Spahn Ranch, Los Angeles (from Wikipedia)
In 1969
the Sybil came down
from the mountain.
She broke her loom
and burned her book,
took a broom,
then ate the hook.
She turned her gown
into a potato sack,
and pawned her crown
for a crooked back.
All the while her
locks were swiftly
falling to the ground.
Behold a witch –
she’ll drown.
Filed under Poetry
This post is about Scott Adams’ recent book on the art of persuasion, titled Win Bigly: Persuasion in a World Where Facts Don’t Matter. Warning: longish.
I.
This was an impulse borrow from my local library, and I checked it out without any preconceived notions or a plan to review it. I was intrigued by Adams because he was one of the few public figures who made a very early prediction that Donald Trump would become president, and maintained this posture through the end of the election (at great risk to his career and public image). However, this post is not about the President or the election, or much about the art of persuasion, but rather the spiritual or metaphysical issues Adams touches on, intentional or not.
I will preface this by saying that I am a sinner and mediocre Christian, and it is very difficult to truly know what is going on inside another person, particularly in their spiritual life. However, I found Adams to be admirably open and transparent in writing this book. Without his confessions this type of review would not be possible. For purposes of this review, I am going to assume everything he says is true, and see where that leads us.
Adams lets us know that the book is about more than the art of persuasion on the very first page:
I’m a trained hypnotist. And I’m going to tell you about the spookiest year of my life. It happened between June 2015 and November 2016. Okay, that’s a little more than a year.
Everything you are about to read in this book is true, as far as I know. I don’t expect you to believe all of it. (Who could?). But I promise it is true, to the best of my knowledge.
(emphasis added)
Adams starts with the topic of “filters”, or the way a person interacts with the world. He repeatedly states that “A good filter is one that makes you happy and helps predict the future.” He identifies the filters he has tried so far in his life. He describes how he used the “Church filter” from the age of six to eleven. He was a practicing Methodist and attended Sunday school every week. However, he found that stories such as Jonah and the Whale strained his credulity to such an extent that he stopped believing and going to church.
He then transparently discusses the other filters he tried and discarded, including the “Alien Experiment” filter (e.g. that humanity is an experiment or computer simulation run by aliens), the “Atheist filter” and the “drug filter.” I find it interesting that there are a number of very intelligent, successful people who subscribe to the computer simulation theory. Each of these proved unsatisfactory. He finally arrived at the “moist robot” filter.
In the moist robot filter, human beings do not truly have free will or a soul. The brain is a machine that can be trained to develop useful habits, improve happiness, and predict the future (e.g. If I do A then B will result). The “persuasion filter”, the intended subject of the book, is a subset of the moist robot method. Adams argues that most of our decisions or opinions are not based on reason, but on emotional reaction to a stimulus. Persuasion is a tool to get others to do what you want that does not rely on evidence or reason. If you can identify a “Master Persuader” like Trump, you can get an edge on others in predicting what may happen next.
II.
The second part of the book goes on to discuss errors in reasoning, such as confirmation bias, and cognitive dissonance, which is a symptom of holding contradictory beliefs. He provides multiple examples of these from the election and other historic events.
In the third part, he breaks down what persuasion actually is, its elements, and how Trump and Clinton used it, to greater and lesser effectiveness, respectively. In the fourth part, he provides advice on how to use persuasion in business and politics.
Much of this is of little value to a Christian in carrying out the work of evangelization or simply providing a good witness through acts of faith, hope or love. I think Adams does make a good point about the futility of directly attacking others’ belief systems. I am very doubtful of the ability to argue someone out of their beliefs, particularly if it is atheism or agnosticism. Apologetics has a valued place, and we should tell the Truth if asked, but the Lord and the Holy Spirit are what changes minds. Like the Father in the Parable of the Prodigal Son, God always makes the larger move.
III.
Part five is the most interesting, and probably the most unbelievable for many readers. However, as I said, I am going to accept everything he says as true to arrive at the question I asked myself after I finished the book.
He begins by condemning tribalism, which results in people making decisions based on group loyalty as opposed to the truth, or evidence. Tribalism can be political party membership, but it can be excessive attachment to ethnicity, gender, cultural traditions, etc.. I think the best identity is to see yourself and everyone else as part of the Body of Christ (whether they have been baptized or not).
The last pages are the most interesting: Adams gets to the “spooky parts” and meets a ghost in the machine of his moist robot mind.
