roark, the protagonist of The Fountainhead, was the first instance where she believed she had achieved this. Roark embodies Rand's egoistic moral ideals, especially the virtues of independence and integrity.

In contrast to the individualistic Roark, Peter Keating is a conformist who bases his choices on what others want. Introduced to the reader as Roark's classmate in architecture school, Keating does not really want to be an architect. He loves painting, but his mother steers him toward architecture instead. In this as in all his decisions, Keating does what others expect rather than follow his personal interests. He becomes a social climber, focused on improving his career and social standing using a combination of personal manipulation and conformity to popular styles. He follows a similar path in his private life: he chooses a loveless marriage to Dominique instead of marrying the woman he loves—who lacks Dominique's beauty and social connections. By middle age, Keating's career is in decline and he is unhappy with his path, but it is too late for him to change."

As I mentioned in previous posts, a good number of guys in my men's group find themselves in this camp (potentially losing jobs due to refusing vax mandate), as well as other friends, and will be facing the fallout in the next few months unless something changes.  It feels almost offensive to say (since it comes across as dispassionate as they themselves are living through this anxiety and personal career cliff), but in my interactions I have been trying to get to the bottom for myself of the "whys" of those who are opposed on this issue. 

If you are faced with the prospect of financial devastation, etc, and you have a seemingly "easy" solution ("Just take the freaking jab already"), what is it that is driving the digging in, i.e. "non-compliance?" Is it purely rooted in what is regarded as an immoral way of testing the vaccine? Is it a kind of boycott of sorts (ie, if we acquiesce to this, what's to stop the tyranny in other future circumstances)? Is it a matter of so-called "stubbornness" of not wanting to be told what one needs to do or not do? Is this a patriotic issue, akin to the British Tea Party? Or is it truly a "pinch of incense" to Caesar, that would betray the deepest part of one's self were they to do so (vaccinate)? Or some/all of the above?

It's a bit lengthy for a blog post, but I thought the plot from The Fountainhead had some themes that possess a curious parallel as it regards to those resisting the vaccine mandate today, since I think many of those "standing alone" to make these decisions may shadow the protagonist in this novel. 

"In early 1922, Howard Roark is expelled from the architecture department of the Stanton Institute of Technology because he has not adhered to the school's preference for historical convention in building design. Roark goes to New York City and gets a job with Henry Cameron. Cameron was once a renowned architect, but now gets few commissions. In the meantime, Roark's popular, but vacuous, fellow student and housemate Peter Keating (whom Roark sometimes helped with projects) graduates with high honors. He too moves to New York, where he has been offered a position with the prestigious architecture firm, Francon & Heyer. Keating ingratiates himself with Guy Francon and works to remove rivals among his coworkers. After Francon's partner, Lucius Heyer, suffers a fatal stroke brought on by Keating's antagonism, Francon chooses Keating to replace him. Meanwhile, Roark and Cameron create inspired work, but struggle financially.

After Cameron retires, Keating hires Roark, whom Francon soon fires for refusing to design a building in the classical style. Roark works briefly at another firm, then opens his own office but has trouble finding clients and closes it down. He gets a job in a granite quarry owned by Francon. There he meets Francon's daughter Dominique, a columnist for The New York Banner, while she is staying at her family's estate nearby. 

Ellsworth M. Toohey, who writes a popular architecture column in the Banner, is an outspoken socialist who shapes public opinion through his column and a circle of influential associates. Toohey sets out to destroy Roark through a smear campaign. He recommends Roark to Hopton Stoddard, a wealthy acquaintance who wants to build a Temple of the Human Spirit. Roark's unusual design includes a nude statue modeled on Dominique; Toohey persuades Stoddard to sue Roark for malpractice. Toohey and several architects (including Keating) testify at the trial that Roark is incompetent as an architect due to his rejection of historical styles. Dominique also argues for the prosecution in tones that can be interpreted to be speaking more in Roark's defense than for the plaintiff, but he loses the case. Dominique decides that since she cannot have the world she wants, in which men like Roark are recognized for their greatness, she will live entirely in the world she has, which shuns Roark and praises Keating. She marries Keating and turns herself over to him, doing and saying whatever he wants, and actively persuading potential clients to hire him instead of Roark.

To win Keating a prestigious commission offered by Gail Wynand, the owner and editor-in-chief of the Banner, Dominique agrees to sleep with Wynand. Wynand is so strongly attracted to Dominique that he pays Keating to divorce her, after which Wynand and Dominique are married. Wanting to build a home for himself and his new wife, Wynand discovers that Roark designed every building he likes and so hires him. Roark and Wynand become close friends; Wynand is unaware of Roark's past relationship with Dominique.

