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 Pope Francis and the teachings of the Catholic Church

Pope Francis has really shaken up the Catholic Church this time. He affirmed that people of good will, even if they are atheists, are close to Christ. He condemned the, er, widespread condemnation of homosexuals. He has called for the Church to more open and welcoming, which is seen by many as a hint he will relax the mandates of the Catholic Magisterium. His "stance," a ridiculously vague term which implies his worldview, agenda, and perspective, has prompted much spilling of ink on these controversial subjects from news media and Catholic commentators. And yet he has affirmed Church teaching as well. What could be going on?

I think the commentators may be missing the point. Pope Francis wouldn't be the first pope to install sweeping changes, but until that happens I'm going to assume that he is doing what his predecessors have done, which is teach the faith. And so far, his comments affirm what the Catholic Church has always taught, though perhaps not with so much emphasis: that humans have free will gifted to them by God, with which others should not interfere; that they are called to follow their conscience to be people of good will; and that they must treat others as they would treat themselves.

These teachings mirror, as far as I can tell from my own scriptural study, what Jesus himself taught. Remember the Good Samaritan, the woman charged with adultery, the tax collector at the temple, the centurion, and the Prodigal Son? In each of stories, Jesus chooses forgiveness over condemnation. He also identifies unlikely protagonists; namely Samaritans, Roman soldiers, tax collectors, and outright, confessed sinners. Most homilies/sermons I've heard on these scriptural passages emphasize that the humble, the lost, those seeking goodness are the ones close to God--and the spiritual authorities (the Pharisees) are outside God's favor.

Notably, the Gospels have little good to say about the Pharisees. They constantly try to trick Jesus and get him to blaspheme against the law, they grumble about him associating with enemies of the Jews, and Jesus himself condemns them pretty stridently, calling them "hypocrites." The reason for this, I think, is because they are overly scrupulous, a word which used to mean "overly concerned with rules." Put simply, to be scrupulous, a person must be dedicated so much to following the letter of laws and dictates that he or she fails to accomplish the good for which those laws and dictates were instituted in the first place.

Pope Francis seems to have evoked this element of Gospel teaching in his recent statements, speeches, and interviews...and it is not surprising that he has caused a furor in doing so. The Gospel's challenge in this regard is a very personal one, and it strikes at the core of each person's unconscious, but deeply held, beliefs and convictions. Left to each of our own devices, I'm sure we would each live a good life according to our own perception and experience. But such is not our world: we are immersed in society, and so we contact nearly infinite other perspectives and experiences. What are we to do when another perception, or someone else's experience, challenges our own?

This question is not a Catholic one; it is a universal one. Who among the people of the earth today has never been shamed out of an opinion by someone else's story, or never had a rival in love, or cause for jealousy, or has violated his or her own values? These essential human conflicts we can resolve in one of three ways: first, we can ignore the conflict by becoming a hermit--either separate from the world, or existing within it yet unwilling to challenge our fellows; second, we can identify one rigid set of values to give our interactions structure, and never change them no matter what additional experience we receive; third, we can interact dynamically with our world, seeking understanding of others, though we are aware that we might hurt them. The third option requires love, humility, compassion, generosity, and forgiveness, and it is the Catholic answer, for the Gospel teaches it.

With much distinguished scholarship on sin, objective evil, and the elements of a good life, the Catholic Church has (probably inadvertently) created the elements of a rigid set of values, for those who choose the ease of such a moral compass. Yet other members of the Church (and our society) seem to withdraw from the difficulty of true compassion and generosity, preferring a simpler course of benevolently accepting all experiences--and, along the way, granting themselves license to ignore the idea of "true values" in favor of no values.

I don't mean to generalize here. I realize that few, if any, people live their lives entirely on one side of the spectrum or another. In truth, I suspect that each of us has beliefs about which we are scrupulous, and others which we choose not to engage. But Pope Francis seems to be guiding Catholics toward the third way, reminding them that they have a responsibility to dynamically engage the world, seeking to love and care for all people--even (or perhaps especially) for those who are most offensive and pharisaical to them. Whatever sins we abhor in our neighbor, remember Jesus calls us foremost to love them anyway.

And should we be tempted to pass judgment when dynamically engaged, I submit that we remember (whether we are progressive or traditional Catholics, for all that we imperfectly know of God's perspective from the Bible and Church teaching, and no matter the reach of our perspective which is necessarily limited by the tiny fraction of humans we happen to know) that in the end we surely must admit that cannot know the heart of God (as the bible reminds us though Isaiah and Christ himself).

So let us not commit the sin of the Pharisees, and use our religion to condemn and degrade others, either by accusing them of a lack of love or by passing judgement on them for failing to sufficiently respect the rules. Let us not pridefully arrogate God's province of salvation and condemnation to our imperfect human understanding. Let us remember Jesus' warning about the child and the millstone, and remember that when we fail to love and be compassionate for someone who appears to us as sinful, and then treat them with disdain and unlove, then we may very well be the agent of their stumbling in their relationship with God.