Adams talks about his dreams or how he imagined the events of the election taking shape. Regardless of the scenarios, he had an unshakeable hunch that Trump would win. He shares his past experiences of having “visions” that came true. He claims to have had one at age 6 that he would grow up to become a famous cartoonist. He had others that he would later move to San Francisco, and also that he would become a well paid public speaker. All happened. He describes the visions as being different than a memory or an exercise in imagination. He claims to have had about a dozen of these spontaneous visions that came true.
He goes on to wonder whether his prediction even contributed to the Trump victory. The idea of our world being a simulation comes up again, and he includes an entire appendix on the topic.
This little bit that follows is for anyone reading this who is an agnostic or atheist, but is intrigued by the idea that our world is simulation. In a way, the idea that your life is a simulation is not contrary to the Gospel. What follows is an extended excerpt from a book about St. Therese by Von Balthasar:
The Christian needs to be “crucified to the world” (Gal 6:14) with the Lord, to undergo death and be buried with him (Col 3:3; 2:12), and then be sent back to the world as the leaven in the mass.
If he is to fulfill these demands and realize the mystery of his station, he needs also a veil of protection. United with Christ’s death and burial, the Christian now shares in his Resurrection, is even enthroned with him above the heavens (Eph 2:6; Col 2:12, 3:1);
In truth he lives in heaven and is a stranger here below. But so as to be able to bear this heavenly life without dying, without losing his earthly mission in the abyss of God’s mystery, his own life has, so to speak, to be withdrawn from him until his earthly mission is complete: “You have undergone death, and your life is hidden away now with Christ in God” (Col 3:3). *
Through baptism we receive a share in Christ’s death. Your real life, life to the fullest, awaits you in Heaven (John 10:10). The existence below is the “shadowlands”, which was the title of the last chapter in C.S. Lewis’ The Last Battle. Thinking this way also helps makes sense of Christ’s proclamations such as “Not a hair of your head will perish” (Luke 21:18), or “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you” (Luke 10:18-20). Terrible things happen to people every day, but your true life is preserved in Heaven. Your life in Heaven must be hidden for now, for a single full glance would kill you. Maybe you get to take a peek in your dreams, and your true self gives you glimpses of the future.
IV.
I am not providing a recommendation on whether to read or buy the book, and I do not have an opinion to share on his analysis of the election or the art of persuasion.
My main interest, as should be clear by now, is the mystical element. Are the spooky parts (e.g. the visions) true? I do not know. We have a baptized Christian that is not only not practicing their faith, but has apparently rejected it. Can the gifts of the Holy Spirit (of which prophecy is one) be operative in such an individual? We might think no, that faith and the gifts are a package deal. But this would negate the divine freedom of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit to bestow their favors where they like. For example, we have the figure of Balaam from the Book of Numbers, a non-Jew who God used to prophesy to the Israelites.
So how shall we categorize Scott Adams then: Cartoonist, businessman … and prophet? He stuck to his guns on his Trump prediction despite all evidence that it would not come true. He acknowledges that there were some others who made similar ones, but in my view they were very late to the game, or lesser known figures with nothing to lose. Maybe his dreams are God’s way of trying to shake his self-reliance and open him to other possibilities? A man with his talents could do a lot in service to the Lord.
I will continue to watch what Mr. Adams says (and pray for him), for as we often say, the Lord works in mysterious ways. Discernment is important. Balaam, despite his initial obedience to God, later preached wickedness and met a bad end.
*Two Sisters in the Spirit, Therese of Lisieux and Elizabeth of the Trinity, Hans Urs Von Balthasar (Ignatius Press, 1992)
Filed under Book Reviews
For a man
To understand God
Is to comprehend
The heart of every woman
That lived and died.
For a woman
To understand God
Is to comprehend
The heart of every child
That died young.
Filed under Poetry
The Muse, Gabriel De Cool
Here bloomed a rare poet
I groomed for no deceit.
I would play him like a cello
And sway him to singing
Of the rage of Achilles
While there calmly sitting
With unfair, wily Socrates
Ensnared under the olive trees
Already lost in some debate.
You tried to put him to the test,
This child my mind had blessed.
He waited patient on your con
And played along without protest.
The method led to trouble later on,
But you were gentle with my friend Ion.
Yes, I am the guilty one.
He was my pretty Grecian urn
Down which I’d pour fine wine.