Washed up and out of the public eye, Keating pleads with Toohey to use his influence to get the commission for the much-sought-after Cortlandt housing project. Keating knows his most successful projects were aided by Roark, so he asks for Roark's help in designing Cortlandt. Roark agrees in exchange for complete anonymity and Keating's promise that it will be built exactly as designed. After taking a long vacation with Wynand, Roark returns to find that Keating was not able to prevent major changes from being made in Cortlandt's construction. Roark dynamites the project to prevent the subversion of his vision.

Roark is arrested and his action is widely condemned, but Wynand decides to use his papers to defend his friend. This unpopular stance hurts the circulation of his newspapers, and Wynand's employees go on strike after Wynand dismisses Toohey for disobeying him and criticizing Roark. Faced with the prospect of closing the paper, Wynand gives in and publishes a denunciation of Roark. At his trial, Roark makes a lengthy speech about the value of ego and integrity, and he is found not guilty. Dominique leaves Wynand for Roark. Wynand, who has betrayed his own values by attacking Roark, finally grasps the nature of the power he thought he held. He shuts down the Banner and commissions a final building from Roark, a skyscraper that will serve as a monument to human achievement. Eighteen months later, the Wynand Building is under construction. Dominique, now Roark's wife, enters the site to meet him atop its steel framework."

It was a strange twist of existential fate that hinged on the hero and protagonist (Roark) being unflinchingly true to his ideals (expressed in architecture), as a man of integrity as he sees it, despite the hurdles and financial difficulties and pressures to betray those ideals. The antagonist (Keating), conversely, compromises, conforms, and while it seems to benefit him initially, he eventually is the one with nothing to show for his life. 

This is a kind of existential scenario for many, to face the question of "what do I really believe? What am I willing to suffer for?" In matters of faith, these are largely settled questions for me. But in ancillary issues--politics, personal freedom, patriotism, science and medicine--I have much more that I am unsure of. 

On the matter of integrity and ideology, I also thought about a curious scenario in which one might desire to personally benefit from taking the vaccine (assuming, that is, it is beneficial on a cost/benefit viz a viz risk scale) but be opposed ideologically to government overreach (ie, mandates) and so on the grounds of integrity, choose not to take it on principled grounds (ie, the 'boycott' approach). That is, the weight of participating and aiding tyranny is heavier than the personal benefit of vaccination. Of course, this is a rare scenario, and maybe there is some truth to Rand's contention that we all ultimately act out of self-interest and motivated by individualism. Most people, with rare exception when push comes to shove, just do what is best for themselves. 

Last year I "abetted" if you will someone who happened to be going to the January 6 rally at the Capitol in the sense that I coordinated a place to stay, as they were coming from multiple states away. Of course, I didn't know what was actually going to happen at that event, and I largely don't do crowds or political activism. I wasn't there, but these people I knew went, and made personal sacrifices to do so. Was this a good thing? Is this what patriots do? I mentioned the Boston Tea Party...is it something like that? But then there was that bizarre Q'anon shaman guy, and the deaths, and the storming (whether or not that was intended), and it becomes much harder to stand behind. Makes you question things. Is this what 'resisting tyranny' looks like? Or am I just weak in nature for not wanting to have anything to do with such an event? 

I admitted to my buddy (facing potential loss of employment for refusing the mandate) that while I was not envious of his particular situation, if nothing else I was somewhat envious of his surety that he was in the right on the matter and willing to go all the way in it. It is not easy to live true to one's ideals without betraying them. As Kierkegaard said, "Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom." 

I still haven't quite figured out what it is that motivates my buddy and others (and it may be different for different people) on this particular matter of resistance, but to the degree that they are being true to their conscience, living with integrity, and paying the price, they have my respect. 

All I Hear Is Silence

I came to Adoration a little late this evening. Whether it's a beige carpeted Novus Ordo parish or an opulent historical church, my posture is always the same--dropping to both knees, bowing my head to the ground, and coming before the Lord of Lords as a beggar before his King. For I know my transgressions and my sin, as David wrote, is ever before me.

I have had moments in my life where the Holy Spirit has cut through me like an electric knife, and what the Lord was asking me in that moment was clear as the sky. I know better than to hesitate or delay, and grace has always followed those little acts of obedience to make the way possible. 

