Quotations: November 2007 Archives

Whether or not Wasichu actually means "eaters of fat" or "the ones who take the fat," the myth of the meaning provides entry into today's brief exploration of Fr. Beck's book. The "eaters of fat" were those who were so all consuming that they ate at the expense of everyone else--immoderately and seemingly all-consuming, taking even the last, most precious of ther reserves.

from Soul Provider
Father Edward L. Beck

Gluttony, one of the seven deadly sins, can kill us not only physically, but spiritually as well. Saint John Climacus says: "Gluttony is hypocrisy of the stomach. Filled, it moans about scarcity; stuffed and crammed, it wails about hunger. Glutton thinks up seasonings, creates sweet recipes. Stop one urge and another bursts out; stop that one and you unleash yet another. Gluttony has a deceptive appearance: it eats moderately but wants to gobble everything at the same time."

The sin here is not only in the doing, it is is the inordinate desire even when the impulse is controlled.

I have a friend who has lost a large amount of weight; she has adhered especially closely to one particularly program of eating. She is justifiably pleased with how well she has done and she claims that food no longer possesses her. But in actual fact, it merely possesses her in a different way. Everything is oriented toward eating in this way--all thought is about the next meal or this meal and whether it conforms in every particular to the ideal. This isn't gluttony--but it is similar to how gluttony works. And gluttony, hasn't only to do with food. It has to do with any inordinate appetite for goods of any sort. Gluttony is when we rise from the breakfast table asking "What's for lunch."

A later quote from C.S. Lewis in Father Beck's book makes the point more clearly:

"Anyone who has watched gluttons shoveling down the most exquisite foods as if they did not know what they were eating will admit that we can ignore even pleasure."

Another powerful and beautiful reflection from Fr. Beck's book:

from Soul Provider
Fr. Edward L. Beck

Is it true that death gives meaning to life or, at least, informs life? Saint John Climacus writes, "Just as bread is the most necessary of all foods, so the thought of death is the most essential of all works. . . The man who lives daily with the thought of death is to be admired, and the man who gives himself to it b the hour is surely a saint." The knowledge of our mortality is therefore an incitement to live more fully. When we realize that we have a limited time to revel in the gift of human life, we are infused with an urgency that an endless life might not offer. There is only so much time to climb that beautiful mountain, or swim in that pristine ocean, or appreciate the sound to that bird calling to its mate. More significantly, our time with those whom we love is limited. Why waste the time with the nonessentials: family feuds that last for years, long-held grudges, opportunities at loving never taken?

The absolute certainty of death is something most of us look at (if at all) with a sidelong glance--perhaps detecting it most of the time in our peripheral vision. It would be better for all that if be faced squarely and clearly.

We know this--we don't face it. However, it is expressed beautifully in this song:

"Live Like You Were Dying"
Tim McGraw

He said I was in my early forties, with a lot of life before me
And one moment came that stopped me on a dime
I spent most of the next days, looking at the x-rays
Talking bout' the options and talking bout' sweet times.
I asked him when it sank in, that this might really be the real end
How's it hit 'cha when you get that kind of news?
Man what did ya do?
He said

I went skydiving
I went rocky mountain climbing
I went two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu
And I loved deeper
And I spoke sweeter
And I gave forgiveness I'd been denyin'
And he said some day I hope you get the chance
To live like you were dyin'

He said I was finally the husband, that most the time I wasn't
And I became a friend, a friend would like to have
And all of a sudden goin' fishin, wasn't such an imposition
And I went three times that year I lost my dad
Well I finally read the good book, and I took a good long hard look
At what I'd do if I could do it all again
And then

I went skydiving
I went rocky mountain climbing
I went two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Man Shu
And I loved deeper
And I spoke sweeter
And I gave forgiveness I'd been denyin'
And he said some day I hope you get the chance
To live like you were dyin'

Like tomorrow was the end
And ya got eternity to think about what to do with it
What should you do with it
What can I do with it
What would I do with it

Skydiving
I went rocky mountain climbing
I went two point seven seconds on a bull named Fu Man Chu
And man I loved deeper
And I spoke sweeter
And I watched an eagle as it was flyin'
And he said some day I hope you get the chance
To live like you were dyin'

To live like you were dyin'

Another way of asking the same thing is, "Why wait for judgment to try to do what you know you ought? Then is too late." Our time is now. It can be intolerably brief, or it can seem like an eternity of waiting. Either way, if we live it knowing that it will end, perhaps it will serve to make us a little more patient, a little more tender, a little more willing to risk vulnerability, a little more inclined to take risks to help others. Think of how those we love could blossom, those with whom we work could grow into new possibility. What if I took my position as a manager seriously and used that position to truly serve others? Because our leaders, ideally, are in fact our servants. They blaze the trails for us and point the direction. They don't do all of the work, but they help clear the way for work to be done. Or, perhaps they would, if they lived in the shadow and foreknowledge of Eternity--knowing that this ends and afterwards comes Judgment. And perfect love casteth out fear--particularly fear of judgment because we do what we do not for hope of Heaven or fear of Hell, but solely for the love of God.