And I would let poor Ion burn
Then turn his song to Helen,
To yearn for form fair and pure
As the towers of topless Ilium.
For a poet is a winged being
That flies in proper season.
The spirit spurs the singing,
In rhythm to my breathing,
And any hidden, lyric purpose,
You may not parse or reason.
And when you shake and start
Then reach for pen or lyre
Lay the blame on my desire.
There is no shame in art,
When I undress your heart
Then set your soul afire.
So be a son as wise Ion,
Always the guileless child
Enjoys full pardon
Heaven and this smile.
Now he sings of glory,
And not of kings or rage,
Amid the endless story,
Astride eternal stage.
Filed under Poetry
The Visitation, by Raphael. 1517.
Every womb is holy.
I have made it so.
I am born anew with every soul.
My Father’s temple stood in Jerusalem long ago.
His presence dwelled in the inner room,
Shielded by the temple veil.
The temple fell, but lives again in the womb
Of every woman, a Holy Grail.
So be modest, and guard this font of birth,
This chamber of my sons and daughters,
My Church here on Earth.
Filed under Poetry
Charles Peguy by Jean-Pierre Laurens
“I am a sinner, but there is no sin in my work.” – Charles Péguy
This guy. But since he was French, he might have been this “Guy.” But rather, his name is Charles Péguy.
Be careful with this guy, cause if you read him, you might actually start writing poetry. I know nothing about poetry, but after reading him, I was inspired to write some of my own. As I said, I know nothing about poetry, but some people who do think he might be the best Catholic poet of the last few hundred years. Those who like Gerard Manley Hopkins would probably disagree. Hopkins was a genius, and smart people who truly understand poetry can explain why he was. I am not a genius or a poet, so don’t ask me to explain Hopkins.
Péguy perhaps was a peasant genius. He wrote in free verse, with little to no rhyme or consistent meter. His poems were long, used simple vocabulary, and much repetition. If this were Seinfeld, he would be Charles Festivus, the “Poet for the Rest of Us”, the 99%. His work is accessible.
But he is largely unknown right now.
Why? He had too much integrity. He came from very modest beginnings, and when he grew older became a socialist and agnostic. He was a very much a defender of Dreyfus, a famous French Jew wrongly accused of treason. However, he fell out with most of his friends on the Left over time due to what he perceived as their pursuit of political advantage over the truth. “Everything begins in mysticism and ends in politics” is a famous quote of his.
He came to occupy a lonely place, neither trusted nor wanted by the Left or the Right. He was a patriot, and a French nationalist, and his basic politics was one of solidarity with the common man. Unfortunately for his reputation, and despite his defense of Dreyfus, the fascists of the 30s and 40s later tried to claim him as a patron for their twisted politics. And when you put God first, you eventually realize that there is no ideology or political party that can really express what you want. So you hang there, suspended between two thieves, one on the right and another on the left.
But he had integrity, and so when the Great War came, he enlisted, even though he was 41 years old, married and his wife pregnant with their fourth child. He was a little guy too. Because while he was a French nationalist and a patriot, he was not going to let some 18 and 19-year-old kids do the dying for him. And so he died for them, leading from the front, shot through the forehead in 1914.
But the politics are less interesting than the faith. When he married he did not believe, but by 1908 he had come back to the Catholic faith of his baptism. But his wife was an atheist, and refused to allow their children to be baptized. And because he was not married in the Church, his conscience did not allow him to receive the Sacraments, ever. And out of solidarity with his family, he did not go to Mass. But that did not stop him from making a forty mile pilgrimage on foot to the Cathedral of Chartres in thanks to Our Lady when his son recovered from an illness. Integrity.
A man in such a situation can get lonely. And you might find yourself falling in love with the young Jewish girl (and she with you) who works at your literary journal. But a man with integrity doesn’t have an affair. Instead, like Péguy , you play matchmaker and find her a husband.
All this pain and sadness generated great diamond tears of words, a series of poems and plays written during the five years before his death. Much of it is out of print, of course, because that’s the way things are right now. The real treasures of the past have to be unearthed. I am going to copy a few excerpts of his poems in some future posts (My understanding of U.S law is that there is no copyright for the works of foreign authors who died before 1923).
Oh yes, his family … His wife converted after he died, and had their children baptized. As it will always be, a man and father will die for the sake of his people.