Other times, and more often now, it is the silence of the Lord that meets me. This is not Endo's Silence--the non-response of the Almighty in the face of seeming futility and the absurdity of faith in suffering that precipitates a crisis of faith and meaning. Nor is it a silent balm that heals wounds when words cannot do pain justice. 

It is not the thundering silence of the saints, who like Elijah hear the Lord in the quiet whisper. It is likewise not the uncomfortable silence of simply an absence of noise, wondering if there is anyone on the other end of the receiver or if one is simply talking to one's self in one-way conversation.

True, communicative silence is a rarity. Think about the places you can go to achieve it. Podcasters retreat to the sealed capsule of their car to escape the chaos of their homes. You can get silence in the middle of the night as you lie in bed staring at the ceiling when everyone is asleep. But other than that, we are followed by noise like a lapdog. 

When we come before the Lord in Adoration, the silence before--and from--the throne is a respite from the savagery of the outside world. Not all of us have inner-silence, which must be cultivated and procured over time, the thing of contemplatives. 

When the beloved disciple reclined and laid his head in the bosom of our Lord, his posture was as intimate as one could get. And this is often the inner-posture I adopt in adoration--not physically, but in my spirit. When I come before Him, my defenses drop, for I know He sees me as I really am. I have nothing to bring, nothing to show for myself, nothing to brag about. All I have is brokenness and failure. This is the intimacy of a King to His servant; we are not slaves or indentured servants, but friends. 

But our words fail. Nor does He waste words on us, lest we die. His silence in the Host, where deep calls to deep, is not maddening, not futile, not absurd except on the surface. His silence is a gift, for nowhere in the savagery of the outside world can we enter into not Emptiness of the Void, but fullness of life. It does not arm us with pep-talks, but disarms us of the illusions we have about ourselves and our abilities. 

It has been a long time since I have 'heard' the Lord speak to my spirit in definitive ways in which I respond, "Yes! This is what I must do, the answer to the unasked question!" Where I have asked, "What should I do, Lord?" and He tells me. 

No. Instead, silence is all I hear. I have no clarity, no monk-like inner-peace, but like standing on the shore before an ocean of such magnitude and mass, all I experience is my own nothingness and smallness. In the crashing of wave after wave, waiting for a response, all I hear is silence. Not enough to question "why am I here? Why do I drop to my knees before this bread?" but in faith I continue to come to Him as if He could answer me and maybe one day, will. 

I continue to come prostrate before the throne, not even sure what to say or ask, but just to offer myself as a sometimes-barely breathing oblation of sacrifice which I have to trust is pleasing to Him. If He wants my heart, I will give it to Him. But not all of it, for I am not perfect, not made in perfection, but piece by piece, trading parts of myself for these portions of silence in return. 

Perhaps I should rage more often. But I have not been subject to real tragedy--not had my children ripped from the land of the living or been subjected to financial or existential ruin or had my back against a wall. Perhaps I should make more demands: "Why won't you speak!?" Perhaps it's a sign of my own luke-warmness and lack of trust, that I do not put Him to the test, as the Lord says, "Test me in this" (Mal 3:10), not having put anything of substance on the line. Perhaps I am too comfortable. The silence feels neutral--not healing, not consoling, not disheartening. Just like--putting the time in, waiting, for when something--anything--will come to pass. 

At ten til midnight as i type, the house is quiet. I am surrounded by my sleeping family. But the silence of the Lord when I am before Him is different. I know He is there, sitting in His monstrance, judging the nations and waiting to take all men to Himself. As St. John Vianney asked an old farmer what he did before the Lord in the tabernacle, maybe all I can say is to echo his words: "Nothing. I look at him, and he looks at me."

 

Hiding Behind Labels

 I've been thinking about the way we refer to ourselves in the public sphere in relation to our faith. It's common for people to say, "I'm Catholic" or "I'm a Christian." On the surface level, this is accurate. We are Catholic, and we are Christian. There is a collective identification here with a faith tradition and modus of belief. But there's something missing.

These are a kind of 'hitch the boat' labels that can allow for a passivity in responsibility. Combine that with the oft-touted, "I'm Catholic, BUT [I don't believe x, y, z teaching." Or, "I'm Christian [because my parents are]" and there can be a discomfort in adopting it for ourselves. 