I believe that is the message of Pope Francis. It can be boiled down to love your neighbor, whether he/she is scrupulous or progressive, tends toward latin mass or the vernacular, is gay, or has had an abortion, or is divorced. Loving your neighbor doesn't mean condoning what they do, but there's a catch here. If one perceives a sin in someone else, couching a correction (or condemnation) in loving words is not the same thing as loving them. In fact, it is usually the opposite. And anyway, we are pretty specifically told to focus on our own sins, which--if we presume to pretend that we're better than others morally--may trend toward the deadly.

As far as how to love our neighbor, I suppose our best teacher is Jesus, who wants us to feed, clothe, care for, and visit in prison our neighbors, in metaphorical ways as well as material. Pope Francis, bless him, provides us an excellent example of this, and the crowing or panicked pundits of his papacy only indicate that we certainly need both his reminder to love, and his leadership.

The Injustice of our Over-Sexualized Society

I've heard/read a lot of discussion about sex recently.  More so than usual, in fact.  I think perhaps Ms. Cyrus' glorification of wanton, objectifying lust at the recent Video Music Awards (VMAs) is chiefly responsible for re-kindling this long-running social debate.

Because much of our interaction occurs on the internet, there has been a glut of responses to the VMA performance, particularly, and been some popular blog posts on the subject of over-sexualized young people, generally.  Social media friends of mine have posted among themselves two articles in particular that caught my attention.  The first is an "FYI" (for your information) by one Mrs. Hall to girls who post sexy pictures of themselves on social media; the second is one of many dismayed responses to that "FYI."

I'm not here to criticize (at least, to criticize any more than stating my opinions and thoughts should be construed as criticism).  My heart goes out to Ms. Cyrus because I worry that sometime in the future she will regret her lascivious performance at the VMAs.  She may regret it because she's tired of hearing about it, or because she worries what her parents, future boyfriends, or future husbands will think, or because she doesn't want her children (if she decides to have any) to see her in that degrading sexual way.

Worst of all, she may even have relationship troubles and/or decide not to have children because of that performance (and it's backlash).

After all, many have pointed out that it was an excellent attention-getter, and in my experience most people who want attention have some emptiness inside they hope the attention will fill.  If that's true with Ms. Cyrus, then it's likely that she will cling at least partially to whatever ideology of hedonism or reckless youth inspired her to create her drug-celebrating, sex-celebrating, promiscuity-celebrating song--or to, er, 'perform' Mr. Robin Thicke's sex-celebrating song--in the first place, because it got her some attention.  It's also something of an ideology today to forego regret and embrace mistakes, because...well, I don't know.  A sign of maturity is recognizing past mistakes and resolving to do better, which is also a form of atoning for those mistakes, and which implies regret (because if you didn't regret it, then why was it a mistake?).  Unfortunately, refusing to admit mistakes and celebrating promiscuity do not conduce to long-term, loving, trusting relationships.  As I am fortunate enough to be in such a long-term, loving, and trusting relationship, and I realize just what I wonderful thing it is, I hope that Ms. Cyrus (along with everyone else) finds it in her life.

So I hope my concern is warrantless.  But the idea of celebrating sex, and the idea of freedom from mistakes and regrets, is not limited to Ms. Cyrus or Mr. Thicke.  We've all had those ideas in our lives, because we've all experienced the excitement, desire, and lust for sex, as well as the unpleasant guilt, anger, and depression that comes from making a mistake (and for the record, I'm talking about all mistakes here, not just the relationship ones.  Botched interviews, incomplete projects, hurtful words, everything).  It's a psychological certainty that as we begin to experience sexual desire, we will model our parents' behavior towards the same.  It's also virtually certain that our reckless teenage brains will revolt against our parents' staid views, and that we will in some way, big or small, experiment with sexuality.  And by the time we are full adults, most of us will have had some actual sexual experiences (good, bad, and ugly) and will have reflected a bit on them: rarely maybe just by ourselves but certainly when confronted with those we hurt along the way, or those who loved us along the way, or our own pain or heartbreak.

All that reflection certainly does not mean the end of sexual desire or the freedom that we felt as teenagers.  In a good relationship, such 'teenage feelings' ought to be part of the emotional connection.  Certainly a multi-thousand-year-old canon of love stories, love songs, love poetry, and well, love bears witness to the fact that at our best, we don't grow out of excitement, desire, and carefree recklessness. We might temper it with some restraining virtue as our prefrontal cortex develops in our mid-20s, but we don't get rid of it.  How would our relationships last otherwise?

But our collective experience of these things should teach us not to condemn it in our youth.  I think it's a pity that today's teenagers got to see the VMAs, it's a pity they have such easy access to sometimes very disturbing pornography, and it's a pity that social media makes people so accessible.  But if a teenager, boy or girl, is interested or desirous of sexuality, that's neither bad nor good--it's totally amoral.  It's a result of their development as a human being.  The only negative about it their exposure to what I would consider unhealthy sexuality (Ms. Cyrus' performance, disturbing pornography), and the fact the entire world can see their development and their mistakes via social media.

The original FYI subtly condemned some young women--friends of the sons of the author--who posted sexually alluring pictures of themselves on social media websites.  Ignoring the fact that it was cruel and demeaning criticism, with detailed and contemptuous noting of a lack of a bra, or an arched back, the article explicitly held the young women responsible for the possibility of unhealthy sexual thoughts in Mrs. Hall's sons.  The responses are consequently fun to read: they point out that young men also post pictures of themselves in sexually alluring (in a masculine way) poses; and more to the point they note that whatever desire a young man might feel, healthy or not, it is his responsibility and his alone to behave well.

