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.   

Cross Country Memories

I woke up today thinking of Phoenix. Perhaps it was the weak, pale February sun streaming in my windows, filtered through gossamer white cirrus clouds. Only in the winter, with the cold sucking humidity out of the air and the thick trees bare, does Virginia ever approach the sheer visibility of the Southwest. And on a morning such as this, my mind went back to the crisp clarity of a Friday evening, the sun all coppery on the darkling sand, when my pilot and I passed a Southwest 737 on the approach path into Phoenix Sky Harbor airport.

I've had some occasion of late to reflect on the past, and one of the things that stands out the most is my need to keep busy. Well, busy is not the right word--distracted, more like. It's stood me in good stead, actually. In college, when I was finally shamed enough about mediocre grades to put in some effort, it drove me to a respectable finish. And when I entered the fleet as a mighty, world-famous Green Knight, it put me up for a lot of working weekends.

Now, the reality of a fighter squadron is, literally, training. Training to kill, in the air and on the ground. In the Marine Corps, the latter is much more important and it is additionally required that fighters be able to kill on the ground only one side of the battle--the enemy--while leaving the friendlies unscathed. Considering the proudly stated mission of the Marine Rifle Squad is "to locate, close with, and destroy the enemy by fire and maneuver, or to repel the enemy assault by fire and by close combat," well, some degree of precision in this endeavor is required from us carefree airedales.

So there is a secondary reality, and that is flight hours. As Malcolm Gladwell put it, the path to proficiency lies in hours spent (10,000 hours being the minimum requirement for mastery, and while we all strive for that, who has that much time, I wonder?), and so our individual and collective ability to kill our enemies without fragging that closing and destroying Marine Rifle Squad relied on flight hours.

Flight hours, of course, are expensive. Not just in fuel (2,000 or so gallons of which we used each flight), but more tellingly in maintenance. For it is axiomatic in the realm of physics, whose laws are inexorable for us as those of death and taxes, that maneuvering such as is required to arrive quckly and safely in the right spot of the sky, oriented the correct way, in a slightly negative-G dive (which helps the bomb fall more closely aligned to the aircraft computer-extrapolated ballistic path) to deliver some hundreds of pounds of hate and discontent upon the enemy, accurately, puts some necessary and occasionally violent force on the jet. All the computers, and hydraulic pumps, and hinges and joins and bolts and generators, all the structural fuselage elements--all of them subject to sudden loading and unloading of gravitational forces as we airedales, with joy in our hearts and laughter in our voices (it's true) yank and bank our way up from the safety of terrain masking and roll in aggressively to "the chute," that wonderful and terrifying flight path from which said hate and discontent would shortly be dealt, but also a dangerous prison of principle, for in "the chute" one is "on government time," a nice way of saying we are required by divers oaths, spoken and unspoken, to deliver the fire support so desperately needed by our comrades regardless of personal safety, and a jet scribing a predictable straight path through the sky toward an intended target for some five to ten seconds makes a juicy target for the foes and their air defenses, doesn't it precious?

Which is all to say that the airplanes, designed as they are for the Newtonian toll by wonderful engineers at Boeing, undergo quite a beating in everyday flight. And they are not, therefore, always working.

Now, fear not. Being nothing less than a professional organization, American Naval Aviation has instituted many safeguards to ensure that broken aircraft are diagnosed and healed quickly (for machines so complicated, which carry life in their austere and purposeful cockpits, act more like living things than cold machinery). The fine Marines who crawl all over the jet and learn it's most secret places, in rain and cold and heat and long, deadly sunny days, they diligently diagnose all manner of little issues, and even more diligently repair them. They are Marines, of course, and are deeply invested in doing their job correctly - something to which I've alluded before. And they certainly won't certify a broken aircraft for us airedales to fly.