Though I don't fully ascribe to it's philosophical theology, Christian existentialism (in the vein of Kierkegaard) demands a wholly committed and subjective sense of radical responsibility for our moral choices. This did have an influence on me early on in my conversion because it squared with my experience--being ransomed in love by a benevolent God who took pity on me in my abject state and offered me the promise of eternal life and freedom from slavery, sin, and death. In turn, I wed myself to the Bridegroom and pledged myself to follow Him wherever He went.

In the public sphere, Catholics and Christians are often seen by the world as a collective force to be dismissed and largely ignored, because they can be. They may subscribe to a kind of Moral Therapeutic Deism that doesn't hold much value in terms of spiritual currency. They will often acquiesce to the cultural norms around them without resistance. They may still think cultural Catholicism (when was the last time someone described themselves as an Irish Catholic?) has some kind of weight or legacy today. 

Does this describe you? If you are reading this blog, my guess is, "maybe not." 

So, I have a proposition for you: the next time someone asks you what your religion is, or why you pray before you eat, or why you go to Mass on Sundays, or why you can't affirm x,y,z perversion, answer it this way:

"I am a disciple of Jesus Christ."

The early apostles were Catholic (and Jewish, of course). They belonged to the Body, the Church. They were considered followers of "the Way" in the early sect days. They were "Christ-followers." All these things are true. But to live in the post-Christian era today, where "religious people" suffer the temptation to cling to a kind of Catholicism that may no longer exist in the near future as a kind of ineffective inoculate against the cultural tide, we should stand firm and unabashed in our commitment to the one we follow, the one to whom we belong. 

We stand before the King at our personal judgement alone, and every moral decision we make when there is no one else to lean on or hide behind, has eternal consequence. Therefore, it seems fitting to adopt this plainly radical moniker when questioned about why we live as we do and resist what we resist. As it says in Scripture, "if we die, we die to the Lord." (Rom 14:8). We do not say, "it we die, we die to the Church." We belong to Her by nature of our baptism, but she exists because of the Bridegroom. He is who we are living for.

And so, consider it. When someone at your work asks why you're not taking part in x training, or when your neighbor asks why your kids don't go to the local school, or when your parents ask you why you do the things you do, try answering, simply, "I am a disciple of Jesus Christ." It puts the onus on you--not the Church or your cultural religious heritage--to live up to that label. A disciple must be worthy (Mt 10:38). You can be "Catholic" or "Christian" without taking up your cross. But you can't be a disciple without doing so. We are part of the collective, Catholics and Christians, yes. But disciples first. Like other disciples world-wide, we follow Christ to His death in order to be worthy of Life. If that doesn't mean something, I don't know what does.  

Wherever Truth May Be Found, It Belongs To His Master

As parents, my wife and I constantly weigh what we expose our kids to. Do we go full-Amish or full-tech? Who do we allow them to play with? What movies do we watch? Oftentimes we try to take a 'middle-line' approach to maintain their innocence and keep them protected, while not coming across as overly-strict so that they are feeling like they are living under a dictatorship. It's something every parent has to weigh for themselves in the culture we live in.

Last night I was weighing whether to watch the 1999 science-fi film "The Matrix" with my 9 year old son. It depicts a dystopian future in which humanity is unknowingly trapped inside a simulated reality, the Matrix, created by intelligent machines to distract humans while using their bodies as an energy source. When computer programmer Thomas Anderson, under the hacker alias "Neo", uncovers the truth, he "is drawn into a rebellion against the machines" along with other people who have been freed from the Matrix. Getting "red-pilled" on waking up to the truth of something is an expression used in reference to the film. There was some language and non graphic violence, but overall I found it thought-provoking from a Christian perspective when I saw it years ago worthy of exploration. We decided to watch it; you can judge me accordingly.

In his On Christian Doctrines treatise, Augustine writes, “If those who are called philosophers, and especially the Platonists, have said aught that is true and in harmony with our faith, we are not only not to shrink from it, but to claim it for our own use from those who have unlawful possession of it.” As an Augustinian at heart (having first read Confessions very early in my conversion), I always appreciated Augustan's pre-Christian background in rhetoric and philosophy and how God used it for the good after his conversion to Christianity. Though he rejected the incompatible heresy of dualistic Manicheasm, he "baptized" his neoplatonic philosophy in the waters of Christian theology.  