I won't rehash their arguments, but I encourage you to check them out.  If you happen to think that the alluring or sexy behavior of a young woman, however self-demeaning it might be, is an good reason for you to treat her demeaningly yourself, then perhaps you in particular need to read the responses.

I wish, however, to add two additional considerations.  The first is a study which showed that a male confronted with a picture of a scantily-clad, sexually alluring female has increased activity in the area of his brain that relates to tools and other items he can manipulate; the second is the fact that nothing we record and/or post on line is ever, ever erased in our frighteningly new technological age.

The first consideration helps explain (but certainly does NOT excuse) why men are disposed to treat women who present themselves sexually worse than they ought.  It also probably explains why Mrs. Hall, who no doubt wishes for her sons to grow up into respectful and gentlemanly men, has some misplaced (and justly condemned) anger against the sexy selfies she saw on social media.

The second consideration is really more of a personal preservation piece of advice. Fortunately most of us, if we ever made an exhibition of ourselves like Ms. Cyrus did, (publicly or to a partner), we can safely hide it away in our past where we won't have to explain ourselves to future partners, spouses, or children.  Social media took off after I had graduated from college, and I shudder to think what my statuses or pictures would have shown had I been able to post them publicly.  Now, sexy selfies, videos of less-than-respectable party behavior (whether silly drunkenness or salacious dares) and other records of typically reckless, experimental teenage behavior are there for the viewing--by everyone.  Literally, everyone in the world.  They've been used to bully and demean, too.  Make no mistake that such evidence which may by right be personal and private, but by reality are accessible to everyone, may determine to a large degree one's reputation.

Furthermore, while I personally hold that promiscuous, reckless, or demeaning behavior is equally bad in girls and boys, I don't think that's a very widely held perspective.  Mrs. Hall, along with (no doubt) many mothers of sons, seems predisposed to blame alluring young women for the vicious thoughts of men; the male frat-boy locker room culture of male college students and young professionals seems to have no problem with the essential hypocrisy of demanding easy sex but condemning 'easy women.'  Which is very unfair.  Food for thought.

So if you do find yourself looking at a sexy selfie of a young girl on some social media site (Mrs. Hall and any other parent or teenager), remember that the young person in question is probably in the process of discovering sexuality for the first time, and is maybe expressing a totally understandable and fairly universal desire to be attractive to the opposite sex, and is ultimately behaving just like the young men who post shirtless pictures of themselves at the beach.  And if you argue that it's 'boys being boys'  for the young men, but find yourself feeling shocked and/or condemnatory about the young women, then perhaps we should re-evaluate the phrase, 'boys will be boys' and advise our children to stop over-sexualizing themselves, regardless of their own sex.  Then perhaps the young girls that Mrs. Hall, along with much of society, picks on might get a break from the unjust blame and contempt and responsibility.

Because we all recognize the importance of raising virtuous children.  Many have noted that Ms. Cyrus and Mr. Thicke are notably devoid of certain virtues like respect, for self or others, as an explanation for their overtly, almost offensively sexual behavior.  (Which is perhaps unfair to Ms. Cyrus because she's only in her early 20s and therefore hasn't finished developing the part of her brain that houses virtue, while Mr. Thicke is in his 30s and has no excuse.)

Such judgment may be true, academically.  I certainly wouldn't wish to act like Ms. Cyrus, because her performance at the VMAs seemed degrading and elicited disgust in me.  I hope I could make that judgment without judging her to be a bad person--after all, most people do things because they think they are good things to do, not because they have malice in their heart.  Yet condemning Ms. Cyrus, or any young women who uses sex as a form of allure in what they say, or how they dress, or even (yes) what they do, is shifting the blame. It binds upon them some of our own individual guilt about sex or sexuality, and it is a mean and bullying pathway to feel good about ourselves.

So let's start by treating everyone, perhaps especially the over-sexed among us, with dignity, and let's teach our children the same.  It's better for us, better for our relationships, better for the people we meet--and it will be better in all those ways for our children, and for those who meet them.

Reflection on the practical role of the Church

The world has eagerly watched the abdication of Pope Benedict XVI over the past week, and eagerly wonders the identity of the next Pope. Events which make this historic moment in the Church even more titillating are afoot, like the continuing world-wide sex-abuse scandal (which has reached England), the recent censoring of American nuns, and the Church's controversial stance on political issues.

The issues are complicated for Catholics, who understand the Church doctrinally as the Bride of Christ, protected from serious error by the Holy Spirit, a hierarchical institution with the proverbial keys to the Kingdom of Heaven. Part of the Church is the magistrate, which teaches a practical right from wrong for Catholics to gain entry into Paradise upon death; another part is the Pope himself, who is chosen by the Holy Spirit through the College of Cardinals, and is the vicar of Christ. It needn't be said that for Catholics these institutions aren't passing political things to be voted out of office or changed through demonstration or revolution. As God is eternal so is the Church, even if it is suppressed (as it was most brutally in ancient Rome, and equally may be today in totalitarian countries like China).