That means we only have so many aircraft at any one time, and as each aircraft can only fly so many times per day (three), we only have so many flights. And with a squadron of 34 aggressive, type A, red-blooded aviators all clamoring for flight hours (for to reach eventually that 10,000, though I've only ever heard of one gentlemen do it, and he wasn't flying the Hornet's ful 13 tons of twisted steel, sex appeal, fully articulating leading and trailing control surfaces, and hydraulic and electric circuits, so I'll spare him my envy for his piston-engined, single-control-surface monoplanes), and more importantly all 34 needing training for to kill accurately, space on that flight schedule gets pretty precious. When you start factoring in that maybe only 10 of the aviators are qualified tactical instructors, and one of them is needed for every flight with an unqualified aviator trying to get qualified for to become officially more accurate at killing, well, Flight Hours are very precious indeed, and you can probably forget Mr. Gladwell's 10,000.

But. A brilliant solution. The United States having a vast and reliable network of airfields left over from the days they also enjoyed a comfortable technological and economic advantage over the rest of the world, due largely to the vision and enterprise of men and women like that 10,000 flight hour earner (and where did all of that go, we wonder), and airedales being professionals, well, why don't you go seek your 10,000 hours on the weekend, young WSO? However, you must not under any circumstances come back to the home field until you are scheduled to do so. Therefore you must seek your fortune elsewhere--in Las Vegas, or Phoenix, or Long Beach, or Palo Alto. If you can show good reason, you may go farther afield: Seattle, Portland, Boise, Lake Tahoe, Albuquerque.

Well. Unspoken was the fact that I, like many of my fellow "road warriors," was single. And though some were vocal about the "double standard," I had no desire to pull my peers from their families on the weekend. Also, I was conscious of the fact that in the competitive world of fighter aviation, it was rather well looked-upon if one showed uncommon dedication to flying.  And there were real benefits, too. Places to see, bars to visit, new airfields to experience, all while earning per diem getting a free hotel stay. Plus the advantage of progressing in qualifications faster than my peers, if I could entice an instructor along. And I didn't have to go home to my sparsely furnished one-bedroom apartment (seriously, my wife still teases me about my life with only a bed, dresser, and desk) and wonder what to do with my weekends.

So I became a consummate road warrior--during one two-month stretch, I did nine weekend cross-countries. Yup, if you're counting--that's every weekend. Plenty of distraction. 

They were days of work and wonder--sitting, hot, in the pits of El Centro with the engines screaming at idle, poring over a chart and scratching fuel and time calculations on my kneeboard to see what sort of Bingo we'd set to safely arrive at our next destination (Bingo being the term for the minimum amount of fuel required to get to base, with a specified safety reserve) while the sweat beaded under my visor and made the mask slippery on my face; knocking off 20 minutes of dogfighting, breathless and panting from the G forces and the strain of keeping one's head turned around and locked on the other aircraft, and keeping my voice aviator cool on the radio with center as I asked for IFR to Phoenix; nervously asking for a lower altitude VFR over the Grand Canyon, and receiving permission, and descending lower into the layered red rock walls while a sparkling blue river winked out of the depths; calling hotels and 1-800-Wx-Brief to file the next flight from the deliciously cool FBO in Palm Springs, giddy with freedom after deciding with the other aircrew that we were NOT going to Long Beach tonight, that we wanted to go to Las Vegas instead, and spending a half an hour 'making it happen;' scrubbing clean an ancient whiteboard with paper towels and the damp sleeve in a crumbling base operations building, wallpapered with squadron stickers, in preparation for a full debrief; and best of all, the sudden quiet at sunset, when the radios magically stop squawking and the light fails and cockpit cools off and the horizons become brilliant streamers of red and pink and orange--when it was time to find a new place, a new hotel and restaurant and bar, and the work is over.

