Faith, Reason, and Debating the Existential "Big Questions"

I'm past college, and with those years has passed the incidence of earnest debate about things like religion and the meaning of life. That I attended a Catholic university and majored in a "Great Books" meant that I fielded my share of challenges from those who believed something different than I did, and one of the most pressing questions that came up at that time was why.

Why do you believe?

There is something fantastic and mythological, certainly, about the story of a God coming to earth in order to offer Himself up as a perfect, spotless sacrifice in order to atone for every human sin, past and future, and reconcile the human race to Himself as God. The particulars of the story are indeed quaint and uncomfortably sentimental: a sweet young woman chosen to miraculously conceive God's child; archetypal authority figures hatching dastardly plots and darkly scheming to stop this bright young hero; a set of bumbling accomplices; an impossibly evil death; and the most mythical and unbelievable thing of all: that he was killed and then came back to life.

To my friends, well-educated and mostly liberal humanists, the tale of Christ bears too many similarities to the quaint myths of many other cultures, and is only the biggest myth in a child-like narrative of the world with a stylized creation story and a lot of horrible barbarities. Compared to sophisticated promise of modern disciplines like sociology, psychology, and specialized sciences, a primitive culture's myth seems plainly archaic. How could anyone believe this, much less someone college-educated?

The challenge about answering this question is that it is ideological rather than academic. Those who ask it have a certain perspective which I don't understand, but which seems to preclude the idea of a supernatural. Some profess to be humanists, who believe that continued enlightenment in sciences will eventually conquer our social and personal afflictions. Others profess to be rationalists, believing only in those things that science has proved or theorized.

Such alternative belief systems are not, in and of themselves, ideological. They fall more truly into the existential category, defining who we are and why we exist. But they seem to come with a lot of ideological baggage these days. After all, elements of our society today are unabashed and even aggressive apologists for faith (professing the Christian doctrine of sola scriptura) and many of them speak in terms of condemnation, specifically condemnation of those who disagree with them, to hell. They often stand for uncomfortably traditional values as well, like maintaining traditional gender and socio-economic roles. Now all of a sudden we aren't talking about a different moral and existential perspective, we're talking about an ideological opponent. And, to be fair, there are fundamentalist Christians who are offensive and judgmental in proselytizing their beliefs.

But to turn the tables, many so-called rationalists and/or humanists can be just as aggressive, and I am skeptical that their explanations of the world are actually more 'rational' than a faith-based one. It's easy to talk about gravity or astronomical relations and say that we can "prove" real science empirically, but I doubt that many of us have empirically viewed the behavior of a virus, or the release of certain brain hormones causing affection or depression. We accept that viruses and brain hormones work a certain way because we have studied the effect of those things and measured them in actual humans, so we know they exist and they affect, somehow, our health or mental state. We also believe people called "scientists" when those people tell us about viruses and brain hormones (and the behavior of chemical elements, and many other things), because we have faith that their education and certification makes them intrinsically trustworthy on certain issues.

Whether or not you trust a scientist or a theologian (or a priest) is really the question, unless on. An Op-Ed in the Washington Post recently pointed out very thoroughly that the two sides are not mutually exclusive. I have little to add to the writer's argument because I agree with him -- I believe in the story of the Christ and yet also pursue understanding of scientific matters, because I want to know more about us and this world we inhabit. He ends with a marvelous paragraph worth quoting in full:

The problem comes when materialism, claiming the authority of science, denies the possibility of all other types of knowledge — reducing human beings to a bag of chemicals and all their hopes and loves to the firing of neurons. Or when religion exceeds its bounds and declares the Earth to be 6,000 years old. In both cases, the besetting sin is the same: the arrogant exclusive claim to know reality.

The answer to the question of why I believe the entirety of the Christian story, with it's quaint mythological narratives about paradisiacal gardens and apples of knowledge of good and evil and floods and prophets and whales and the Son of God is that I find it more plausible than any of the alternatives. It really makes more sense to me. Not necessarily in they physical particulars ("do you really believe that some prophet actually parted water to create a passage?"), but in the tale it tells of how humanity became prone to doing bad things and how God then came Himself to redeem humanity from its sinful nature.

The Christian tale is plausible to me mostly because of my own experiences in sin and redemption. The vast majority of these experiences are with my own sins and redemptions in my life so far, and a few of them are observations of other peoples' sins and redemptions. On a precious few occasions I recall witnessing a miracle, or experiencing a beatific presence I attribute to the Christian God. These things are open to interpretation in an academic sense, of course. Rationalists might argue that my experiences of good and bad in myself and others are filtered through a strong inculcated Catholic belief system. They might doubt that I, in fact, saw or experienced so-called "supernatural" things, and point to the demonstrated phenomenon of humans to manufacture memories that suit their subconscious perspectives. And as far as that goes, they may be right. I can't transmit my experiences to others, so therefore I can't expect anyone else to believe my conclusions. And yet I can no more forget them than an astronaut could forget his view of a round earth from space, or an astronomer could forget the sightings and calculations that the earth and nearer bodies revolved around the sun in elliptical trajectories.

My point here is not to convince anyone in my beliefs. I don't think that's possible -- neither a rationalist nor a faith-based belief system can be truly transmitted via dialectic. Any belief system has to be experienced to be believed, personally and deeply experienced. And for a human, that means engaging both the intellect and whatever part of the brain controls belief.

Someone who believes that human emotions like love and depression are a combination of neuron activity and chemical activity in the brain has probably actively engaged the subject: he or she likely wondered why people experience love and other emotions, and pursued the answer until they found an explanation. That's the activity of his or her intellect. He or she also had to exclude other explanations for emotions (presuming they found others), such as activity of a metaphysical soul, or instinctual behavior bred in by evolution, which is primarily a decision of faith. Does he or she trust neurologists who measure neuron activity and brain chemicals? Priests, philosophers, and/or wise men and women, who have reached a supernatural explanation due to their long experience in considering and/or observing human behavior? What about sociologists and/or biologists who study behavioral patterns and instinct activity?

Personally, I don't believe that a scientist is intrinsically a better person than a priest or a philosopher. All three are human, which means they are subject to the same ideological myopia and vices, as well as the same inspiration and virtue, as the rest of us. No single person knows everything, and experience teaches that even if a person did, he or she would forget part of it, or hide part of it, or even use it to his/her advantage. Positing that it's possible to know everything, and use that knowledge correctly, is coming dangerously close to positing God. Whether we follow to that conclusion, or stop short -- and who/what we decide to trust and therefore believe -- well, that's just our obligation as rational beings. We each must individually decide what to believe.

It's natural that each of us would seek like-minded friends in the world, and so it's easy to see how we would gravitate towards those who believe the same things. So begins ideology, or the pursuit of actualizing an ideal, which carried to the extreme ends up forgetting that ideas are not more important than people -- or so I argue as a Christian: that individuals have the highest intrinsic value; ideas may be valuable but they're not worth more than life itself.

I plead that we don't let this social instinct push us into prejudice. I and many people I know believe in the teachings of Christianity and yet also follow the progress of scientific knowledge. Many of these people are scientists or doctors themselves. And likewise, I know that people who religious faith (Christian or other) is irrational do not reduce the human experience to the peculiar behavior of a peculiar animal, enslaved to instinct and evolutionary imperative.

So let's not discuss these existential issues of faith, science, reason, and belief with a desire to win, especially to win by painting other belief systems in pejorative colors. Rather let's do it to better understand ourselves and each other.

On graduation generally, with some commencement advice

There's nothing that makes me feel older than seeing graduation pictures and congratulations post all over social media. Many of my older friends have children graduating from high school, and many of my contemporaries have siblings, nieces, and nephews graduating. Such bright, exciting moments! And with the privilege of age I look back on my own shining moment, and remember that the aftermath was, well, difficult. The years following my degree were filled with growth and development, much of it painful. This article eloquently captures the sense of loss, of frustrated loneliness, the unexpected difficulty of 'real work' in 'the real world.'

I'll bet most of us remember this transition, and we have all sorts of advice for others on how to deal with it. But that's what all graduates hear, from the rumors of their friends (I heard so-and-so is a great company) to the advice of parents or teachers to the commencement address itself.

Obviously, I don't remember any of the advice I was given. I doubt anyone else does, either.

I mean, there's just so much of it! And it's not like any graduate is eager to plan their life 'in the real world,' not with celebrating to do. And most college graduates are complacent to some degree--by their graduation year they have usually  found a comfortable niche in their institution. By the way, the last semester usually doesn't have much impact on class standing, so I suspect that most college seniors spend rather more time socializing before graduation than studying.