Another issue at play is the understanding of human history as linear. In the Catholic tradition, after the Fall (described in the first part of the Book of Genesis), God chose a people born of Abraham to be His instrument of salvation of humanity. Through their trials and fealty to Him, He was born as a human to them, uniting his perfection to our imperfection in the real person of Jesus. To fully atone for our sins, he--as a human--had to sacrifice himself to God. Without going into the deep ontological logic that describes how the one God could also be two separate persons (much less three, to include the Holy Spirit), He did sacrifice Himself on the cross and redeemed humanity. Yet to fully conquer our sins He had to defeat the punishment for our sins, which was death, and rise from the dead. This, according to Catholic teaching, he did three days after he died. But before he returned to heaven, he commissioned his apostles to preach His good news with His power. Hence the Church and the priesthood was born. Catholicism teaches that at some point he will come again to reconcile all things, ending the sinful world humanity made through the fall by creating it anew as it was before. And so Catholics believe there was a beginning, and there will be an end.

This linear thinking can lead to some odd conclusions. European (and following their lead, American) Catholics seem to have collectively drawn the conclusion that the power and influence wielded by the Church is a sure sign of its favor in the eyes of God. This thinking was most apparent in the 16th century, when the Church was at the height of it's power. Never mind that could look back on some very corrupt episodes in it's history: most of the Crusades, the Avignon Papacy, and the Inquisition, to name a few. But it was priestly misconduct--namely the wanton selling of indulgences--that sparked Martin Luther to nail his 95 Theses to the doors of Wittenburg Cathedral, leading to schism and the offshoot Protestant religions. Yet despite the bitter feuds that followed, spilling over into catastrophic wars, and an attempt at curbing the corruption (the Council of Trent), the Church continued to see itself as condoned by God. This view was aided by the vast number of new conversions in South and Central America and in the Pacific.

The Church suffered other grievances also. The 1789 French Revolution was horribly anti-Catholic and saw most Parisian religious go to the guillotine. Outside the capital, the Church fared better--it's lands and wealth were largely nationalized by the new French government(s), but religious were persecuted and put to death in cities like Reims, Toulon, and Lyon. The humanistic philosophies of The Enlightenment which provided the intellectual foundation of the French Revolution continued to diminish the Church's influence throughout the 18th Century, and in 1917 the revolution in Russia which installed the Soviets (and the subsequent treaty of Versailles, which gave the Soviets outright some predominately Catholic nations, like Ukraine) was accompanied by fresh attack on religion. This one was easier to ignore, perhaps, because the Church that suffered the most was the Orthodox Church, to which most of the citizens of the new USSR belonged. The Spanish Civil War of 1936 hit closer to home, as the liberal side conducted many persecutions of religious in it's territory during the war. And the Second Vatican Council of 1962, which attempted to 'modernize' the Church by making it more accessible to world which knew it little after 500 years of enlightenment philosophy, indirectly resulted in far fewer priests, religious, and laity in the Western World.

While it is clear that the hegemony of the Church is now but a shadow of it's former self (in the 16th century), it is strange that it continues to have such an aura of authority to others. Catholic and non-Catholics alike tend to view the Church as having very broad authority, that its teachings and actions are inviolable. Whether in that context one sees the Church as a force for good or for evil is a matter of faith and perspective, of course. But as an indicator of God's favor, the secular power and influence of the Church throughout history tells a very uncertain story.

The phrase, "the Church is protected from serious error by the Holy Spirit" obviously also requires examination in light of the well-publicized scandals of the Church, from the Crusades on down to the current, probably yet-untold, incidence of sexual abuse by priests. It is facile to simply regard that phrase as untrue. The language is cloudy here, because of course unprovoked wars (with all the attendant horror of war itself), oppression as seen in the inquisition, and the sexual abuse of minors are very serious crimes. But my understanding of the "serious error" is that which specifically endangers the souls of Christians. In other words, as the Bride of Christ, the Church (whatever the intentions of its ministers) is assisted by the Holy Spirit such that it cannot "cause one of the little ones who believe in [Christ] to sin" (Mt 18:6).

That statement itself is fraught with connotations. It is certainly not true that Church ministers have been protected from persuading Christians to sin, both at the macro level (see: Crusades and Inquisition) and at the micro level (i.e. a priest giving unwise or malicious advice to a parishioner, causing him or her to sin). For that statement to be true, the "serious error" must have to do more with the broad teaching of the Church and very little to do with the actions of Christians. And, so far one accepts that explanation, it may be true. The Church has never taught as doctrine or dogma persecution--which nevertheless does nothing to excuse the sins committed in Catholicism's name down the ages.

Yet these arguments render the Church practically ineffective. In the rarefied world of doctrine and dogma the Church may indeed be "holy and without blemish" (Catechism #1426), yet in the world of material influence the Church has to account for at least a great deal of evil. This brings forth the question of it's practical purpose. If the ministers and body of the Church do evil, why should it continue? And certainly no amount of offsetting good (through charity, etc.), valuable as it may be, can be expected to repair great evil. The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains that the Church's purpose on earth is to faithfully continue Christ's work: "[T]he Church's mission is not an addition to that of Christ and the Holy Spirit, but is its sacrament: in her whole being and in all her members, the Church is sent to announce, bear witness, make present, and spread the mystery of the communion of the Holy Trinity" (Catechism #738). The language of this excerpt puts the Church into a role of providing sacrament (the tangible rendition of God's Grace) to the world. There is nothing in either the stated mission or the idea of a sacrament, notably, that implies a mandate of material authority over people, either to tell them how to think or punish their actions.