And I remember one winter afternoon, awash in coppery sunset light, when at 18 miles from the field we were directed to turn left and intercept the approach path for runway 07C ('zero-seven-center'), and asked to slow to 130 knots. These instructions are to be followed to the letter, now, because there are many airplanes at any given time trying to get into that small little cone of airspace around Phoenix Sky Harbor, and land--many of them filled with innocent passengers, at that. Having them all moving at more than 100 miles an hour, and climbing and descending on there way out and in, complicates the problem immensely. The hardworking controllers at airports like that deserve a beer next time you meet once in your local watering hole, maybe, and they certainly deserved the utmost professional courtesy from the likes of me, whose ego was often close to writing checks his body couldn't cash, and nor could his airplane, at least not without upsetting the smooth flight of 150 odd southwest passengers, but that fortunately didn't happen but once, and it's a story for another time.

In any case, it was with some trepidation that I tapped the foot pedal, and transmitted back to the controller, "Combat 41 unable. Minimum airspeed 150." Which was putting my pilot and the controller in a pickle, and no mistake. For the former, well, our 13 ton aircraft with two tons of fuel aboard did not like flying at 150 knots, oh no precious, what with finite lift available even with the wings totally reconfigured for maximum lift provision. It requires an exceedingly gentle touch, I'm told, and a high power setting, which the aircraft greatly desires to turn into speed for to gain more lift and stability. A hundred seventy-five knots being preferred. For the latter it became immediately evident why our speed was a problem. Several miles ahead of us, nearly blending in with the desert floor (at 18 miles one is barely seeing the southwestern suburbs of Phoenix below), was a trundling Southwest Airlines 737, placidly and gently gliding in at about 130 knots. Not being designed, see, for the speed of heat, or for eight Gs, or for accurate delivery of death to all comers in the air, on land, and at sea, the Boeing 737 has nice large rigid wings that are uncongenial to the lift or drag requirements of, as one pilot once undelicately put it, "flying through your own a**hole." It is therefore also much more stable at slow speeds.

My pilot answered my radio call over the Intra-Cockpit Communication System (ICS) with a four-letter word unprintable on this family website. The controller, after a pregnant silence, said uncertainly "Combat 41, roger, traffic twelve o'clock, three miles, seven-thirty-seven." Which meant, of course, that he heard me about the 150 knots, and oh by the way there was another aircraft off my nose at three miles. To which my pilot replied via ICS, "Tally," and I was able to say "Combat 41, Tally that traffic," and then quietly wonder whether we'd have to do a turn of holding before we landed.

But this controller was smart and helpful, which made a nice change from all the rude ones who question your omniscience and try to kill you by flying you into either an airplane or a hill, true story, and both also for another day. He hopefully asked over the radio, "Combat 41, can you land on the right?" which of course that Phoenix has two large runways, the right-most one being shorter when landing on runway 07, and perhaps we could land on a different runway than that tortoise of a 737 quite safely. So I hurriedly thumbed to my airfield diagram, saw that the right runway was 7,800 feet long, which was about 200 feet shorter than we'd like but technically quite long enough for the Hornet, and doing a quick calculation on how much I trusted my young pilot's ability to stop from running us off the end of the runway, and exiting the airplane ungraciously through the door that Martin Baker provides, and quickly tapped my foot pedal to transmit cooly, "Combat 41, affirm," and save the day. Which, of course, I did, because the controller happily replied "Roger Combat 41, maintain visual separation that traffic and continue your approach visually to zero-seven-right." It wasn't exactly kosher because under IFR traffic rules he has to give me a heading, but it was quite an expedient solution. My pilot accelerated to a much smoother 175 knots and swung right to offset from the Boeing and line up on the right runway, which looked rather short compared to the two other 10,300-foot-generous runways provided by Sky Harbor. And, having a pilot's generous dose of ego, he batted no eyes at my quick brief about the 7,800 foot runway earmarked for us.

So I found myself with the setting sun at my back, beauty before my eyes and relief in my heart, passing a Southwest Airlines airplane in my hornet. We touched down about 15 seconds before he did, and ended up having to wait a while on the taxiway, worse luck. But it sure made the beers taste good that evening.

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.