So it isn't like anybody paying much attention to those wise words spilled extravagantly over commencement ceremonies. Yet if they did (and I grant some do--not me, I both proud and ashamed to admit, but some do), I doubt they'd get much out of the advice. The sad fact is that college education does not prepare one for 'real world,' and most commencement advice tells of how to succeed in the 'real world.'

By 'college education, I mean the kind of education to be had at institutions found in U.S. News' annual ranking.

I've written before that colleges and universities are supposed to be places that challenge students and train them, through rigorous study and discussion, to solve the problems of the world. There are technical colleges for training people to solve technical problems, there were law schools for training people to solve legal problems, and at the top of the proverbial academic totem pole there were the liberal arts schools, which trained people (theoretically) to solve people problems. Subsets of these liberal arts schools focused on societal problems, or artistic problems (not really great language, the problem that artists solve is that of too little art in our communities), or economic problems. But regardless, the graduates of these 'colleges' were supposed to be molded into the movers and shakers, advancers of society, generally good and reliable and virtuous people ready to make a positive difference in their business and social circles.

This still happens, of course. Excellent niche schools like California Tech or MIT maintain a sterling reputation based on the observable skills and attributes of their graduates. Well-regarded liberal arts (or "general") schools like Harvard, Stanford, and the rest continue to turn out exceedingly well-educated young men and women. But the 'post-college depression' that plagues my generation (and which increases, I bet) argues eloquently that the graduates of 'top-tier' universities are not prepared for the 'real world,' even if they are educated to the max. And I'll go so far as to suggest that today's college graduates may not be all that educated as compared with the graduates of yore.

If colleges and universities are separate institutions dedicated to forming young men and women for success in the real world, then they are also separate from it. That's necessary, but it is also dangerous. Separation breeds unfamiliarity, and unfamiliarity breeds contempt. True to form, a close look at 'college culture' shows that what higher education values in its students, and what it teaches, is a collection of loosely associated ideals that revolve around vague concepts like open-mindedness and experimentation and uniqueness or specialness. In my experience (a decade ago, but more recently via facebook) a great many of today's college students, and therefore graduates, see the point of college as getting an 'experience' (whatever that is--I assume it means mostly social drinking with a little class and sports spectating thrown in). That experience is supposed to be nurturing and consequence-free, so that students can 'find themselves.' It would be easy to launch into a righteous tirade, but those are a dime-a-dozen on the internet. Let's give this idea the benefit of the doubt and say that 'finding oneself' is probably related to being mentally/emotionally healthy, directly impacts a graduates' contributions to society.

Yet research has shown that 'the college experience,' while it may nurture and produce open-minded graduates who have 'found themselves' (actually I think it is probably unhealthy in sum) mirrors the 'real world' less and less. Grade inflation, on the rise since the 1960s, means fewer and fewer college graduates have dealt with failure and had a chance to recover. That's not like the 'real world,' and in fact many commencement addresses I've read (and successful people I've heard) talk about inevitable failures and the importance of learning from failures and doing better next time. Research shows that failure is an essential part of learning, and it's absence can cause excessive fear of risks and (you guessed it) failure. Students at 'top tier universities, crafted for admission by 'magnet' or 'prep' high schools, may not learn about failure at all. It's a particularly hard lesson to learn after college, when the consequences are life-changing.

What would make the university years a good separation is a connection to what comes after. Learning through challenge, failure, and perseverance is direct preparation for the 'real world,' and the separation is insulated from breeding contempt by the learning itself which is external and oriented at the world outside--even if the world available is bounded by university walls. But taking away that external focus and emphasizing reflective learning, or 'finding oneself,' creates a shelter wherein the separation breeds contempt very efficaciously. The contempt is usually expressed in rejecting traditional social metrics of success (a family, real estate, success in one's community), pejoratively labeling them as conformity, settling, or re-imagining them as social slavery, materialism, bourgeois values, or patriarchy (depending upon the ideology at hand). Sadly, such beliefs encourage new graduates to feel that they are better than everybody else because they are somehow independent and free-spirited, non-conformist and appropriately ambitious. And because most people figure out that acting better than others is a great way to make enemies, they simply compromise and disassociate a 'professional life' from what they regard is their 'real life.' I've seen myself and many contemporaries literally wear two faces: a sober, professional face for work and family; and an artificial 'eclectic,' interesting, face in selected social groups.

Certainly the perspective that the value of higher education lies mostly in 'the experience,' which students generally interpret as experiencing independence and fun, subtly relegates studies to an inconvenient but necessary part of 'the experience,' effectively teaching students to develop two faces--one for class and impressing professors, another for parties and Greek life. Essentially, the college years' chief role is providing ample 'find oneself' time to painstakingly craft the right persona for each environment. I know I spent many hours on AOL Instant Messenger, pompously posting impressive quotes and poems in my 'away message' and profile, hoping everyone would see what a sensitive intellectual I was. After college, I continued this personal dimorphism by constantly tweaking my Facebook profile. And I was not alone: I noticed the same behavior in college friends and co-workers. I can't help but think that a lot of the post-college depression had to do with all that focus on self and others, inviting self-doubt and constant comparison.

Worst of all, the values taught by the 'college experience' almost certainly have lasting, perhaps lifelong consequences. Although in humans the temporal lobe of the brain--controlling memory, the understanding of higher meaning, and complex problem-solving--develops by 17 years of age, the frontal lobe--controlling judgment, the understanding of consequences of future actions, and values (determining good and bad)--doesn't finish developing until a person is in their early to mid-twenties. So college or university freshmen are intellectually capable of learning undergraduate academics, but they are still in the process of developing their values. Teaching them anti-social behavior and sheltering them from the need to be valuable during the college is setting them up for failure throughout their lives, because those are the prime years when humans establish values. It becomes much harder to change values, and therefore behavior, after the mid twenties. Believe it or not, there's the science behind the phrase, "people don't change."

The dirty little secret about all of this is that graduates are about to enter society, and none of the things that makes a person fit for society (whether the society is a military branch or a hippy commune) are truly taught in universities--except maybe through having to live with a roommate. People who think they're better than everybody else, or people who are self-focused (what, after all, is 'finding oneself' if not self-focus?) are by definition anti-social. And guess what, post-college depression? Being anti-social leads to loneliness, insecurity, and depression. Reference "The Roseto Study," (thank you, Outliers by Malcom Gladwell), which shows scientifically that human happiness (and health) are tied to functional societies, which may be found in families, neighborhoods, and corporations.

So while the purpose of colleges and universities are to give students value to the societies they'll enter--value in the form of technical knowledge, problem-solving abilities, communication abilities, ethical development--I think that contemporary education falls short. Grade inflation means students don't really have to learn much of anything except perhaps how to charm their teachers into liking them, and their educational inheritance of anti-social qualities hinders their ability to join new companies and social groups after graduation. New graduates may possess a wealth of knowledge, skills, and abilities, but bringing all that goodness to bear in 'the real world' (a job, a relationship, or a new social scene) requires them to be social. In fact, success in the 'real world' usually depends more on one's ability to work well with others--become a part of a team--than on measurable skills.

I suspect that's the origin of the wry and cynical phrase, "[Success is] not about what you know, it's about who you know," which is almost true. Really, success not about what you know, but about your ability to know others and communicate.

That was the thing about Roseto: the town had a strong community. Most of the researchers who studied that place traced it to the fact that it was relatively isolated and it's inhabitants traced a common ancestry to a small town in Italy. But despite being 'as American as apple pie' (in terms of employment, diet, interests, etc.) at the time of all the studies, Rosetans were empirically far happier and healthier than their fellow Americans. They had a functional society, a community where each of them were better known and therefore better appreciated by their peers, allowing individuals both more freedom to be 'who they were' and demanding enough conformity and external focus to keep all members of the community valuable. Whether or not one agrees philosophically with the Rosetan social structure, the facts speak for themselves. Rosetans were happier, more satisfied with their lives, less depressed, and less prone to diseases ranging from heart attacks to cancer. And it's all due to the fact that they were social--something that's hard to accomplish living by the values encouraged in college and university environments.

I wish I'd known back then--really known (because I'm sure many wise people tried to tell me)--that all the hours spent on myself and my various images, all the anxiety I felt about the inevitable post-college setbacks, were wasted. Nobody read my facebook profile, nobody cared how eclectic my 'likes' and hobbies were, and nobody wanted to hear the complicated details of my love life or the reasons why I flubbed a particular task. Everyone was too busy developing their own self-image, simply wanted me to do my job, or cared about me and wanted me to be happy.