In fact, sacrament lies at the very center of the Church. In discussing the first sacrament, Baptism, the Catechism provides a clear picture of the holiness available to humans contrasted with the natural tendency of humans to sin.

Conversion to Christ, the new birth of Baptism, the gift of the Holy Spirit and the Body and Blood of Christ received as food have made us "holy and without blemish," just as the Church herself, the Bride of Christ, is 'holy and without blemish.' Nevertheless the new life received in Christian initiation has not abolished the frailty and weakness of human nature, nor the inclination to sin that tradition calls concupiscence, which remains in the baptized such that with the help of the grace of Christ they may prove themselves in the struggle of Christian life. This is the struggle of conversion directed toward holiness and eternal life to which the Lord never ceases to call us. (Catechism #1426)

Therefore the call to holiness, and the necessity of the sacraments for receipt of Grace, is universal (one might even say, Catholic). It is the primary imperative for humanity as described by Christ when he said, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment" (Matthew 22:37). It applies to all people, whether Christians or not. And more significantly, it applies to all Christians, to include the priests, bishops, cardinals, popes, nuns, and laity. In the same way concupiscence applies to all Christians. And the Church makes no claim of infallibility as regards its ministers--the claim applies only to the collective action as regards dogma, an example of which being that the mission of the Church is to be sacrament for the Holy Spirit, succinctly stated thus:

The seven sacraments [of the Church] are the signs and instruments by which the Holy Spirit spreads the grace of Christ the head throughout the Church which is his Body. The Church, then, both contains and communicates the invisible grace she signifies. It is in this analogical sense, that the Church is called a 'sacrament.' (Catechism #774)

The language of the Catechism, which interprets the teaching of Christ, puts the focus of Christianity squarely on the holiness of the individual Christian, which itself proceeds solely through the Grace of God as administered by the Church through the Sacraments. Holiness is manifestly not something bestowed by the Church upon people, but by God upon people, because God is the only source of Grace. The Church functions as a conduit of Grace in the Sacraments, but it cannot limit God (for He is by definition illimitable) by stopping Grace. For this reason, the Church teaches the primacy of conscience: "A human being must always obey the certain judgment of his conscience" (Catechism #1790), which protects the freedom implied in Jesus' second great commandment, "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22:37).

Furthermore, as the Church may enjoy the special protection of the Holy Spirit in its mission as sacrament, its practical value lies not itself but in its body.

Because they are members of the Body whose Head is Christ, Christians contribute to building up the Church by the constancy of their convictions and their moral lives. The Church increases, grows, and develops through the holiness of her faithful, until "we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God." (Catechism #2045)

It is appropriate that the Church is called a 'mystical body,' because insofar as it exists in the realm of the angels, beyond our tangible and material world, it is 'holy and unblemished.' No doubt this Church, called the Church Triumphant, has all more power and glory than humanity can imagine. But the practical Church of this world, in its divinely-ordained role of assisting people in the struggle for holiness, is called the Church Militant and, as it is ordered and ministered by humans, it is no more protected from concupiscence than the rest of humanity. There is a great mystery in the fact that both Churches are, in fact, the same entity (much like, perhaps, the Trinity constitutes one God), and it is therefore indeed mystical. The fact remains, however, that Christians--even priests or other religious--are no holier than the rest of the mass of humanity.

Therefore the secular power, influence, and glory of the Church falls into this category: "Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity" (Ecclesiastes 1:2). The sacramental nature and mission of the Church, however, is the legacy of the apostles and the rock that underlies the institution (cf Matthew 16:18). The Church deserves a special reverence because of it's power to administer the sacraments and assist humanity in receiving the Grace of God, but "special reverence" is demanded only by the Church's role as the Bride of Christ and the conduit of Grace, and not for any material manifestation. Neither should "special reverence" be construed as to imply that the Church is above reproach. A cursory examination of the tragedies perpetrated and suffered by the Church, in fact, indicates that it most deserves reproach most when it seems to forget about the individual ministry of sacrament and turns it's attention toward propagating or protecting its secular power and influence. But that is a discussion for historians and theologians. What is beyond discussion entirely is that the chief practical value of the Church is in the sacraments, and by extension the Grace and divine assistance which proceed from those sacraments.

(It's important to note here that the objective value of the Church lies in it's very identity as the Bride of Christ. For that reason alone it is good, and for that reason it obligates Christians to reverence. Its participation in the material world, however, animated as it is by humans, is prone to the same sins as the humans itself.)

The abdication of Pope Benedict XVI amid the increasing evidence of great scandal in the Church is a great issue for the administration of the entire Church and for the administration of the diocese affected. As the Church is called to participate in the world, those Church members (laity and religious) who commit crimes ought to be punished accordingly, by the laws that apply to them as participating citizens under the jurisdiction of their government. For the rest of the Church, the sins of its members serve as a sad reminder that nothing in this world is immune from the inclination to concupiscence, and therefore Grace that flows from the sacraments is all the more urgently needed.