Filed under Poetry, Spiritual Reflections
I took a walk yesterday with two of my female friends during our lunch break. It was a beautiful day, but a front was moving through the area. The wind was playing havoc with their hoodies, and whipping that glorious hair of theirs all around. They were laughing at the sight of themselves, and a woman’s happy laughter is a special kind of music that I think only a man can fully enjoy.
I had been teasing them about showing up for work on Wednesday, in spite of it being “A Day Without Women”, and asked if they should turn in their “Woman Cards.” One half-jokingly wished that she did have a woman card to pull out from time to time. We laughed some more and finished our walk.
The wind was blowing, but I had not been listening closely enough. If I had, what I hoped I would have said was: “You don’t need one. You are God’s calling card.”
Genesis describes God as sending woman to be man’s, and by extension the world’s, helper, and that she was the last thing that was made. She was God’s calling card to the world and endowed with that special genius for love.
Sin forces us to live on our surface, and its often hard to see the true image of what we are meant to be beneath another’s face. Through the mystery of Charity women have the ability, on some level conscious or unconscious, to see underneath, much of the time. It’s a love I see whether they are taking care of a sick child home from school, or a dying relative in a nursing home. Love overcomes any repulsion for sickness and death. I certainly don’t have that natural inclination. Or it shows in the often very tedious and unglamorous work that happens behind the scenes at your church or a local charity. Their heart sees the image in people they may never actually lay eyes on.
And its a love that let’s a woman see the true image of a man beneath the broken shards on the surface. I’m sure many a man has thought, bewilderingly, what does she see in me? Especially, when one may not even be physically attractive. How am I good enough for her? I thought that way much of my life, and missed many opportunities for love. What I missed was that woman was a living symbol that love is greater than any flaw or sin. (It can also cause a little frustration, when a woman naturally wants to help a man “change” and fulfill the great potential she sees inside. Some progress is possible, but the final transformation will only happen after death. Patience is a virtue!)
Paul said that “Woman is the glory of man,” in that sometimes controversial letter of his. I am not sure exactly what he meant, but I like Adam’s reaction to his first sight of Eve:
Adam is talking to himself … out loud. And he says more than one word, like a few sentences actually…
We don’t do that a lot. There are a lot of adjectives that probably exist only to describe the behavior of men: aloof, reticent, dour, taciturn, reserved, stoic, etc.
Adam was dazzled by this “glory” from God.
Women, thank you for being you.
Filed under Spiritual Reflections
Christ and Two Marys, William Holman Hunt
“Beauty will save the world!” the old man said.
But my son did not pray for the world.
Its stones, crowns and kingdoms held no light for him.
My only son, my beautiful son.
Who looked like Mary his mother, an echo of Eve,
She who was never marred by sin.
Like lightning striking a fig tree,
he could root you to the earth with a look.
He did not call down fire from Heaven,
for he was the fire, and those who drew near were scorched by his beauty.
And never was he more beautiful than on that one day, that singular day,
when he opened himself to the world, the world he did not pray for.
There was no beauty to be found for three days after,
for he was wandering the lands of the dead, looking for your new face.
Like Psyche, he returned with a prize, and he had saved the world
and your race, while finding Beauty.
And then he came back to me, the son who I had missed for so long.
But first he gave Beauty to the world,
and she came forth, veiled, from the Tomb in a new gown.
An unstained garment.
“You are beautiful,” he said, “But you will serve your sisters.”
And there he made the fateful introduction, for standing on either side of him
were Truth and Goodness.
They were not afraid of her, nor jealous, nor covetous.
Having Charity, they loved her, having Faith, they never doubted her,
and having Hope, they would never give up on her.
These three girl cousins, who walked the road with the newly acquainted sisters,
who have their own story, gave the new one their blessing.
This beautiful new sister.
She is the bold one, Beauty, though she is veiled.
She is the first one to greet you, the first one you see,
though you will never see her face till you enter her home,
where she lives with her sisters, my son and his mother.
There she will possess you and be possessed by you in a lasting embrace,
and no veil will divide her from you, or you from my son.
(My beautiful son, who saved the world).
But you cannot cling to her now, only after you ascend to me, your Father.
This is my will for you and her, my dutiful daughter, Beauty.
She is beautiful because she points away from herself,
to Truth and Goodness.
That is why she captures your eyes, and makes them hers.
Yet she frees them, and when she turns her head,
you must follow the path of her gaze, which leads to her sisters.
If you cling to her, Beauty fades and withers.
She is delicate as a breeze, a scent, or a whisper.