That's what I wish I'd know at my commencement, and I'm sure many people tried to tell me these things. Actually, I can remember some advice to the effect of, "be a good person and to work hard." But I didn't listen as well as I should, and maybe that's the story of college students everywhere. Perhaps if 'top-tier' colleges and universities emphasized team-oriented social skills, hard work, and resiliency more than self-focus and nurture, graduates wouldn't need any commencement advice. They'd be formed for success already.

A Suggested Scientific Definition of the Meaning of Life

It's funny how thoughts and ideas coalesce. As I worked my way through five or six Michael Crichton novels on one of my periodic binges, I noted in The Lost World an astonishing addition to the standard evolution narrative. And then as I trolled my Facebook feed I saw the same idea again in a Psychology Today article, which I read and shared. I didn't quite recognize the relation then. Not until tonight. There is something truly fundamental to humanity about relationships, it seems--and it seems like humanity eschews relationships to a greater degree now than ever.

Many scientists and philosophers have marveled at the evolution of humanity. Since Charles Darwin revolutionized the understanding of biology by showing that some species suffered extinction, and others evolved, a great many ideas have surfaced. For example, rationalists doubting the presence of God and suspicious of religion regarded this new information as another nail in the coffin of superstition, as humanity marched towards a greater and more knowledgeable civilization. This was regarded as an attack against religious institutions, who fought back first by declaring such belief heresy and blasphemy, and second by co-opting evolution as proof that God brought about His likeness on earth through this new biological process.

Interestingly, it seems that when scientists and thinkers began to examine the why of it all, they largely passed over the why as it related to humans. Some claimed that extinction and evolution were a result of "Natural Selection." Species had to adapt (evolve) to cope with changing environments which included new predators and predations, or they suffered extinction. Later, more randomness was inserted with the claim that evolution was a result of gene mutation; namely that species were randomly mutating all the time, and beneficial mutations conduced to survival and became species characteristics, while weakening or harmful mutations resulted in extinction.

These ideas became canon and carried wide influence. It's a neat and tidy explanation, and it has sheltered a comfortable delusion about the supremacy of humans. Anthropologists and sociologists drew a similarly tidy line from our forebearers, who must have evolved oversized brains as a clever response to the dangers of their world. Because we humans alone developed tools, and imposed our will upon certain animals to domesticate them, and upon certain plants to cultivate them, and formed societies for mutual support, we ascended to "the top of the food chain." We evolved to survive, and natural selection has declared us winners.

But there are problems with this canon. One is that our near relatives, chimpanzees and gorillas, survive just fine without walking upright and without our oversized brains. Another is that we are not the only species who use tools and exhibit complex problem-solving and form societies. Most glaring, however, is the problem that has clouded the issue of evolution since it broke upon the world: we assume that we are superior because of our brains, our tools, and our civilizations.

Furthermore, the evolutionary canon usually ignores an essential element in species, which is behavior. It's clear that human behavior--complex problem-solving, for one, and societies, for another, has enabled our race to not only survive but flourish. Interestingly, the behavior of certain animal species (such as gorillas, wolves, and dolphins) has conferred similar advantages. Perhaps my own research has been incomplete, but I have not found much historic literature on evolution which addresses this.

The Psychology Today article noted in passing some recent research that suggests cognitive development happens more efficaciously in social environments--literally, at play. The social environment seemingly must include physical interaction, like eye contact, physical cues, and auditory communication. It may have suggested that the human brain evolved to support more advanced social relationships, or it may have been Mr. Crichton. But that strikes me as a very important piece of information, because it suggests that our large brains are not primarily problem-solving apparatuses that (for example) helped us connive ways to bring down a wooly mammoth. More likely our brains have developed to handle relationships.

If true, this has great implications for our way of life. Whence notions of love, honor, duty, and morality? From an evolutionary standpoint, such notions are of dubious value, because often they result in annihilation (I recognize that that they also result in creation). But in a social context--seeing society as an evolved characteristic which permits adaptation to an environment--such notions actually conduce to the continued presence of the species. Nature is full of examples where an organism sacrifices itself for the good of it's species, and I find it unlikely that humans are that different. Take the common characteristic of mothers to defend their young unto death, if necessary. That is certainly a necessity for the procreation of the species, but it also fits into a description of love and honor and duty, which exist in nearly all human societies and accomplish the same end.

In fact, I've read some evolutionary studies that have remarked upon an accelerated development of species that exhibit complex behavior. Whereas it may have taken a geological epoch for life to move from single-celled organisms to multi-organ mammals, the amount of evolution which has occurred in the last million years has seen the ascendance of incredibly rich biodiversity, many with complex behavioral components (not least humans and their close relatives). Is this a sort of evolutionary arms race? As competitors evolve to survive, they must become more complex and more social in the process. Larger-brained humans could not be born as mature as other animals, some of which can walk and even defend themselves immediately after birth, because the large head containing that brain wouldn't fit through the mother's pelvis. Therefore they were born increasingly helpless, with brains small enough to be housed in a birth-able head--but with increased need of protection as well. Therefore societies had to be formed to protect children until they could survive on their own--misnomer in and of itself, because humans don't generally survive alone.

Which brings up another question: why don't humans fend for themselves? why do we do that in societies? Do we need cooperation to survive, or did we learn that cooperation (and the intangible values and ethics that support it) simply yielded a more successful species?

Taking religion, humanism, and arrogance out of the dialogue, it would seem that the human organism is constructed for societies. Perhaps that's why research shows that cognitive development happens the most in a social environment. Perhaps that's why the majority of our brain runs our 'unconscious,' which provides intuition, directs and interprets body language, and generates moral reasoning, all of which are of great use in helping us get along with our fellow humans, and of less use than our 'conscious' rationality when it comes to solving problems (like bringing down that scary mammoth).

So if science has an answer to the meaning of life, it would appear to be relationships and societies. That's nothing new, of course--the importance of family has been defended by Aristotle, the Bible, and every eastern religion of which I'm familiar. Concepts like freedom, and equality, and virtue, and the rest appear to exist to support our biologic need for society and it's advantages. I'm not diminishing them; such concepts I believe to be essential. Yet they exist to serve our relationships, and not for their own sakes.

I find it a common conception that humanity has marched steadily from primitive beginnings to ever more advanced and meaningful civilization. I disagree with it, however--perhaps our physical quality of life is better now than in the Renaissance, but whether we are happier or better is conjecture, and I believe in doubt. Science tells us that the denizens of hunter-gatherer societies are happier and healthier than we civilized internet-users, by nearly every criteria (objective and subjective). In fact, the current generations are shorter, less healthy, and more prone to mental and behavioral disorders than recent generations, such as those which fought in the Second World War and the baby boomers.

While I don't believe that human societies will ever be perfect--society by it's nature constrains because cooperation requires sacrifice--perhaps the exploding diagnoses of mental illness and disorder in our own can be traced to the breakdown in relationships. I think it no accident that the most destructive humans among us are usually loners, with little in the way of participation in society (there are exceptions to this, of course). It's no secret that our modern world offers a great deal of distraction from the business of relationships, from demanding careers to ubiquitous media to solitary entertainment (like video games). All of which makes it easier to plug away at the office, or watch one's favorite shoe (or sports team) on the television, or develop a virtual life via social media.

It's important to note that relationships and societies are physical things. Studies show that human senses are more stimulated by other humans--our eyes tend to focus on other people, we react more strongly to the smells of other people, we pick out speech more readily than other sounds. In a sense, our oversized brains are a complex communication device meant to connect us with other people. That does not happen effectively via computer (although I admit that deploying away from my wife made me very grateful for the telephone and video chat).

Apparently, the wisdom of religion and of old wives has been corroborated by science: family (and by extension, society) is everything. It is the key to humanity's success, and probably to its happiness as well.

Springtime and Her

It was a magnificent afternoon.

I was freed early from work for a meeting on Mainside with the eternally frustrating IPAC, which is the Installation Personnel Administration Center and commonly experienced as a particular circle of hell in which one's dearest personal information is subjected to the worst bureaucratic treatment by apathetic Marines with no connection to you or your unit, and therefore no motivation or mutually shared esprit to look after you, and where consequently your pay, or orders, or personnel file are treated as nasty intrusive garbage and whose maintenance is a barely tolerable chore.

Fortunately there is a civilian who works there, soft-spoken and incongruously muscular, whose professional sneer conceals a real desire to help out the poor patients who dare enter that sanctuary.

A short stop later to receive a 'counseling' on my pending move, where I was warned in no uncertain terms that I might expect out-of-pocket expenses during my move to Wisconsin, since my home of record is in Bellevue, Washington, and told severely that this was the last move at government expense that I would ever have, which is sort of the point of leaving this Marine Corps anyway, isn't it?