Let the world eagerly watch proceedings in the Vatican. Let Christians more eagerly turn to the sacraments and answer the call to holiness; let us more eagerly seek to follow Christ's two great commandments.

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.

On Self, Soul, and Scripture

The first Sunday of Lent has passed, and with it the usual gospel reading of Jesus being tempted in the desert. The parallels to the season are obvious: as Jesus fasted 40 days,  so should we; as Jesus rejected material comforts, worldly power, and (I think) the need for others to love him, so should we; as Jesus put his trust in God to feed him, to lead him to the right place (not dominion), to love him without necessarily showing it, so should we.

I wonder how many, hearing that passage, appreciate the 'temptations' part of it. I certainly don't. I hear about Jesus telling the devil, "no," to all the powers in the world, and I think it's faintly laughable, as if any right-minded person with an inkling of heaven would up and say, "why yes, Satan, I would like to sell you my soul for all the powers of the world." It's even a little melodramatic for me when the devil says, "for all of these [powers and principalities] have been handed over to me, and I may give them to whomever I wish." If that's true, part of me thinks, then where's God?

I think more appropriately the thought of giving up one's essential self is appalling to anyone, even the most die-hard atheist. Whether we believe in God or not, most of us recognize something important and separate about ourselves. I think it's unique, but even if one is not willing to go that far ("out of seven billion people, there's got to be somebody like me!"), then there still exists that thing about us that makes us different than others. And that, called 'the soul' or any other name, is something that nobody willingly surrenders.

Or maybe people surrender it all the time. Those who do, I think, are called 'company men' or 'brown-nosers' or more appropriately 'sell-outs;' we identify the same phenomena in 'gold-diggers' and prostitutes. Those people who inspire contempt because on some level they are obviously a little less than fully human in character--those people have surrendered their souls. Of course, probably not as efficiently as they would have to Satan, whether he exists or not. Jesus was offered all the powers in the world, and they only hope to gain a little more money at the cost of their self-respect. But the sad joke about those who sell their souls, for whatever, is that 'they' usually sell it cheaply.

It's good that Christianity has this season of renewal. Nearly every religion in the world practices some form of fasting and meditation, and while a common complaint of critics is that Christianity puts these things into manageable little boxes ("oh, you only have to do it once a year? well, that's not exactly a life change!"), it's meant more provide focus an education. Psychologists have noted that things like a certain amount of self-denial, and a form of meditation, and a feeling of being part of something bigger than oneself, all conduce to being happier, more fulfilled people. Turning to Christ requires all of those things, because frankly they are the building blocks of any good relationship: sacrificing for the other, paying attention to them in some way, and putting the relationship itself ('something bigger than either of members of the relationship') ahead of oneself.

Returning to the foundation of the relationship, once a year during this Lenten season, is a way of learning to re-appreciate the other member of the relationship. Like a husband and wife in a routine need a 'date night' (or a full-blown second honeymoon), like two friends growing apart need a good chat, like a person needs to occasionally return to his or her favorite pass-time, we all probably need a chance to rekindle our understanding of Christ's role in our life: how He modeled right behavior; how He loved us; how He suffered for us on the cross; and how we are called to honor Him in our behavior. After all, the Mass exists as a reminder of these things, but week after week is routine...until Lent shakes it up and points directly back to the foundation.

The Catholic Church has many connotations as an institution. Catholics tend to focus on the efficient and effective charity, on the almost miraculous maintenance of tradition, the excellent education and firm moral teaching, and its universality. Others (it seems) tend to focus on the sexual abuse scandal and the criminal way in which it was covered up, the undue influence it seems to have in contemporary American politics, the moralizing and proselytizing that seems cruel and judgmental, and the effective marginalization of women and condemnation of homosexuals. Both views are probably all too true, and I am often both proud and ashamed to be a Catholic. But both miss the mark.

The Apostolic Church existed began as a way to provide a tangible thing so that Christians could have a meaningful relationship with God--first through the apostles who knew Jesus, then through their successors. The sacraments are a tangible way to experience the love and sacrifice of Jesus. The ministry of the church should renew us the way Lent renews us: by bringing us closer to God (and providing a means to those scientifically proven benefits cited before). Ultimately, the Church isn't important for what it teaches so much--and truth be told, many so-called Church perspectives are merely opinions from Catholic humans who happen to be priests--but rather for what it does: minister. And Catholics have a responsibility for a personal relationship with God, as provided by the Church, and with all the obligations a real relationship imposes. Showing up, conversing, caring about the other, being the kind of person with whom the other wants a relationship in the first place.

Too often, I think, Christians end up surrendering their souls to their various Churches. Having opinions and doing what one is told is sadly always easier than a meaningful, give-and-take relationship that requires maintenance. Separating oneself into a special little church clique, with the mutual support of other people, is sadly always easier than pursuing a connection with something largely intangible (which is the definition of something 'larger than oneself'). Such easy surrenders are so because they provide self-importance. But real relationships have no room for self-importance, and neither does sainthood.