Neoplatonism as a philosophy sought the One, the Good, extolled virtue, and recognized the soul. But it was a philosophy developed before the Incarnation, the "scandal of the particular" in human history with the One, the Good, the Eternal entering into the human fray. In Christ, the soul was no longer "trapped within the body" to be freed from its degraded cell, but dependent on it for existence. The body was good, because God made it good. The soul did not exist apart from the body and the human person. The resurrection means we will be reunited with our human bodies in the coming age.  As Augustine came to realize, Christianity “is the religion which possesses the universal way for delivering the soul; for, except by this way, none can be delivered.”

Though The Matrix drew its themes from a mix of Taoism, Judaism, Gnostic thought, and Christianity, I felt I (and my son) had the Christian foundation to parse out what was of the True Good and what was not enough to have a discussion about it. My son loved the film. But what I loved more was he wanted to talk about the themes and what they meant, and so after we watched it we headed downstairs and I brewed some coffee.

We sat down and I brought over a jar of holy water and we blessed ourselves, lit the Advent candles, and I prayed over him for the gifts of wisdom, understanding, counsel, fortitude, knowledge, piety, and fear of the Lord. What ensued was an hour long discussion at the kitchen table about Christology, soteriology, epistimology, metaphysics, Heaven, Hell, purgatory, human nature, sin, death, atonement, culture, and calling. 

He knows his catechism pretty well, his prayers and the tenants of the Faith. But last night I went through the Scriptures with him, starting with John chapter 1: In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. We talked about the pre-existence of Jesus as God before time and space, that he was co-eternal with the Father. 

We then moved on to Romans chapter 6, in which Paul writes about our bondage to and struggle with sin and concupiscence, but also our redemption in Christ and by baptism. That like those in The Matrix, humanity is enslaved and asleep in a comfortable reality that is not the "whole picture," but has the capacity to be set free. But this rests on the need for "the One" to do it (personified by Neo in the film), who is Christ. Seeing things as they are, knowing the Truth, is not easy nor comfortable. In fact, in can be quite painful to come to terms with and live by. 

Then we moved to Genesis. Why are we in this state? I read to him chapter 3 relating the Fall and the theology of Original Sin to the state we find ourselves in today--why it is hard to be good, to see things as they really are, and why we are constantly being tempted by the "agents" of the Devil to rest in our present reality rather than seek out and strive for Heaven.

We talked about the Oracle (the prophetess/seer in the movie who fortold Neo's coming), and moved into the prophets in the Old Testatment, and how they prefigured the expectation of Christ; they too were "waiting for the One," the Messiah, who would finally free the human race from their bondage.

There was a character in the film who gets tired of living in the Truth and longs for the comfortable life of illusion--steak dinners, wine, wealth, and fame--ultimately hands over Neo to the Machines. We moved into the synoptic Gospels and the Last Supper, where the Son of Man was betrayed by one of his own--Judas Iscariot, "who would betray him." 

At one point in the film, Neo actually dies, but it is through the faith of Trinity (the female character, who believes Morpheus that Neo truly is the One who will save them from their enslavement) that this death is not final. So, we moved on to the Resurrection--that our belief as Christians is that even when all hope seems lost, Christ will come again to save us. That like the early disciples who saw Christ die a true death, we would see him rise and come again in glory--for them three days later, and for us at our particular or the Last Judgement. 

And we talked about the saints, disciples who by merit of faith Christ gives the power to heal the sick, raise the dead, and work miracles. That Neo could stop time and dodge bullets and bend spoons--there is nothing stopping one with faith from working such miracles in the name of Jesus except his own unbelief.

The whole time, my son never blinked. He rested his head on his arm and listened to the scriptures, the Word of God which is a living Word, not a dead text, to put it all into context. We do not study philosophy for its own sake, or theology so we can use big words, I told him. We learn about Christ so we can know what is really going on; so that because we know what we believe, and who we believe in, we can live as people with purpose and an ultimate end that we need neither fear nor eschew. As Christ said, "you will have trouble in the world, but fear not, for I have overcome the world!" 

It is a great responsibility and privilege to be a father, but thankfully I have a son who is worthy of that honor, and who I actually enjoy being with and teaching him the truths of our Faith. I have to work with what I have in the times we live in, along with the threats, the technology, the culture. But like Augustine who baptized his platonic thought and Paul, who adapted his preaching to different audiences and implored the Gentiles to connect the "unknown God" they pray to with the Living Christ, I try at least, when warranted and the opportunity presents itself, to "work all things for the good of those who are called according to purpose" (Romans 8:28). 

Adrift and Untethered

I read The Brothers Karamazov for the first time while staying in a shed on a horse farm in New Zealand.