But nevertheless I walked out of there with the promise of movers calling shortly to arrange a date for picking up my stuff at the unusual hour of 2:35 in the afternoon (1435 to those military types). And behold! the sun was shining with the richness of spring down on the wintry world, where the temperature grudgingly lifted itself up above 40 degrees and an inexplicable, delightfully warm breeze cooed among the shriveled boughs.

I drove home on roads crowded, but with little slowing. I listened to some re-discovered and favorite music, happily singing along (a little off-key, as is my wont) and letting the sentiments of the songs wash over me. I and greeted my ecstatic dogs in a sunlit house, for the first time I can remember (though I know objectively it's happened before). A happy mood was upon me, a mood which promised something great. A moment of pure happiness--especially because I had something to accomplish, and so I cheerfully bent to work on a self-imposed 'honey-do' list.

I should note here that my wife is wonderfully competent, and asks very little of me around the house. She will happily paint walls over and over again until she finds the perfect palette of complimenting colors; she tidies up repeatedly after our daughter (and, shamefully, me on occasion) with a ready hand; she steams and scrubs the floors and changes light bulbs and does laundry and generally applies all the ingenuity and dedication she brought so successfully to Television Production to our home. She also lovingly rears our daughter and freelance writes on the side, I might add. Only a very few tasks are left to me--take out the garbage (which she does as well), perhaps, and remove the dead mice from our basement. You might say I am not strictly necessary in a domestic sense.

But as she is currently doing all of that stuff in our wonderful NEW house in Wisconsin, preparing it with her customary industry for our arrival after the move I have just arranged, there are a few things I can do for her. And while such tasks may not be the 'something great' that our collective consciousness has in mind on a sunny day, well, I can say that they are something much greater than I ever did before her. My wife, see, loves a clean house. And I can really give her that today. It is wonderful to clean crusted dog excrement off the odd rug, clean dead mice and their excrement out of the basement, run a few loads of laundry, scrub the floors of the sticky remains of toddler snacks, and air out the house. It's a honey-do list I made, for her. A way to give back to her what she gives to me every day. It's small, but joyful, and it is the metaphorical cherry on top of this day. I can't wait for her to see everything--not so she will comment (though she inevitably will, and with loving gratitude), but so she'll enjoy it. So she'll be able to relax when she arrives and not feel the need to clean, or tidy, or avert her attention from a pressing mess that's just too hard to clean with a curious toddler running around.

Later that evening I pay an all-too-rare visit to the Sacrament in my church. Incense sits heavily upon the pews with the other worshippers, all conspicuously ordinary yet distinct, comfortably anonymous in the dimness and their private prayers. Their normality emphasizes their focus on the monstrance on the altar, and I slide almost effortlessly into a spiritual communion that I can never seem to achieve anywhere else.

Then in the quiet warmth of our house, I make myself dinner. I'm a bachelor with very specific tastes on a night like this, so I indulge not in ramen or a frozen pizza but in eggs, bacon, and cereal. There are tidbits for the dogs, who happily interrupt naps to come and politely beg (mostly by staring longingly with ever the slightest look of accusation at my feast), but when I finally pull away from my book and clean my dishes, I'm struck by how odd it feels without her.

It feels odd because I should be content. Food, comfort, a good book, a feeling spiritual wellness, a sense of accomplishment--I have all I should ever need for happiness. But my heart is restless. My inner St. Augustine rears his head. I know for whom I cry. It is her. My companion. Her sudden smile, her startling plunges into meaningful conversation, her thoughts on the day, the news, the kid, the food, the everything. All that I achieved this day is meaningless except for the clean rugs slowly steaming on the living room floor, with the thermostat set to eighty degrees, and the clean basement for laundry.

And I want to be with her.

I want to drop this magnificent day and barrel into the single-digit, blustery winter of Wisconsin, just to order her a glass of chardonnay at the nearest supper club (or dive bar), to laugh about the singular pleasure of seat-heaters in the car which somehow manage to warm you deeply even while most of your body shivers, to pick out the most unlikeable person in the bar and befriend them instantly (well, she does that. I just tag along).

But she is with a friend tonight, a rare opportunity to see a friend when they are both in the Midwest at the same time. She'd never want me absent, never consider me a third wheel, but I'm secretly glad she has this night to enjoy free from the needs of our new home, or our old home, or anything else. So that she can have something like my afternoon, hopefully with nothing to accomplish but the gladness that comes with renewing an old friendship.

And I will happily keep the light on here, literally and metaphorically. And hope she notices the basement when she gets home.

Thursday Musings

Today is the first day of the rest of my life.

I have spoken that phrase to myself often in the past months. If used too often, I suppose, the impact lessens (and I risk a copyright infringement lawsuit from Tim Robbins and The Shawshank Redemption). But neither has occurred yet. And the phrase still resonates.

The clustering of struggles, or misfortunes, is a common experience. It never rains, but it pours. It’s always that day when you have two events to attend, each requiring a different uniform, a project due, and an official visitor that you discover your car’s gas tank is nearly empty. Or a co-worker gets hurt. Or a loved one needs support. Or a family member turns on you.

The phenomenon is not confined to single days, either. It’s always that month in which you have to travel, and there’s a period when your boss is gone, and work is very busy that you get sick. Or have to move. Or have a loved one needs extended support.

In tough periods, it takes a very strong person to hold it all together. Some cope by becoming reclusive. Others with alcohol or cigarettes or fast food. Nearly everyone cuts out the healthy habits that are hard to fit in our lives even at the best of times: exercise, leisure time with friends, some hobby truly enjoyed, meditation or religious practice. And you might find yourself desperately lonely, drowning, and numb.

Most of the time, we come through. There’s some growth, perhaps, and some accompanying regrets; there’s also a period of freedom and gratitude. Things are so much better now. The question asked millions of times by millions of people is, how? What changes? Is it the world--does ‘bad luck’ turn into good luck? Is it the person who effects an ‘attitude adjustment’? The staple of daytime talk shows and self-help books is the promise that if the author’s (or host’s) advice is followed, the dark times will disappear and happiness will endure forever. How nice. How unhuman.

Christianity teaches that such dark periods are opportunities. It’s hard to put into words without appalling, but according to Church teaching God allows us to be alone without him, whether due to our own choice (rejection of Him, which equals sin) or because our love of Him has room to grow. It’s easy to be cheerful, loving, and generous when life goes well--it requires much more cheer, love, and generosity when the world feels arrayed against you. This opens up quite the proverbial can of worms (Pandora’s box?), however. Why would God ever wish us to suffer if he’s so loving? Why have ‘dark periods’ at all?

I have no answer to that one. But the record shows it’s a part of life--if you believe such things, even Jesus went through dark periods as a human. Once, certainly during his 40-day temptation in the desert; once prior to his crucifixion in the garden of Gethsemane. St. Augustine’s Confessions admirably relates the development of a ‘dark period’ and his transition to happiness (the word ‘admirably’ captures even the reaction of non-Christians); St. John of the Cross wrote a famous Spanish poem about it that Spanish Literature majors like me study in college to this day; both St. Teresa of Ávila and Mother Teresa of Calcutta, 500 years apart, wrote movingly that despite their lauded closeness to God by fellow Christians, they underwent periods of almost crippling depression while they dealt with a dark period of their life.

But I digress. All we collectively know about these ‘dark periods’ is that we don’t collectively know how they come about, or recede. We just know that we experience them. And I feel as though I am finally emerging from a dark period myself, for no other reason than the simple details of this Thursday.

The sun was shining as I woke, rested, from the first complete nights’ sleep in weeks. It was shining--there’s no other word for it--gloriously. The quality of the light alone made me want to jump up and do something. The warm, windy conditions yesterday, with the heavy spitting rain, were redolent with memories of storms and tropics; they presented a figurative last hurdle and prophesied a moment in just such a sun. The wind breathed strongly but relaxingly through the freshly scrubbed air and trees in the brightness, and there was a fresh scent.

I also wrote an award. It’s hard to imagine that this extra little piece of administrative paperwork would bring such satisfaction, but sometimes I feel trussed and crushed by gratitude, the monstrous burden of having to be grateful all the time to those who have helped out here and there, or forgiven a blunder I’ve made, or even just done something nice for me. Guilt and gratitude are an unhappy couple. So when I feel some gratitude that’s not required, gratitude for something that had no effect on me, it causes simple joy. It’s the kind of gratitude that those pesky and cloyingly sentimental daytime talk show hosts sell you. And I figured out what it was today.

Now I sit, copper afternoon sun streaming through my office window, struggling to put down the welling emotions within me on this computer screen. I can only focus on the visuals--the gilded, white-framed, blue-purple clouds enhancing the light (always the light!), the bracing cold outside, the tidy office that is finally so after a month of physical upheaval. It’s tough giving context to unfiltered awe and wonder.