Her gown softly rustles as she approaches,
she likes to come upon you unawares, when you are defenseless.
Treat her well, this dutiful daughter of mine,
who helps my son to save the world.
Filed under Poetry
Where now the horse and the rider? Where is the horn that was blowing?
Where is the helm and the hauberk, and the bright hair flowing?
Where is the hand on the harpstring, and the red fire glowing?
Where is the spring and the harvest and the tall corn growing?
They have passed like rain on the mountain, like a wind in the meadow;
The days have gone down in the West behind the hills into shadow.
Who shall gather the smoke of the dead wood burning,
Or behold the flowing years from the Sea returning?The Two Towers, J.R.R. Tolkien
In the movie adaptation of The Two Towers, Theoden chants a portion of the above poem as the darkness closes in. He then asks aloud: “How did it come to this?” Archbishop Chaput, in this survey of contemporary America, proposes to answer this question, among some others, including, “What Comes Next?” While he is writing primarily for a Catholic audience, I think Christians of other faiths grappling with the current problems may find it very helpful.
The book’s title comes from Exodus 2:22, where Moses names his firstborn son, particularly the King James Version:
And she bare him a son, and he called his name Gershom: for he said, I have been a stranger in a strange land.
It is thought that this was a reference to Moses time in Egypt, a “strange land” for a Hebrew. Moses later leads the Hebrews out of Egypt after he accepts a mission from God. America is arguably the “strange land” now, where man has taken the place of God, and we build large monuments to ourselves.
Archbishop Chaput may be the closest thing to a “public intellectual” among the American Catholic Church’s leadership. After reading the book, I can tell he is extremely well read, and conversant with the ideas and arguments of artists, scholars and activists from all corners: Alexis De Tocqueville, Saul Alinsky, Charles Peguy, C.S. Lewis, etc. He is also very conversant with all the more recent big thinkers in Catholic theology, as would be expected (De Lubac, Balthasar, etc.).
I am often interested in writers’ last names, specifically their origin. Chaput is a French name, and apparently means the “wearer of a distinctive cloak or hat”, and is derived from the French word for “chapel.” Certainly an appropriate last name for a Catholic Bishop. He should probably be made a Cardinal, but he is a little too forthright for that to happen anytime soon.
Chaput’s purpose is try to and help Catholics and other Christians (its not just for Catholics) understand how we got to this point. He argues that the roots go far back beyond the upheavals of the last fifty years. Essentially, he agrees with De Tocqueville’s observation that democracy is only as good as the people who live there. Our ancestors, regardless of their party, accepted that they were sinners, were accountable to God for their actions, and accordingly went about governing this country with greater humility, caution and tolerance for those who disagreed with them.
That has changed. While the vast majority of people still believe in a higher power, more people than at any other time have substituted the worldly project of utopia for faith in God. When you don’t put God first, you make a God of other things. Thus political candidates, parties and public policies have substituted for Jesus, Church and the Sacraments. God is a means to the worldly end, and not the End. The great joke about building utopias is that the word means “nowhere”, as St. Thomas More invented it in his semi-satirical exercise in imagining a perfect world.
I am not going to do a chapter by chapter summary. The first chapter is a particularly strong overview of the current situation. The next several get into “How did it come to this?”
The later part of the book is focused on “what to do”, and “what comes next?”. Chaput may not agree with the ideas laid out in books like “Resident Aliens” (a chapter title), and is probably not a fan of what is known as the “Benedict Option”, referring to the monastic community of St. Benedict. In those ideas, Christians sort of withdraw from the world and public sphere and focus on living prayerful, purpose filled lives. Sort of like islands in the storm of barbarism.Rather, I think Archbishop Chaput would prefer us to remain engaged, part of the world, even if we don’t expect solutions from the political process. He gives examples and encourages us to stand fast.
So, what does come next? A lot of heavyweight Catholic philosophers and theologians have wrestled with a theology of history over the past century or so: Romano Guardini (The End of the Modern World), Josef Pieper (The End of Time), and Hans Urs Von Balthasar (A Theological Anthropology), for example. Pope Francis in particular seems to like Guardini, and is particularly fond of the novel Lord of the World, a fictional exercise in imagining the next phase.
Guardini, writing after WW2, argued that the great Modern project had failed, and that something new must take its place. Guardini hoped that a new man, fully converted, would be able to:
… see through the illusions which reign in the midst of scientific and technological development: the deception behind the ‘liberal’s’ idolatry of culture, behind the totalitarian’s utopia, the tragecist’s pessimism; behind modern mythicism and the hermaphrodite world of psychoanalysis. He would see and know for himself [that] Reality is simply not like that!”