I had returned to Wellington to visit a Samoan girl I had fallen for the year before while at university, but the relationship was on the rocks and she kicked me out of her apartment after a few days. With a month to kill before my flight home, and more or less adrift, I took the ferry over to Picton and began hitchhiking the 1,000km to Invercargill, on the southernmost tip of the South Island. I spent a few nights in a Trappist monastery, and a hostel here and there. At one point I slept in the doorway of a public bathroom on the beach, cooking my dinner on a small alcohol stove to escape the wind. I remember a small child going to use the bathroom being startled that there was someone lying there. I was, for all intents and purposes, a vagrant.

I spent about a week on the horse farm somewhere between Christchurch and Timaru. Most people in New Zealand are very laid back and friendly, and after I encountered the farmer she invited me to stay in a shed on her property. I would sit on the porch and drink tea, hang my laundry, walk into town for the newspaper, and read books. I was more or less alone, and more or less adrift. Yes, I was traveling, but I was also searching. I had been Catholic for about three years and had struggled to leave my old life behind. I still remember lying in bed, the light of dusk coming through the one window of the shed, and reading Dostoevsky's words in The Grand Inquisitor:

“I tell you that man has no more tormenting care than to find someone to whom he can hand over as quickly as possible that gift of freedom with which the miserable creature is born. But he alone can take over the freedom of men who appeases their conscience. With bread you were given an indisputable banner: give man bread and he will bow down to you, for there is nothing more indisputable than bread. But if at the same time someone else takes over his conscience - oh, then he will even throw down your bread and follow him who has seduced his conscience. In this you were right. For the mystery of man's being is not only in living, but in what one lives for. Without a firm idea of what he lives for, man will not consent to live and will sooner destroy himself than remain on earth, even if there is bread all around him. That is so, but what came of it? Instead of taking over men's freedom, you increased it still more for them! Did you forget that peace and even death are dearer to man than free choice in the knowledge of good and evil? There is nothing more seductive for man than the freedom of his conscience, but there is nothing more tormenting either. And so, instead of a firm foundation for appeasing human conscience once and for all, you chose everything that was unusual, enigmatic, and indefinite, you chose everything that was beyond men's strength, and thereby acted as if you did not love them at all - and who did this? He who came to give his life for them! Instead of taking over men's freedom, you increased it and forever burdened the kingdom of the human soul with its torments. You desired the free love of man, that he should follow you freely. seduced and captivated by you. Instead of the firm ancient law, men had henceforth to decide for himself, with a free heart, what is good and what is evil, having only your image before him as a guide - but did it not occur to you that he would eventually reject and dispute even your image and your truth if he was oppressed by so terrible a burden as freedom of choice? They will finally cry out that the truth is not in you, for it was impossible to leave them in greater confusion and torment than you did, abandoning them to so many cares and insoluble problems. Thus you yourself laid the foundation for the destruction of your own kingdom, and do not blame anyone else for it.”

Kornelije Kvas wrote that Bakhtin’s theory of "the polyphonic novel and Dostoevsky’s dialogicness of narration postulates the non-existence of the 'final' word, which is why the thoughts, emotions and experiences of the world of the narrator and his/her characters are reflected through the words of another, with which they can never fully blend." Though Dostoevsky was influenced by his Orthodox Christian upbringing, and was pious in his own right, the polyphony that is evident in his work laid the groundwork for his influence on Existentialists like Sartre and Nietzsche. Though fond of the Christ of the New Testament, he described himself as a "child of unbelief and doubt up to this moment, and I am certain that I shall remain so to the grave." He also wrote that "even if someone were to prove to me that the truth lay outside Christ, I should choose to remain with Christ rather than with the truth." He essentially created his own belief system that was not tethered to dogmatic constructs, and he idealized the loving Christ in the way a modern day (though much more childishly) Joseph Girzone has in the Joshua books.

Was it any wonder Dostoevsky spoke to me at this untethered point in my life? I was in a foreign country, thousands of miles from home, and I couldn't even tell you why or what I was doing. Like Dostoevsky, I was probably sympathetic to Christian Socialism at that point, seeing in the monastic ideal the embodiment of what was possible. If Christ came back to earth, as he did in The Grand Inquisitor, he would be cast out once again, and then the question would become--would I follow him off the Barque.