So while I meant to write some pedantic screed about pushing onward in the face of difficulty, because no swamp lasts forever, I refuse. I did keep moving forward in my recent dark period, despite sins and setbacks. But whatever effort I put in, whatever respect or consideration I earned--it doesn’t even come close to how I feel today. It doesn’t even belong in the same league. There’s some pride and austere, cold satisfaction in weathering a storm, but there’s grace in the sunlit, grateful glory of this day. There’s grace.

And suddenly I remember this quote with happy resolution:

We must say that the sun looks down on nothing half so good as a household laughing together over a meal, or two friends talking over a pint of beer, or a man alone reading a book that interests him; and that all economies, politics, laws, armies, and institutions, save insofar as they prolong and multiply such scenes, are a mere ploughing of the land and sowing of the ocean, a meaningless vanity and vexation of spirit.

The Ol' College Try

The New Year has dawned, and the Month of Resolutions has begun. I don't know where the idea of the New Year's Resolution began, and it doesn't really matter. It ties in nicely with the idea of celebrating the good of the previous year--or it's end, depending on your perspective--and getting a 'clean slate' for the upcoming year. Of course, all this resolution is a mixed bag: I see friends complaining that the gyms will be more crowded, which seems to emphasize the difference between physical health and moral health. I mean, a crowded gym is inconvenient, but isn't better if all people are physically healthy and not just you? But between the jokes and the guilt, I wonder (as I always do) what my resolution(s) should be.

When I was young, idealistic, and vain, I resolved to develop six-pack abs or the ability to dunk a basketball. Now those who know me might argue that I'm still idealistic and vain, and I know that I can at least get to a point where I can dunk a basketball, given unlimited hours in the gym and perhaps a specialized strength and conditioning coach. But those kinds of goals simply don't seem all that important anymore. Frankly, I'm more interested in still being able to fit in my pants by the New Year in 2014, and perhaps avoid any more cavities. But those are sad little resolutions. I'm not sure I want to even dignify them as 'New Years Resolutions.' Such goals simply qualify as the right thing to do.

When I imagine how life could be better, I'm sorry to say that I wish I could spend more time with my wife, with my kid, with my books, and writing (while I'm on the subject, this piece you're reading is actually proving very hard to write. I'm nowhere near my main point yet, and I'm spitting out words in lurches. In fact, many of you have moved on to the next reddit link by now. But I have to give it the--wait for it--'ol' college try'). I'm sorry to say those things because I remember how I swore even five years ago that I would never be the boring person who would want schmaltzy, sentimental things for himself. I was going to be eager, exciting, and urbane forever, dammit, and no questions asked. But, providentially, I recently found this article from the New York Times. Apparently, my condition is fairly universal. I just find different things exciting these days--namely, my wife, kid, reading and writing.

Sorry if that sounds preachy. I really intended it to be more of an excuse, or at least an apologetic explanation.

And, as a side note, for any friends I may have who are getting tired of hints from their family that they (the friends) should 'settle down' and have a few kids, I'll tell you why this happens...it's because having kids is really a great deal of fun. The challenges make it more that fun, even: it's really rewarding. So are the diversions and accomplishments of the unencumbered life, certainly. But, you know, food for thought.

In any case, resolutions. The phrase, 'give it the ol' college try' pops into my head every time I think about all the resolutions hanging in the balance right now. And I wondered why that phrase came into existence. Because if you apply that to my college experience, the ol' college try would involve rather more brooding, melancholy relationships, video games, and Pabst Blue Ribbon ($1.00 per can at Corby's in those days. Yes) than is strictly consistent with an all-out effort at something.

And to answer the questions in your head, yes I do claim to have begun both the emo and hipster social perspectives way back in 2003. You're welcome, world.

Applied to many of my co-workers, the ol' college try means a lot of skipping classes, doing the minimum school work necessary, beer drinking, and seeking...ahem...companionship from the opposite sex than an effort at, well, anything. I don't mean to disparage them. They are all fantastic and dedicated Marine Officers at this point. But it's clear that the new college try means something a little different from the old.

Frankly I don't know if the blame here lies on the current generation (so you can stop wagging your fingers, baby boomers). After all, I think most young people go to college these days as a natural extension of grade and high school. Where you used to need a high school diploma to have a chance at a career, now everyone feels that you need a college diploma to have the same chance. So it is a requirement, and what most practical people do with 'requirements' is fulfill them. And I along with all of my peers fulfilled that requirement--the amount of beer consumed is irrelevant. Furthermore, with the exception of something like an engineering, biochemistry, accounting, or economics degree, the focus of study isn't really that important as well. You have an equal chance at employment with either a history or psychology degree, unless you are seeking employment in that particular field--in which case, you'll need a lot more education than is provided by an undergraduate degree.

And if the degree, not the means to getting it, is the important thing, it stands to reason that there isn't much value to the college education one receives these days. I know, I know! Before you all get angry at me, I know that it teaches independence, and I know it is a feeder into the professional world, and I know that a degree from Harvard is worth more than one from a community college (and boy, do you pay for it!). Certainly a student who is hard-working enough to get accepted to Harvard and graduate is probably more likely to be a hardworking employee than one who graduates from the nearest directional state school. But because the Ivy League and it's peers are such magnet schools, and are so expensive to attend, it's difficult to tell whether a graduate bought or earned his/her degree--I mean, when a student with the money can hire any tutor and re-take the SAT as often as he/she wants (not to mention have his/her lawyer parent lobby for higher grades from his/her exclusive prep school), it muddies the water significantly. And with a associated directional state school, it's likewise difficult to tell whether the degree was earned or given out like candy.

I have many more complaints with the university system in the United States. Some of the issues that need to be addressed you can find here, but I certainly don't endorse the article. I just offer it as a valuable perspective. But whatever the reason, I think the value of a university degree (at least one not technical in nature) has been devalued. And so the phrase 'the ol' college try' has become a lie. Although history shows that universities have nearly always been playgrounds for rich kids who need just a little more shelter from the world, the academic reputation of the university was generated in the understanding that to go there and be successful, you had to really put forth effort. In the 19th Century, Harvard degrees really meant that the graduate had some kind of character--the ability to think clearly and logically, the ethics to follow through on ideas and thoughts, and the determination to achieve the highest measure of success possible. State schools weren't really comparable--they taught technical skills (such as Agriculture and Mechanics, or A&M). But a graduate from those schools was known to be extremely proficient in their chosen skill, someone who could solve technical problems and oversee technical tasks. They had the same character of being a clear and logical in their approach to their profession, both ethical and dedicated in the application of their skill. That character was earned because Universities, whether academic or technical, were hard to attend and maintained high standards academically and morally of their students. To have graduated one of those institutions, well, it really put you in elite company. It meant that you could really do something. See here for more explanation.

Giving something 'the ol' college try' by that perspective meant pursuing it will all the character, ethics and determination of a college graduate. It meant giving it your all--not just effort, but initiative and intelligence as well. It meant that you were certain to succeed, for if you didn't (i.e. a college graduate wouldn't have succeeded in your place) then the task in question was impossible.

But alas, between the exponential growth of colleges and universities at the college and state level and the grade inflation permitted by institutions that prefer the extra money coming in with more students to their academic integrity, it just doesn't mean much to have attended college any more. It means you've done the minimum. Sure, if your degree is from an Ivy League School or the equivalent then it means more than a degree from a low-tier state school. But it certainly doesn't mean enough to make the phrase 'the ol' college try' mean what it used to.

So if I have one serious resolution this year, it's to give my life the real ol' college try. The one that involves doing things wholeheartedly. And I think if I can do that I will probably not only still fit into my pants come 1 January 2013, but I'll be closer to my family, better read, and writing a lot more.

That's exactly the kind of life I want.

Adaptation, self, and disturbing interests

Humans are adaptable creatures. I was reminded quite suddenly of that fact this afternoon, when I resurrected my iPad from it's sentinel on my desk and caught up on some Hulu television shows (ok, so far I'm sounding like a technological caricature of a person). I also checked my email inbox, where I was looking for some news...and whoops! there it was. A long-overlooked email from a former professor of mine.

This email in question was a response to a message I sent him on the occasion of receiving some literature from my former college. I was deployed at the time, and struggling with separation from my new family and the almost constant activity that attends military operations. The mailing was a both a wrench and a breath of fresh air: it recalled the second-happiest period of my life, my time at Notre Dame. And as I re-read that email, written two years ago from the sleepy agricultural Japanese village of Komatsu, I wondered at all that had changed.