What I heard in the gospel about the temptation in the desert was Jesus rejecting all those things which would separate him from God. Material possessions, worldly influence, self-importance: these things pull us away from the other at the heart of a real relationship. Jesus' citing of scripture in his answer to the devil indicates that he does not reject the offers because of their source, but instead because he'd rather live on 'every word that proceeds from the mouth of God,' and that everyone worship God instead of him, and that God's love not be tested--because he is in a meaningful relationship with God and that's the most important thing. What brings us back to that model are the sacraments, the sacrifice, and the prayer that the Catholic Church directs at Lent - not as a means to control but as a way to to provide a tangible 'object' of the relationship.

It's a marvelous institution for this reason. All the posturing, the positions, the pride (however justified), and the sins (however appalling) are merely secondary.   

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 Virtues of Conformity

The idea of conformity has been pressing on my mind as of late, due to a recent conversation I had with a business executive. She had consented to let me train her and some of her peers ‘the Marine Way’ (and--self-aggrandizement warning--you can check it out here), and was nice enough to say that it was really good training.

I don’t know if she was being sincere, as we had engineered the event to make her cold, wet, tired, and hungry and then forced life-or-death decisions on her and finally berated her for the poor decisions she made, but well. Her professor for this part of the Executive MBA degree she was pursuing had offered it as part of his Ethics class, and she had, after all, volunteered.

And it was satisfying to see civilians who were cold, wet, tired and hungry (on a holiday weekend). For once.

But she seemed quite enthused about what happened to her. And as we spoke, she commented to the effect that she was surprised that an organization as rigid as the Marine Corps could produce independent-minded thinkers, or that individual Marines would seem so comfortable speaking their mind to each other (especially when rank was involved).

I answered her with my thoughts at the time. I told her that, in my experience Marines were more genuinely and truly themselves than people in other groups. That I thought the reason had to do precisely with the enforced conformity and rigidity, because those qualities suppress the individual’s ability to self-express on the superficial level. You know, with the brand of their clothes, or the style of their hair, or their hobbies. Once everyone looks the same, and falls under the same expectation, there’s a common language and experience and you immediately meet something closer to the real person when you meet a Marine.

She acted like she had received an epiphany, and told me that she often thought that many of her colleagues did just that--they self-defined with external things, such as their appearance, their tastes, their hobbies--and therefore those people were inauthentic.

Which is topsy-turvy.

I don’t disagree. I don’t mean to turn this into a rant against culture, media, or ‘kids these days’ (though as I age I find it’s increasingly easy to do so). Like many of my peers I have struggled with who I am, wondering why I was so inaccessible to myself. Who is the real me? was a question I had asked--continue to ask--over and over again. It would certainly seem that seeking things I enjoyed or admired might provide a clue to the answer, and so--again, like many of my peers--I spent adolescence and after ‘trying on’ new looks, personalities, life goals, and the like. Whichever ones ‘stuck,’ I reasoned, would be truly me.

Listen to how seductive that is.

There’s some evidence, I’m told, real scientific and psychological evidence, to suggest that such ‘fishing’ for personality traits and values is an essential part of adolescence. And like most of adolescence, it is at its heart quite selfish.

Oh, I’m not denigrating adolescents. A rather recent father myself (whose daughter, thankfully, is still far from that age), I’m beginning to understand how essential selfishness is to a kid’s survival and development. It’s not malicious or thoughtless, really--it’s just natural. It feels natural.  Maybe self-absorption is a better term, maybe that more accurately captures the need for children from toddlers to teenagers to focus on their consistently expanding knowledge, sensations, emotions, and the like. So I’m not saying that adolescents equal selfish. If that’s true at all, then it doesn’t even tell half the story about what adolescence is: the passion, the idealism, the joy at finding such a marvelous, multifaceted, and wonderful world as ours. Seriously.

But one thing that nearly every psychologist says about adolescents is their desire to fit in. And shopping around for something that’s ‘truly you’ is usually more accurately defined as trying to conform to some thing, some value, some culture in which you want to fit in. A teenager dying his hair black and wearing makeup may look weird and stand out, but he’s also fitting in to a specific group. A few weeks later, when he gets a crew cut and tries out for the soccer team, he’s again trying to fit in. Such attempts, whether by teenagers or by adolescent adults who should know better, and who haven’t ‘found themselves’ by their late twenties (I’m one of the latter, I’m afraid, and I’m already 30!), are based on the pervasive and alluring belief that image equals reality, and they are focused entirely on the self.

That’s why they don’t work: we blithely acknowledge that while a soft drink company may imply that drinking their product makes one beautiful and happy and puts one into a life of partying, it isn’t necessarily true; we all too often assume that if we change ourselves to conform to someone who looks to us like he or she is beautiful and happy, we will then become similarly beautiful and happy. Maybe that attribute, or that personality trait, or that job, or that ‘look,’ we say, maybe THAT’S what I’ve been missing all along. Maybe THAT’S truly me!

“What I’ve been missing.” “[What’s] truly me.” Focused on self. It’s really seductive, as I pointed out before. It brings with it the illusion of control (“I can change this”). It indulges the fantasies that prey on all of us, fantasies about being attractive and fulfilled and successful and always having fun. And if phrased as a search for authenticity, well, then it becomes admirable too. How often, readers-in-your-twenties-and-thirties, have you heard your friends say something like, “I’ve just decided to try some things out, to let go, to really explore/experience the world and find myself?” Maybe I’m the only one, but I’ve heard it a lot. I’ve said it a lot. And boy is it admirable. You can’t help but respond with some cocktail of envy and adulation and pride, “good for you! That’s great!”