An interesting event happened after I resumed my journey southwards, though. I eventually met a family in Dunedin, a Catholic family, who took me into their home. They were devout and joyful. They were a little puzzled by my listlessness, but lovingly 'adopted' me for a week or so and I got a glimpse of the "order" that family life prescribes to those in it. You live under a roof, with expectations, and a bond of cohesion. You go to Mass together, you eat together, you sign on to what the Church teaches. You are a domestic church in and of yourself, and you are one of millions across the globe with a common creed, common prayer before meals, common goal to get one another to Heaven. You love one another in a communion of persons, just as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost are a communion of Persons. Family life mirrors that of the order of the Universe.

There is a loneliness in cobbling together your own belief system, whether quasi-Christian/anti-dogmatic, syncretist, universalist, or otherwise. When your 'beliefs' are idiosyncratic, you become a church of one. You are like a traveler adrift, not part of a community, a sarabaite or gyrovague, "the most detestable of all monks" as St. Benedict said,

"who with no experience to guide them, no rule to try them as gold is tried in a furnace (Prov 27:21), have a character as soft as lead. Still loyal to the world by their actions, they clearly lie to God by their tonsure. Two or three together, or even alone, without a shepherd, they pen themselves up in their own sheepfolds, not the Lord’s. Their law is what they like to do, whatever strikes their fancy. Anything they believe in and choose, they call holy; anything they dislike, they consider forbidden...who spend their entire lives drifting from region to region, staying as guests for three or four days in different monasteries. Always on the move, they never settle down, and are slaves to their own wills and gross appetites." (Rule, Ch 1)

In the narrative in the Brothers Karamazov, Dostoevsky inverts the temptations of Christ, so that The Grand Inquisitor (the Church) said that Christ should have given people no choice, and instead taken power and given people security instead of freedom. That way, the same people who were too weak to follow Christ to begin with would still be damned, but at least they could have happiness and security on Earth, rather than the impossible burden of moral freedom. The Grand Inquisitor says that the Church has now undertaken to correct Christ’s mistake. The Church is taking away freedom of choice and replacing it with security. Thus, the Grand Inquisitor must keep Christ in prison, because if Christ were allowed to go free, he might undermine the Church’s work to lift the burden of free will from mankind.

Obviously Dostoevsky was critical of the (Catholic) Church, and imagined a Christ freed from the constraints of dogmatism (ie, his idealization of Christian Socialism). Of course, I am not a literary scholar, and much of the history of Russia in the 19th century makes any analysis I can make inadequate. Dostoevsky had an immense respect for freedom and wrestled with it his whole life. But in a kind of ignostic way, this greatest gift (of God, on which love in its truest sense is dependent) was also his greatest burden.

But my takeaway is this: You can only do your own thing for so long before you realize that your adrift-ness is the result of your refusal to sign on to something where you can grow, not any great misunderstood martyrdom or idolized man viz-a-viz the world. To refuse to subject your will, your freedom, and your conscience to something greater than yourself--be it dogmatic constitutions or the permanence of family life--you will always be asking the existential questions without answers.

The Death of Faith

Deb and I got a chance to brew some coffee after the kids went to bed and watch a movie she got from the library--a Woody Allen film, Irrational Man with Joaquin Phoenix and Emma Stone. I have a soft spot for existential-themed films (I was a big fan of "I Heart Huckabees," though I know practically no one who 'got it'). I was never into the nihilists like Sartre but Kierkegaard pushed my Christian boundaries a bit, pre-orthodoxy, and I could appreciate the stripped-down absurdism in Camus' The Stranger. Having existentialist tendencies--regarding meaning as a fabricated attempt to make sense of our otherwise ultimately meaningless (or radically subjective) existence and insulate ourselves from an indifferent universe bereft of it--might be kind of hip and edgy for aspiring sophomore intellectuals and brooding seniors who secretly long for meaning in their lives but who are too cool (or scared) to commit to it. But for middle-aged college professors who teach and live it (Joaquin Phoenix), the result is the usual cliche and pithy momentary pleasures of alcohol, one night stands, and depression.

But something does wake up Phoenix in the film from his existential depression. When he overhears a mother going through divorce proceedings lamenting that she can't get custody of her kids and is running out of money to appeal because of a corrupt judge, he decides to take it upon himself to off the judge as a moral imperative "to make the world, in some small way, a better place." Suddenly his life has meaning and purpose. The thought of exacting this kind of radical judgment--not in words and books and ideas, but in real life--gives him a reason to live and something to live for, cures his year long sexual impotence, and offers a view of the world in Technicolor. His plan to poison the judge's orange juice with cyanide is successful, and he feels he has pulled off the perfect crime in true unwittingly narcissistic form.