Like many, I turn to the familiar when I encounter adversary. Actually, that's like all of us. One of the benefits of studying ethics under Dr. Steven Olsen is that I can understand some of the impulses that govern my behavior. And he has demonstrated in neurological studies that humans ALWAYS go to the familiar in some form or another when faced with adversity. Choosing the different requires opposition, either in the form of a person who says, "no! don't do that! do this instead!" But I digress. In any case, during the particular adversity of that deployment--which seemed to consist of equal parts missing my wife, struggling to keep up with our day-to-day flying and movement schedule, training flights, and hangovers--I found refuge in my old refuge, books.

If you've clicked the link, you know that the book in question was Moby Dick. It might have seemed a little odd to my squadron-mates that I would curl up in bland, minimalist, and weirdly overstuffed sitting area with my Kindle while they were more concerned about taking the new guys out to Karaoke as a means to forcing them to perform 'Paradise by the Dashboard Lights' and nicknaming them Meatloaf (perhaps the new Marine Corps order on hazing has a part in this discussion? I kid, I kid), but they were used to my oddness. After all, they found it endlessly entertaining that my college degree was in something so vaguely titled, "Great Books" and they marveled at my effortless use of words outside their vocabulary. And though they eventually knew me better, perhaps, that my reader here, they initially drew the same conclusion: namely that I was nerdy, affectedly academic, and pompous, and that I probably was homeschooled too. Actually, I was not.

It's just, well, I have always had an affinity for reading. A psychologist would no doubt have a field day delving into my past and figuring out why my childhood friends were books, rather than friends, but here I am and then, in adversity, I went straight back to a good book, and forewent the Karaoke (although in retrospect I'm sorry I did, except that maybe otherwise I wouldn't have written that email, or rediscovered it now, or sat down to write a rambling reflection on it).

And so as I revisited this old email, my adaptability presented itself in the subject of the last books I read: The Rise of the Wehrmacht: The German Armed Forces and World War II, Stormtroop Tactics: Innovation in the German Army, 1914-1918, and my current projects, The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich and The Gathering Storm (Churchill's memoirs on World War II). Apart from maybe wondering if I've discovered some evil attraction in Hitler's awful regime (something some of my, er, acquaintances will no doubt say they knew already), the discerning reader will note the sharp shift from the pure artistic literature of Moby Dick and Paradise Lost (referenced in that old letter) to the very serious topic of European military history during the two world wars. So, I have adapted.

My wife sometimes tells me that I've assimilated too much into the 'Marine Culture.' I find this hard to believe, since I keep my hair as normal-looking as possible without pushing the boundary of stated grooming regulations and I don't have any tattoos on my body that say USMC, or depict an Eagle, Globe, and Anchor, or that announce my MOS (looking at you, grunts!). But then I realize that I have traded in that thing I really loved--a great story, artfully told, illustrating something True about life--for something more narrowly focused to my profession. She was right, and I have to say that while chagrined I am also grateful that she stood athwart my regress and told me to stop. I repeat: so, I have adapted.

Now I want to make it clear that I think it a very good thing that I read military history. After all, I chose to read these books on purpose. And no, Lakesiders (and casual Facebook visitors), it's not because I'm somehow contemplating Nazism (academically or otherwise). Having in some wise the education of young officers, who will shortly be leading young Americans into combat, in my charge, well I'd better be educating myself! But instruction is futile if it's not authentic, and the less authentic I become in my self-imposed mind-narrowing the poorer instruction I'll give.

I should have read the signs, of course. I was thrilled to discourse a bit on Aristotle when talking ethics to my own Alpha Company, 6th Platoon. I recently started listening intently to classical music in the car when driving to and from work. WETA, anyone? Today I dived into my iTunes collection of hymns. All tugging me back to that most enjoyable thing for me, encountering good stories and Truth. It's my hobby, the way some people enjoy conversation, or woodworking, or playing an instrument. I only wish my hobby were more social, but, well, I blame the homeschooling (or whatever gave me that aura), apologies to one recent student and all homeschooled readers. You're all probably smarter than the rest of us, by the way.

So, adaptability. Definitely a good thing. Allows us to bring our talents to bear in new pursuits. Brings us into conversation with 'the different' so we don't always end up reacting the same way. But it also can pull us away from whatever constitutes our favorite things about, well, life. I don't subscribe to the theory that there is some immutable 'me' inside every one of us (well, not 'me;' in your case it would 'you') that has existed since conception or birth and persists until death--humans are too complicated for that. We grow, and develop, and adapt, and usually find things than are more enjoyable that what was previously our favorite. And it's really only important that we gravitate to the things that make us happy. Unfortunately for my wife and my close friends, I now add 'history about the German Army of the two world wars' to that list of things that makes me happy.

And I will finish my two current books, because *hmpf* I am a father and it's important I set the example of finishing what I started, and then I'll move on to something a little broader in scope. I would welcome suggestions.

Letter to a former professor concerning a liberal education

Dear Professor S-------,

I write to you from the midpoint of a deployment to Japan (my second in as many years) and, oddly enough, on the eve of my 10-year high school reunion. That, coupled with the recent Programa 2010 I received in the mail, has whirled my thoughts back to my own years studying the Great Books. That it took six months to arrive at my deployed location in rural Iwakuni is a testament to the vicissitudes of military life as well as a sort of metaphor for the long road I have taken from room 215 in O'Shaugnhessy Hall on Notre Dame's beautiful campus.

You must excuse me if I am a little nostalgic for those two old PLS classrooms on the second floor of that stuffy, grey-bricked and yellow-tiled building. It was always my favorite building on Notre Dame's campus, I confess—the discordant steps one had to take from the soaring, stained-glass-lit entryway into the crowded industrial hallways littered with flyers always seemed to me the soul of college. Whether students and professors entered the central-heating gratefully brushing snow or rain from coats or mildly regretting their exit from fall or spring splendor, the workmanlike intimacy of coffee shop and classrooms, small desks and big ideas never failed to inspire. And of course it was the big ideas that seduced me.

The interconnectedness of things and the efficacy of prayer are two concepts that have haunted me throughout my life, and I suffered just such a haunting upon opening the Programa. I re-read Moby Dick only weeks ago, wondering anew at Melville's fantastic story about seeking to appreciate, understand, and (in Ahab's case) arrogate the divine, only to find that the Cronin-award-winning essay was also about Moby Dick. I naturally read it through with pleasure, remembering quite well the quoted passages. A strange coincidence, no? I have marveled at similar coincidences since my memories began. And as before, this particular coincidence stirred in me memories and understandings long sifted to the bottom of my heart over the six intervening years that separated me from 215 O’Shaugnhessy.

I read with interested and excitement your Opening Charge. In my opinion the Program of Liberal Studies sets itself apart from any other university education not only by its strong and integrated academics (religiously integrated and substantively integrated, both of which you dwell on briefly in the Charge), but by its approach to the business of learning. There is an adage I learned from my parents that “anything worth doing is worth doing well,” which is a value often lost in an acquisitive and materialistic society. For legion students looking to be employable as they leave college, perhaps the nuance required in a genuine values-oriented struggle with their academics (whether the subject be an engineering problem, an accounting problem, or a literature problem) seems superfluous. If success in life is truly more “who you know” than “what you know,” the important thing is the actual degree and the contacts with which you graduate, not the transformation into an erect, thoughtful person offered by the university milieu (if I may borrow crudely the subject of Part I of your Charge). Anything worth doing is worth doing well, and to gather the community together for an "Opening Charge" to reinforce that not only are integrated academics worth doing on their own merits, but that they're worth doing well, is unusual and sustaining.

It surprised me to read that you began your advanced education in the fields of Evolution and Biology, since I made the mistake of many PLS students and assumed that all instructors were originally philosophy or literature professors. The passage from advanced knowledge to faith was well-charted in literature by C.S. Lewis, a favorite author of mine, and it seems to fit your own passage from ocean biology to philosophy and then to the Program in certain significant respects. I was lucky, however: I discovered that reason and faith were inseparable immediately after adolescence (or, in our world of lengthening youth, perhaps I mean “during late adolescence”) through the efforts of you and your fellow professors. The Thomistic concept of theology and natural science cordially and passionately exchanging knowledge each from within their own bounded spheres makes simple sense to me and seems to overlay neatly the entire discussion you bring up in the Charge of applying the principles of anatomical homology to behavior, intellect, and spirit. Casting the whole of human evolution as biomolecular processes, and applying that principle to human experiences, is certainly “a profound reductionism of the human to the animal.” The “striving upward” or “seeking upward” that is emphasized by your discussion of walking upright only confirms the conviction of our faith that we are ontologically different as human beings in our moral consciousness, our manipulation of environment to create symphonies and cathedrals, and our self-awareness to the point of death—we co-exist in a supernatural world wherein exist perfect values like Truth, Beauty, and Goodness. Thanks to the Program and its professors that conviction was allowed to flower within me before it entirely withered before the hot air and cold reason of modern education.