And they will go off on their own. But to find what? Someone or something else they admire. Why do they admire it? Is there some immutable personality that must be unlocked in each of us? Perhaps. Christianity teaches us that we are all unique and created for love in a unique way. Two children, raised identically, will not be identical. Not even if they are identical twins. But when we start talking about ‘finding ourselves,’ we are looking for things that will inspire us. We are looking for people, and ideas, and values (and yes the superficial things too, such as looks or styles) with which we desire participation and closeness.

Participation and closeness to things means a relationship. All of those things which make up personality--“the set of enduring behavioral and mental traits that distinguish [individual] human beings” (thanks Wikipedia, though I think this originates in the DSM-IV)--are partially (mostly?) forged in and by relationships. We learn basic ideas of self from our parents (actually, we don’t even distinguish ourselves from our parents until we’re several years old). We learn initial values from parents and teachers and peers, and as we develop we continue to expand our number of relationships. I don’t deny that some behavioral and mental traits seem to be ingrained in us from birth, but there’s no doubt that even those supposedly immutable traits are modified by our relationship with people who give us role models, or who mentor us, or who shape and develop those original traits. All of our relationships, good and bad, have affected our personalities, have created a complex layer of emotions and ideas that shape our unconscious responses to stimuli ranging from how we greet a stranger to our behavior in an intimate relationship.

That is why it is foolish, and ultimately selfish, to embark on a solo quest to ‘find oneself.’ Without the relationship one is merely imitating the images he or she sees, and the self-development is essentially superficial. The relationship, the encounter, the challenge of ideas and the emotional investment that makes one care--that causes self-development.

Therefore conformity actually engenders relationships.

Wait, hear me out.

For people concerned with ‘finding themselves,’ all of those superficial distinguishers--the looks, the hobbies, the certain friends, the political positions, the opinions--those things are actually defense mechanisms. They are meant to declare, like the ‘emo’ teenager, I’m this way, and you’re not. They are meant to inhibit relationships, except with a select group of people who are deemed ‘worthy.’ And though they would say that relationships exist within their clique, they are actually all using each other to convince each other that they are ‘truly themselves.’ More accurately, each one of them is privately trying to believe that individually he or she has become the best version of him- or herself. In other words, they aren’t interested in relationships because they are too busy trying to feel good, on their own, for themselves.

They are brainwashed. They adhere so closely to an idea that they cannot see the beautiful reality of the other complex people around them. They are closed to wonder, because they’ll reject anything new that doesn’t enhance their opinion of themselves.

I feel pity, if that’s the case. I’ve certainly been there before, and it wasn’t because (I hope) I was then or am now a horrible, self-absorbed, malicious, narcissistic person. It was just that I was trying so hard to find my ‘true self’ that I couldn’t see that I was actually retreating into myself. I’m sure Freud would have a field day with me.

Conformity, though--conformity attempts to deny the luxury of outward appearances. It means one must interact with the person, not an impersonal collection of attributes. It means one can’t exist in a pleasant fantasy of self-actualization, half-way in the future; one must be in the present. And what I’ve found in the Marine Corps is that you see everyone’s real personality. What they really think, and want, and care about. That’s because you are personally close to them, and understanding fosters companionship, which is essential to teamwork.

Relationships create roles. We all play roles throughout life--son or daughter, sibling, friend, confidant, supporter, lover, taker, hero, employee, manager, customer, server, husband or wife, mother or father. Roles can change, if we want them to, to be sure. But roles are also comforting as well. They help us understand how to relate to others, and guide our behavior. We understand it’s inappropriate for a child to back-talk to a parent because we understand each of their roles in that relationship. The rigid rank structure of the military creates pre-defined roles, which also engenders relationships.

Conformity is such a bad word in today’s popular media. It carries connotations of stupidity cowardice, and contempt. ‘Be yourself!’ we are exhorted in songs, on billboards, on talk shows and late-night radio. Well, yes, I say, but ‘self’ is developed in relationship with others. That requires some conformity--at least a conformity to manners, if the relationship is to be friendly. In fact, the more I conform and develop a common visible connection between myself and another, the more I can understand and appreciate (for good or for bad) those behavioral and mental traits that constitute personality.

I suggest that conformity might require you to change the way you look, but it doesn’t change you. It actually lets your self out of its cage of appearances to encounter the world.

So, I told this lady. The conformity to which we submit as Marines actually brings us closer personally, and fosters a community. In a platoon, all are unbearably, undeniably individual. With just a look, or an epithet, or a terse opinion (respectfully voiced from lower ranks), one individual may change the course of the whole unit because there exists common respect and reliance. That’s what enables Marines to make good decisions in tough situations. In that sort of community, someone who is putting on a show, adopting superficial changes, that person is rejected. It’s a little bit like a family, actually, but then families conform to each other too.

Paradoxically, conformity seems to be (in some way) the key to individuality.

And except for the odd sociopath, individuality is a wonderful thing, because out of it springs true love, community, creativity, and knowledge (and probably a lot of other things that elude me now)--it produces all the things that make life worthwhile. But first you must have good relationships, and despite the negative connotations, good relationships mean conformity.