I don’t think that’s happened. Rather, the world seems to have tired of postmodernism’s irony, and are interested in rebooting Modernism 2.0. Thus the great interest in Artificial Intelligence, Robotics, Genetic Engineering, Virtual Reality, Life Extension, etc. Modernism failed because Man was not Modern, but now he can be remade through a trans-human ideology and technology. This helps explain in part why the transgender issue is so hot right now. Its just part of Modernism 2.0. Elon Musk seems a particularly prominent spokesman for Modernism 2.0, watch him to see how the new narrative continues to develop.
So, what we are left with is just plain old witness, and the readiness to stake everything on God. But as Chaput notes at several points, its not enough to ignore the world, or hope for a separate peace. You will not be allowed to disengage and retire to a monastic community. You may not be interested in Modernism 2.0, but its interested in you. It wants your affirmation and approval, not acceptance. It will keep pushing on all fronts: public education, workplace rules, health care, public expression, the role of parents over their children’s upbringing, etc. Chaput encourages us to continue our witness in the public square, and all that we do, even if we do not put our faith in political processes.
I will cite someone even more blunt than the good Archbishop. Writing on the same issues in the last chapter of his The Moment of Christian Witness, Hans Urs von Balthasar scripted an imaginary conversation between a commissar and an anonymous Christian under interrogation. The title of this chapter was Cordula, the name of a young girl allegedly martyred by the Huns. The catch is Cordula initially tried to hide, but after everyone else was killed, came out and gave her final witness and received the crown of martyrdom. Balthasar writes that in the end, all we have to offer is our defenseless exposure to the world, like Christ.
Hopefully it will not come to that. And as Chaput writes, we must be hopeful, but not optimistic. Chaput likes the poet Peguy, and cites to his long poem on the second theological virtue. Hope is something we receive through God’s grace, optimism is a belief in Man and his sand castles. I would bet on grace, not man.
Filed under Book Reviews
Radioactive Man and his origins, from The Simpsons
This post is for someone who is trying to wrap their head around concepts like the Fall of Man, Original Sin, or “What’s Wrong with the World?, or in other words, the poorly catechized young person I used to be and am still striving to overcome. If you are bored by or struggling with traditional methods of explanation, this alternative approach may be helpful. As Catholic writer Fabrice Hadjadj said in his recent book, it may be ok to be whimsical so long as we are not frivolous. Times have changed, and new methods are required.
In writing about our origin story, the Englishman G.K. Chesterton famously described humanity as “the survivors of a wreck, the crew of a golden ship that had gone down before the beginning of the world.” Like Robinson Crusoe, humanity looks around on the shore for the flotsam and jetsam of truth, beauty and goodness.
For purposes of this post, I am going to expand on Chesterton’s line of thought and ask you to visualize the shipwreck as being caused by a bomb, a spiritual atomic bomb of disobedience to God that is called “original sin.” The explosion and shockwave of our disobedience has made creation groan, and the harmful radiation of sin has mutated us. We are all eX-men (different than what God made) in a sense, and endowed with strange, new superpowers.
“And then their eyes were opened …” Genesis 3:7.
The mutation has estranged us from the natural world. Animals shy away from us, we are plagued by disease and natural disasters. Why? It was too dangerous to leave the natural world subject to our full control since we went over to the dark side. All our material security or progress would come through toil, by the “sweat of our brow.” If we had been left with the power of naming, or full dominion, like Adam, we would have destroyed the natural world long ago.
In some mysterious way, the effects do extend down to the physical level, and is thus passed from parents to their children. Ours is an embodied faith.
But hey, you might ask, continuing with the superhero theme, what about the compensations, all the cool gear and powers? And you would be right to ask about this, as our new state comes with a utility belt of sort. For starters you do get a mask and costume of pride, which prevents you and others from knowing your true self. Are you truly transparent at all times to God and others? No, we all know that much is hidden inside and rarely shared.
Some tools are neutral: We do have our intellect, and the freedom to use it as we wish.
And then there are the powers, quite a few actually. The most dangerous superpower may be the ability to lie. Through lying you can create a dream world for yourself and others, where right is wrong and bad is good. Or where there is no Truth at all. I am not responsible for my actions.