Put simply, the Great Books education (and the points you draw in your Charge) introduced me formally to the concept of integrity, the idea that we are interconnected entities of soul and body, and that by extension our actions in all cases must reflect our values. We cannot, at our core, compartmentalize and yet still claim integrity. Integrity means whole-ness, or structural soundness. And if truth and righteousness are good things, as my convictions and reason tell me, then they must apply to my entire life; to except pieces here and there (like a literature class, or a military order, or a personal doubt) is to fail to be whole and complete. It was just such a clear and joint application of faith and reason that resulted in my discovery of my wife; the intellectual razor of integrity cut away all the festering crust of doubt and conventional wisdom to present for my wonderment the great love I conceived and yet hold for her. So also formed my certainty that the execution of my profession well was worth the long nights and great personal investment it requires. What the Program essentially taught me, and what your Opening Charge reinforces, has made it possible for me to become a person I value. I honestly don't think I would have had the spiritual wherewithal to become a Marine, an Aviator, a husband, or a man without being invited and encouraged to stand upright against the weight of the world, even if just for 20 hours a week during three years of my youth, by the Great Books. I said it before in an email to Professor F-------, and I don't think I could say it better to you: "I am lucky, really, to have discovered so early in my life that earnest truth-seeking and pursuing righteousness are more lasting values than success or pleasure."

You were my professor for more than a few classes, and you therein guided me through a good deal of the transformation wrought by PLS. You also occasionally appeared at the 5:15 daily Mass at the basilica, which impressed me nearly as much. Your Opening Charge brought me back with a wrench to that warm intellectual life of seminar and thought, which was well-exemplified by Mr. Benz' excellent essay on Moby Dick. The practical demands of today's military tasks, or today’s personal obligations, or the fact that today I am deployed away from wife and home can seem irresistibly heavy, but that I can bear them at all is due to the upright posture I learned through PLS—its integrated, rigorous academics and its cultivation of community alike. Thank you for your wonderful Opening Charge, and for everything else.

Austen’s Aphorism on Love and Marriage

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife." So begins Jane Austen's outstanding novel, Pride and Prejudice, and though recently I agreed with it in principle, I lived practically in direct opposition. Nearly five years out of college I was consistently single and saw nothing to change that in the near future. The reason why I was so stagnant in my unsought-for bachelorhood I'd like to examine later, really. But that seemed to be a fact of my life.

I'd had good relationships before. Most of my relationships had been good, actually, until the period before the break-up. I thought myself reasonably loyal and devoted, I recognized an unattractive propensity toward insecurity and creeping selfishness which I tried manfully to stem, and with a few exceptions my girlfriends were pretty, good, and all reasonably stable. I had even considered marriage with one or two of the more serious girlfriends, but as I've since discovered I considered it only in an academic sense. At the time it was even an attractive option. For though I was young, possessed of the moderate fortune that devolves upon a young officer with the benefits of flight pay, a Captain's salary, and the forced penury of deployments, I was quite lonely.

Many of my friends were married, however, and my exposure to and observation of their lives left me with the impression that Jane Austen was correct. While on weekends I dragged myself to bars wearying in their repetitiveness, they repined at home in pajamas watching favorite movies with a constant loved one and friend. While evenings found me shamefacedly driving through the nearest fast-food joint for the third time that week, they enjoyed more healthy fare, made lovingly by them or their partner and be shared with said loved one and friend. Never did they face the humiliation of a phone call some Saturday afternoon as I would ask in a manly voice that ill-disguised my pathetic entreaty, "anything going on tonight?" It was all the more ironic, of course, that I have from adolescence developed particularly personal relationships. I am uncomfortable with mere acquaintances, and really only enjoy the nightlife in the company of close friends. So it was noth without a little bitterness that I patiently listen to their nostalgia for "the single life."

I am a practical man, of course. I could well see that the "perfect" marriages around me were not all beer and skittles. I watched friends and comrades deal with the difficult separation of deployments, the constant demands of children, or an occasional rogue and romantic memory of "lost freedom." I knew that if I were (hypothetically) married I would have to deal with the same. After exhaustive thought on the subject--which occurred generally during uncomfortable pauses in a dinner conversation where I made an awkward third--I figured that with my natural loyalty and affection I was rather better suited than most at handling such emotional turmoil. I concluded amid my crushing solitude of single life, whether in target-rich San Diego or during the deadly boredom of a WestPac of deployment, that marriage was something to strive for.

The difficulty, of course, was finding someone TO marry. As a young Catholic male whose social life partook in the "Young Adult" community of a local parish, I found myself often amid droves of young marriageable women who fulfilled the my inconsequential requirement of being Catholic and who wanted (most of them) to be married themselves. A rich hunting ground, to be sure. The complex social etiquette of awkward social mixers and less awkward but less romantically stimulating bible studies even bore a passing resemblance to the old-fashioned and choreographed courting mores of Jane Austen's story. It was entertaining and fun to socialize and prospect among such a group, but I eschewed anything more serious than innocuous dinner-dates. The potential for gossip and the glass-house environment discouraged self-investment for all but the bravest, since one could too easily end up either pitied or reviled.

I don’t mean to disparage, by the way, that wonderful parish or the dynamic young men and women who made up its “Young Adult” group. They were all of them kind, generous, smart, and sincere. But I’ve found that in all close groups, despite the age of the people involved, there are always some characteristics of high school.

And so it was that the quietly settling foundation of my life was the irreconcilable combination of an academic imperative to marry and a certain hesitancy in entering the serious relationship that might actually lead to a marriage. My time-intensive job and increasingly married group of friends left little opportunity to meet other singles, and had I met any who wanted a serious relationship I would have had scarce time to develop it. I was also due to make several deployments in the near future, each of which would separate me a little further from youth and the young women I might have pursued. My strong Catholic moral principles put out of my reach for ever the kind of easy entertainment found among care-free young single professionals who imitate current "popular culture." And, frankly, the pressures of “dating” were intimidating.

Being naturally idealistic, I was always hopeful that I would find something to satisfy this small but conspicuous hole in my life. My first deployment offered a lot of excitement unrelated to romance, and promised thereby to break my brooding cycle regarding relationships. It also, as I discovered in situ, a good place to stockpile money. The isolated environment, military-priced stores, and busy schedule leave little time to spend money whether it’s burning a hole in one’s pocket or not. In the dark hours of deployment as I trudged home, exhausted from the studying, planning, briefing, and criticizing that is business as usual in my profession, often in freezing rain and well after dark, I concocted delicious fantasies of entertaining beautiful young women in style with my growing “date fund,” finally capturing for myself...well, that was the problem. My delicious fantasies would break down at the point where I’d actually have to imagine the person that would become my spouse.

My return to Miramar was exciting and happy for many reasons and though my “date fund” was flush and my disposition more cheerful, I still seemed deadlocked on the relationship side. All the old problems were still there. I made an effort to be sociable and weekly met eligible young ladies--Catholics all--but couldn’t really make anything stick (no “that’s what she said” comments, please). Was I too picky? I wondered in the gross parlance of our times. Was I unlucky? Had I missed my opportunity by screwing up a past relationship?

Well, things changed on June 24th, 2009. Elsewhere I’ve told the story of meeting my wife. We were married on February 6th, 2010. Happily. We still are (nearly three months later).

There are a lot of clichés about love in our world. Most of them, I’m slightly embarrassed to admit, are true. As I drew toward the big day of marriage, I found myself considering a lot of existential questions. I abhor complacency in life. So it was very important to me that I knew exactly what I was getting into and that I went about it the right way (again, no more “that’s what she said” jokes, please). Suddenly things I'd always considered inconsequential became very important: who stood by me on the altar, what gifts I would give to them, the words of the marriage liturgy. It became important that I wear my uniform, and that the marriage occur at Notre Dame. Such things were incidental, of course, to the sacrament, but like the sacrament they were symbols of who I was.

Now there is a cliché. That last sentence. “Symbols of who I was.” Who is anybody, really? (That’s an existential question, by the way.) The history that God will reveal to me on Judgment Day will include much from my life that has no place among my desired self and the austere, bracing symbols of my wedding ceremony. That history will not be confined to the spiritual and intellectual formation I received at college under the star-studded and gothic-groined ceiling of the Basilica. It will not be confined to the hard, clean virtue preached (and mostly lived) by the Marine Corps and Naval Aviation. It will include more sordid relationships than those epitomized by the cousins and great friends who stood by me on the altar--all young men who inspired me throughout life and brought me well-prepared to that wonderful day. It will show failures and moments of weakness that are momentarily straitened by the stern lines and gold buttons of my Marine uniform. For like my peers, I have had a colorful and confused life. Who I was at that moment is known but to God and my conscience, and I have no desire to examine the latter too closely here. Who I wanted to be was represented by those powerfully symbolic incidentals at my wedding.