Here, Virgil explains to Dante how to remedy the evil of envy:

from Purgatorio Canto XV
Dante (tr. John Ciardi)

"It is because you focus on the prize
of worldly goods, which every sharing lessens
that Envy pumps the bellows for your sighs.

But if, in true love for the Highest Sphere,
your longing were turned upward, then your hearts
would never be consumed by such a fear;

for the more there are there who say 'ours'--not 'mine'--
by that much is each richer and brighter
within that cloister burns the Love Divine."

In Heaven, as we will discover in continuing our reading, there is no zero-sum game--no, you do better so I do worse. St. Therese expressed it in a metaphor of flowers--some are lilies, some are roses, and some are the little buttercups that grace the feet of the most high, but all are loved equally and all are pleased to be what the Lord has ordained that they be. Our place in Heaven, whatever it is ordained to be, like our crosses, are uniquely made for us--no other person will fit into them. Nor will we be able to fit into that place designed for another. This is the economy of salvation and blessedness. We may not stand with Dominic or Francis, or John of the Cross. We may be rubbing elbows with people who we would disdain here on Earth. But there, we are exactly what God fashioned, corrected of all fault and flaw through the suffering of purgatory and placed exactly where we will do the most good for all.

Envy has no place on heaven; hence, it should have no place on Earth. Our object, in so much as aided by the Holy Spirit we can, is to make this world a true reflection of the kingdom of Heaven.

from "The Figure a Poem Makes"
Robert Frost

It should be of the pleasure of a poem itself to tell how it can. The figure a poem makes. It begins in delight and ends in wisdom. The figure is the same as for love. No one can really hold that the ecstasy should be static and stand still in one place. It begins in delight, it inclines to the impulse, it assumes direction with the first line laid down, it runs a course of lucky events, and ends in a clarification of life-not necessarily a great clarification, such as sects and cults are founded on, but in a momentary stay against confusion.

The entire essay or, at least, a longer excerpt, here. For those interested--here's a link to an Arabic translation. Isn't it lovely even to look at?

from The Good Fight
Ralph Nader

Franklin Delano Roosevelt emphasized this in a message to Congress: "The liberty of a democracy is not safe if the people tolerate the growth of private power to a point where it becomes stronger than the democratic state itself. That in its essence is fascism:ownership of the government by an individual, by a group, or any controlling private power." We would do well to heed this age-old wisdom as we ponder why our corporate and political leaders assume more and more control over our lives and futures.

[and later just one memorable, highly evocative sentence]:

Society, like a fish, rots from the head down.

[And a last notion from a bit later]

This vulnerability results from the absence of an absorbed information base to provide a shield against artful propaganda and deception.

In one context or another, we are all powerless. The society is simply too complex. Contemplating participation in power in most contexts--environmental, political, social, economic, technological--invites anxiety. Yet, to throw up one's hands in defeat guarantees anguish and deprivation. Individual obligation absorb daily time and attention, of course, but ignoring our civic obligation, our public citizen duties, profoundly affects our daily lives as well.

In a sense, I am obliged to participate in these debates to the extent that I can. I can't participate in all equally, nor will much that I have to say be particularly astute or profound. However, it is part of my duty as a citizen to be concerned about things beyond my front doorstep. For example, I am deeply concerned that most of the civic associations in local communities are more concerned about lawns with brown patches than they are about diminishing water tables and corporations that want to siphon off water to create "bottled water" products. The crises in Georgia and in Tennessee (it is hoped that they are transitory) point to the importance of wise, careful, and considered use of water. Creating a perfect magnificent monoculture--one long golf-course of lush green is not among these careful uses.

But that is only one example that springs to mind as a result of personal experience with these type of deed-restricted communities. Perhaps, as a result, I should be working with my local government to put restrictions on what kinds of things deed restricted communities can regulate. In some communities nearby, for example, it is prohibited to xeriscape your property. It is outrageous that we put in place restrictions on the plants that grow naturally in environment, favoring instead highly fragile, laboratory developed strains of ground cover (St. Augustine turf is NOT grass but a low growing exceedingly thick and unfriendly green vine). A small, small issue, but one that is something I CAN act on.