His wonky moral high ground is compromised, though, when the student he is having an affair with (Emma Stone)--who was sympathetic, at least intellectually, to his desire for justice for the woman going through the divorce--puts two and two together and realizes Phoenix poisoned the judge. To boot, the police have arrested an innocent man for the crime who is faced with a life sentence. Suddenly the university lectures and theoretical jabber about meaning and existence and morality has become "real life:" a man is dead, a crime has been committed, and an innocent man is arrested. Stone realizes the right thing to do is for Phoenix to turn himself in to the police, but after cowardly refusing to accept the consequences of his actions ("I can't go to jail") he attempts to silence her as well to hide his deed by throwing her down an elevator shoot and making it look like an accident. In the struggle, he slips on a flashlight that falls from her purse (which, ironically, he won for her as a prize at a carnival, confirmation of his good "luck") and falls down the shoot himself.

I didn't intend for this to be a benign movie review. But it did make me reflect on some themes in light of the struggle for meaning and crisis of faith many Catholics are experiencing today as a result of the crimes of those in authority; the inability of those figures in authority to recognize the very real spiritual deaths experienced by the victims of their abuse; the cowardly ensuing cover ups; and the red hot (and justified) desire for justice and transparency from the faithful.

Whereas the existentialist may "create his own meaning" in the absence of objective moral norms to make life in an indifferent universe bearable, the Christian recognizes, by way of faith, that moral directives transcend individual tastes--we have the Ten Commandments given to Moses by God Himself to His people; we have the conviction of the Holy Spirit in an informed conscience, which is not completely untethered from the universal moral law in complete subjectivism, but is informed by it; we have the living example of the saints and those who followed the real, historical man, Jesus of Nazareth, who made the claim to be God incarnate, God's own Son, who told us to love one another, provide for those in need, and hope for eternal life beyond this world.

For the Christian, meaning is not some made up, subjective, arbitrary reason to get up in the morning--it is the substance of our faith.  Our lives are meaningful because we have been charged to love, in word and deed. We have joy not because of a make-believe universal entity, a "Flying Spaghetti Monster" as the atheists would say, but because of an encounter with the living God that goes beyond psychology, beyond the intellect, beyond theology, to the very core of our being, the heart. This is what it means to be born again by the Spirit. This is our "wake-up" moment, a radically subjective experience wrapped in a wholly objective God.

We read theology and Church teaching not as intellectual endeavors for their own sake, but as a way to inform this living faith and to exercise it in real life more fully. We make sense of our individual calling--our raison d'etre--to do the objective work He calls us to do, by way of the subjective experiences of prayer, spiritual consolations, and affirmations of intuition.

Faith, for the Christian, is our reason for living. It is the oxygen for our blood, the blood for our organs, the organs that keep us alive. That is why the death of faith--spiritual death at the hands of those who self-servingly abuse with no regard for the consequences--cries out to Heaven; takes away the will to live, both physically, psychologically, and spiritually. It is why Jesus said it was better for those who lead others into sin to hang a millstone around their neck and cast themselves into the sea.

For those who find themselves in the wake of this scandal shell-shocked and wandering around in a wasteland of betrayal and distrust without bearings to guide you, remember the disciples on the day of the Crucifixion. The prophecy had been fulfilled the night prior: "Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered, and I will turn my hand against the little ones" (Zech 13:7). They are disoriented; everything they staked their lives on was hanging lifeless on a tree. It was a dark three days before the Resurrection, which is where we find ourselves today--huddled together in upper rooms, trying to make sense of things, consoling one another, coming to terms with a work unfinished.

We know how the story ends in scripture, but the disciples did not have that consolation. Likewise, we find ourselves without consolation with regards to the battered ark, the Church, bereft and floating in an existential sea of doubt. This is when faith comes alive--it's no longer a textbook lovely little thing to muse and ponder in classrooms, but a steely, gritty, stripped down kernel of hope in a blanket of darkness. DO NOT LOSE THAT KERNEL. Hold it tight to your chest and protect it from the wolves and robbers who would strip you of it. Pray, even bereft of consolation, even as matter of form, even as duty, but grit down and pray not to make sense of things, but to be faithful to the end. People will be falling left and right, stripped away before your eyes--members of your own family, your friends, your kin. The resurrection of the Church is coming, and soon. And the Judge who was murdered by cowardly men two thousand years ago is making his way back.  The final ruling belongs to Him.