The point of all this cogitation, of course, was about being the kind of man that was worthy of my bride. Again, a cliché. A sweet one. But like most sweet clichés, true. My academic interest in marriage had dissolved completely in the magic latter months of 2009 as I wantonly and gleefully squandered my “date fund” on plane tickets to and from Chicago and devoted all my free time to the relationship. The excitement, the sense of utter purity, the feeling of being lifted above the mundane world--those things had blasted my selfish little complacency and fear of loneliness beyond my comprehension, where they lay exposed as miserable, cramped emotional pits under the incandescent glare of my new love. I realized the true meaning of the word “regret" and wished that all the personal investment I had put forth into previous relationships was still available to spend on my fiancée. It wasn’t a negative regret, either. It sprang forth from the intense joy she gave me I and made every encounter with her more precious. I realized that where previously I had focused on marriage as a sort of luxury trade wherein I could pay with affection and loyalty and receive comfort, suddenly I wanted marriage because I desired connectedness with her, her unique person.

She was, simply, the beloved. Beatrice. A shining symbol of all that I valued and desired and an irresistible portal thereto. I wanted to present myself to her unstained and pure, such that I could, and in such wise as to secure her ardor, affection, and admiration. And so I learned from this new experience of regret that it was time to discard selfishness and self-indulgence and self-regard with those mistakes I made long ago, stepping forward as a dynamic and committed lover. It was time to "man up." The best part, of course, was that not only did my bride eminently deserve my love for all that she was, but that she also loved me. And so she stepped forward with me as an equal partner; a true and best comrade; a friend without peer.

All my previous life was transience. Since adolescence I had been groping at the love that stood with me on February 6, 2010, finding it only in teasing glimpses--through beloved literature, or in the accomplishing of some great task, or the comforting experience of a good friend. These were foretastes of the banquet that awaited me in my wife; they were discernible signposts in the muddy confusion of youth. "To know and love one other human being is the root of all wisdom." In marriage I feel the sweet release of heaven, for it is a new beginning to life--life better founded than before. It is a new beginning of reciprocated love and great regard, a new beginning of comfort in having a partner to share the load of this world, and a new beginning of happiness in knowing where your place is. Next to your wife (or husband, as the case may be). For better or worse. In good times and in bad. In sickness and in health. As long as you both shall live.

Marriage, of course, has its own set of problems. There are differences of opinion and expectation, periodic arguments, and in my line of work the occasional but devastating pain of separation. There will likely be difficulties with children and sleepless nights and financial worries and anger and frustration as the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” strike home throughout life. Already I’ve experienced the unknown pain of being separated from my wife or of finding myself at odds with her, and I have no doubt that such instances will continue, as learning to live and grow together is a lifetime task. But I wouldn’t trade my difficulties now for my difficulties prior to June 24, 2009. The quality of my life now--married--is so far superior to my quality of life before as to defy comparison. My new beginning has been made with my Kate, and it is better by far than anything I imagined.

Austen was right: I did want a wife. But not in the way I imagined, nor in the way critics often construe her opening sentence. I wanted someone to love, someone with whom I could share life and all its wonders. And I found her: I am a new creation with Kate.

Thoughts on Faith, Hope, Hemingway, and Communism

One author I've returned to recently is Earnest Hemingway - he makes for good reading on deployment. His work is entrancing and yet simple to read, and it takes me out of the day-to-day routine. I read The Sun Also Rises on my way across the Pacific, and found it metaphorically compelling. The whole "lost generation" idea of modernity was like the protagonist of that book, castrated by cynicism and unwilling to make the extra leap of faith required to find hope in a broken world (the literal cause of castration and cynicism being the first World War, and the broken world the depressed aftermath of the same). Of course, Hemingway himself provides plenty of reason to hope in the book, from the undoubtedly real love between the protagonist and Lady Brett, to the deep satisfying beauty of rural Spain, and finally in the "beautiful Spanish children" he mentions at the end of the book. Surely there are lots of reasons to be cynical even now (when our world starts to more closely resemble that of post-war Europe), but applying hope and faith to the problems allows one to stand against them in optimism, which is one big part of being a man. A modern example of this, perhaps, is when two young people get married. Finding another to love is an act of Providence--it is a grace and something to nurture and probably has helped keep many out of cynicism and unhappiness, which seem sadly prevalent in first-world societies today.

The book I read after The Sun also Rises was the children's classic The Secret Garden, wherein a neglected and pettish little girl is suddenly orphaned in India and sent to live with a crippled and bitter uncle, whose own son is both her own age and also neglected and pettish, even though he is spoiled on account of the fact he might be crippled like his father. I won't spoil the book for you, but suffice it to say that both the girl and the boy seize upon a world of nourishment and growth, which turns out to be the legacy of her aunt and his mother, and alter for the better. Thus, while I deeply sympathize with The Sun Also Rises, I find that The Secret Garden offers a more robust view of life--a view that Hemingway is not blind to, even if he can't quite make the leap to make it his own.

Now I am re-reading For Whom the Bell Tolls. I think it is Hemingway's masterpiece, a rich tale about adversity and love and the power of ideas. The protagonist, Robert Jordan, is fighting in the Spanish Civil War for the Republicans (sponsored by and ideologically similar to the Soviet Union), and the book opens with him going to a band of guerrillas behind Fascist lines to blow a strategic bridge in support of a forthcoming Republican offensive. Along the way he meets Maria, a victim of the war (and of numerous atrocities including rape) who is hiding with the guerrilla band. They fall in love immediately and sincerely, an event which combined with Roberto's (as they called him in Spain) natural appreciation for the Spanish countryside and Spaniards causes him to spend much of the course of the next few days re-thinking his priorities.

Prior to meeting Maria, Roberto was an ideological communist, intimate with the Soviet "political advisers" who really ran the Republic and quite cynical about it all. He was ready to die for that cause, but not passionately--as a materialist, he drew tepid pleasure from the pleasures of life and suffered through it's adversities, but saw no real reason to wish to continue living. After Maria, he begins to realize that there are transcendent goods in life: most immediately, a future with Maria; in an ancillary way, that the world is a beautiful place (something that resonates with me, for I too have wandered the rugged hills of Spain) and there is something to admire in the officially condemned but quite present and fervent religion of the Spaniards. There is a transition that takes place in the book: at first, Hemingway describes the countryside in his customary entrancing, wonderful way, with Roberto as a mere part of the whole scene; later Hemingway similarly describes the countryside through Roberto's own thoughts. Also, there is a part where Roberto kills a Navarrese cavalryman fighting for the Fascist side, noticing later that his victim was a Carlist (a soldier who fought not specifically for Fascism but rather for Catholicism against the atheist Republic) and feeling sorry for the man and his family. Roberto thinks to himself, "There is no people you love more than the Navarrese" (recalling his time spent in Spain before the outbreak of the civil war) and later admits to himself "Hell! you're no Marxist. You believe in liberte, equalite, fraternite! You believe in Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness." I won't spoil the ending if you haven't read the book, but I bring it up to illustrate what I think is a struggle going on in Hemingway's relation of the story between the cynical and seductive intellectual ideology of Communism on one hand, and hope and faith on the other.

Was Hemingway himself raised Catholic? I don't know, but after reading a scene in The Sun Also Rises where his protagonist kneels in the Cathedral of Pamplona and prays forgiveness for being "such a rotten Catholic," I suspect so. Certainly he betrays in both the books I've cited a deep regard and almost reverence for the devotion of the simple people of rural Spain. Though there is certainly an element of condescension in his treatment of them (after all, his protagonists are all lettered, affluent men like him), he echoes a Romantic and sometimes desperate envy of "the simple life" that runs throughout this modern, marginalizing, and hedonistic society we have constructed. It is, after all, in the simple life where fairy tales are born and where notions like "forever" and "contentment" are allowed to grow. If Hemingway says he was Communist, I don't dispute that and in fact despise it--I'm just pointing out that even a dedicated intellectual liberal like Hemingway evidently was not immune to the kind of joy that proceeds from grace: the grace of falling in love, the grace of joy in something so simple as a beautiful spring day, the grace of loving those who one suffers with. I doubt it is an accident that Catholicism casts such a long shadow across his oeuvre.