And so, look around you. Is there something you can do in/for your community that you've not yet started to work on?

One final note from Mr. Nader:

And civic motivation can start with our personal experience, from which we derive the public philosophies that nourish and animate our consciences. It can start with family upbringing, or a jolting event.

I don't know about nourishing and animating the fullness of our conscience, but they certain inform and help us articulate those things that occupy the civic portion of our consciences. They don't require that we change who we are, but they do require that we act upon it.

One of the worst things we face is a sense of boredom or the uselessness of doing anything at all. Father Beck addresses this:

from Soul Provider
Father Edward L. Beck

Someone's boring me. I think it's me.
--Dylan Thomas. . . .

In his famous 1978 Harvard commencement address, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn warned of the West's "spiritual exhaustion": "In the United States the difficulties are not a Minotaur or a dragon--not imprisonment, hard labor, death, government harassment and censorship--but cupidity, boredom, sloppiness, indifference. Not the acts of a might all-prevading repressive government but the failure of a listless public to make use of the freedom that is its birthright." If we are indeed a listless public, what has made us so, and what can we do to infuse our lives with new vigor?

We can do a few things. The authors I have just quoted suggest that boredom is an evil to be conquers it if leads to despondency, hopelessness, and ingratitude. Sloth is clearly the result of a refusal to celebrate the gift and potential of life. But there is another way to look at it. We can embrace boredom, hoping to transform it into something not boring at all. We have been convinced that we always need to be doing something to be happy, usually something other than what we are doing. So if we are driving, we can't simply be driving. We must also be listening to the radio or talking on the cell phone or doing both. Perhaps we are even listening to our 10,000-song iPod, the contents of which could last us our lifetime. What about simply listening to nothing instead?

The "art of doing nothing" has long been extolled by religious traditions. Nothing becomes something when nothing produces results that something cannot.The power of meditation is rooted in the power of nothingness. . . The reason for stillness in the midst of chaos is so that the chaos does not consume us. Stillness gives us distance from what we cannot see when trapped in the never-ending swirl of diversion. . . .

My only response is "guilty." We credit ourselves with "multitasking" when, what is actually happening is that we are not accomplishing any one thing with anything approaching the attention it requires. While I belong to an order that looks to cultivating silence, it seems that we've all bought into the idea of silence while doing something.

Silence, stillness, the embrace of the moment in which there is nothing in particular required of us is an art. We have difficulty, convinced by some inner prompting that such moments are "wasting time." But perhaps it is our railing against them that is the waste of time. Were we to realize that we are bored precisely because nothing is required of us at this time and rather than seek solace in a book, television, or endless iPod, we should seek solace in the silence, perhaps then we might make of boredom the gift that God intends for us.

Limitless diversion leads to limitless ennui, but a few moments of stillness, of letting the swirl and twirl of existence settle down--these have limitless potential--I need to become better at exploiting it.

I don't do this often, and probably should not do it even as often as I do; however, this notion has been on my mind a great deal in recent months. This is a meditation composed for another web site.

My thanks to Joachim who maintains the site and who gets a really good proof-reader/copyeditor to help improve each meditation.

Whoever does not carry his cross and come after me . . .
(Luke 14:27)

This passage may contain some of the most difficult words that Jesus shared with us. Hating father and mother, carrying crosses, renouncing possessions--what does it all mean, what sense can we make of it? There is such richness here it's impossible to encompass it all, but what I hear almost every time I go back is "whoever does not carry his cross and come after me cannot be my disciple." And I am always encouraged to remember that crosses are not "one size fits all."

Sometimes we look at others in our religious and secular lives and wonder, "Why is it so easy for them? What cross are they carrying?" It does us well to remember that what is a cross for one may not be a cross for another. Crosses are not one-size-fits-all. They are individually tailored to the person we are, and they are excruciating (literally) precisely because they are designed to straighten out what we have made crooked--they are designed to rectify what we have corrupted through our poor choices. Sometimes they are to help others bear their own burdens because we all participate in the economy of salvation--what another cannot carry, we help to bear so that we all advance together.

We must always bear in mind that, like Simon of Cyrene, we do bear the cross, but we bear it for the One who takes away all sin, the One who makes the crooked straight and the lame walk. Jesus doesn't say we need to be nailed to it in the way He was. Rather, He tells us that our job, like that of Simon, is to bear part of the burden for all of humanity. We carry our crosses, but ultimately it was and is Jesus who is nailed to it. We bring the burden of sin--He takes it all away.