Some forms of lying are merely the result of poor reasoning, which we call fallacies, or take the form of mental disorders.
To take one example, psychological projection: Why is the Church so obsessed with sexual ethics? The world wonders in frustration. Many ask this.
Why is the Church so obsessed with sex? asks the priest molesting the altar boy
Why is the Church so obsessed with sex? asks the teacher sexting her student
Why is the Church so obsessed with sex? asks the adulterer who gives an STD to his spouse and abandons his children
Why is the Church so obsessed with sex? asks the physician who performed a few thousand abortions last year
Or the pimp who trafficked a minor, or the man viewing child pornography while his family sleeps, etc., etc.
But is it the Church that’s obsessed with sex, or us mutants? Well, perhaps the Church is obsessed to the same extent that a doctor is obsessed with preventing and curing disease, or a parent is obsessed with making sure their child is properly fed and clothed.
But is that obsession? Or is it Charity? Our power to lie creates a dream world where Charity has been slandered as Obsession. We should acknowledge that Our God is a jealous God, so it may be right to say that He is obsessively Charitable.
So these radioactive superpowers, as enticing as they are, come with a price: death. When talking about elements, the term “half-life” is a term used to describe the amount of time it will take for half the atoms in a given element to decay. It is important to know the half-life of substances that emit harmful, ionizing radiation, like plutonium.
I find the term useful in thinking about sin and our life span. For example, what is the half-life for the original sin you carry? Half your life. Even though you have been redeemed, and can be forgiven your sins, you will not be completely free of the effects of sin until your life ends. Your body is going to die because of that heavy plutonium apple our ancestors bit into a long time ago.
But for your soul, its a bit more complicated. Because of original sin you do not have “life to the fullest.” Rather you have a half-life from being stuck in the dream world of sin.
You can choose to march in place your whole life, and die just as poisoned as when you were young. Or you can sample a variety of uranium, polonium or other poisonous fruits and become even more radioactively sinful on the inside as you age.
Or you can accelerate the process of decay of sin. How? Its a simple formula, He must increase, I Must Decrease. The more you walk in the Lord’s path, the lighter the burden of original sin becomes. Prayer, fasting, receiving the Sacraments and various forms of self-denial all help. The more you cooperate, the more is given to you.
And to cooperate, you need to take off that mask and costume of pride and lower your defenses. For a Catholic, this unburdening means regular confession.
It doesn’t work with the mask on
From long personal experience, I can tell you that you can pray and go to Mass all you want, but you won’t begin the process of healing until you avail yourself of this sacrament. In going to Confession, you get to step out of your Darth Vader outfit for a while, and breathe the pure air of truth from a personal encounter with the Lord. It works, and long ingrained habits of sin can begin to be broken.
To close the post on a fitting note, I will return to Chesterton. There is a story (it has never been definitely confirmed) that an English newspaper of his day had asked a group of authors for essays about “What’s Wrong with the World?” Chesterton allegedly sent back a famous two-word response:
“I am.”
This may seem harsh, but things are much easier when we can acknowledge we are part of the problem. One is less inclined to judge (people that is, not actions) and more likely to forgive. You won’t give your heart to some ideology or party, which is merely the sum aspirations of a group of people no better than yourself. You won’t pin your hopes on some worldly utopia, for how could a mass of men under sin ever build such a thing? Or even stake your soul on democracy and majority rule. Jesus may have been the Elect One, but he did not fare so well in elections. The only time he appeared on the ballot, he lost in a landslide to another, one with a pretty poor resume.
So in the end, you die, and in death God performs life saving surgery on you. The mask of pride falls away, and the real adventure begin. Because, as Georges Bernanos wrote, sin has forced you to live on your surface all your life. And as you dive into the limpid, pure water of your soul you discover the hidden depths you never knew existed:
We observe how much that is foreign falls away from us and how what belongs to us is set free. What we are being led into is again, not something foreign, but in the highest sense natural, although one cannot say we had expected it to be this way rather than some other way. When it arrives, it is simply the right thing, that which is far and away the best.
Whoever arrives in heaven has to introduce himself. This introduction, however, is not one-sided; those who introduce themselves are at the same times the ones introduced. God has been waiting for us, just as we waited for him. And now that we are those who have been received, there is no longer any talk of sin and unworthiness. Confession lies behind us. Now there is only the augmentation of grace…
The Book of All Saints
Filed under Spiritual Reflections
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