Apr 29 2007
Yes and No
“All the beauty of nature, the kind influences of the seasons, the gifts of sun and moon, and the fruits of the earth, the advantages of civilized life, and the presence of friends and intimates; all these good things are but one extended and wonderful type of God’s benefits in the Gospel. Those who aim at perfection will not reject the gift, but add a corrective; they will add the bitter herbs to the fatted calf and the music and dancing; they will not refuse the flowers of earth, but they will toil in plucking up the weeds. Or if they refrain from one temporal blessing, it will be to reserve another; for this is one great mercy of God, that while He allows us a discretionary use of His temporal gifts, He allows a discretionary abstinence also; and He almost enjoins upon us the use of some, lest we should forget that this earth is His creation, and not of the evil one.” (John Henry Newman: The Heart of Newman)
“…the things of the earth are for the sake of fostering union – our union with God and with each other. Hence, our relationship to the material world must be both aesthetical and ascetical. The aesthetical aspect ensures that we delight in the goodness and beauty of all created things. The ascetical aspect ensures our freedom to say “no” to certain material objects because of a “yes” we want to say to deeper desires. By preserving this freedom to say “yes” or “no” to created goods, we strengthen our ability to use creatures only in ways that deepen our relationship of love with God and others.” (Wilkie Au, S.J.: By Way of the Heart. Toward a Holistic Christian Spirituality)
fmn, I’m not sure I know exactly what you mean when you say “it is not something for the here and now world.” Do you mean this isn’t the way the majority of people act in the world, or do you mean you think it is a way of being in the world which is not possible for us to attain?
Selfishness has always reigned supreme in the world but it seems to me, never as much as now. And the paradox is that we risk annihilation because most of the current conflicts and wars in our world are based on religious beliefs (or are masked as this).
For this reason, the value of discretionary abstinence is more important than ever, “lest we should forget that this earth is His creation, and not of the evil one”. Maybe nowadays it takes double the effort to use the gift of discretionary abstinence, but it is probably ever more worthwhile, not only for the salvation or preservation of our souls, but for the good of all humanity.
Re selfishness though, I was just reflecting last night on the incredible amount of it I see all around me. Not in my family, but in general. People don’t seem to realize how negatively it affects their own selves, ultimately more than others.
I’m about to think aloud. Now’s the time to click out of this.
I didn’t realize it was my selfishness that wanted to go back to Ireland. One has to understand that Ireland is only second to God in mysteries that call to such as me. And I saw right where my people are from, I stood right where they’d have sailed from, and it was a rainy-windy day there, where incongruous palm trees flourish! A little stray dog that looked just like my own back home, came and stood in the rain with me on that point as I looked out to sea.
I want so much to go back and explore all of Erin, to taste it, to breathe it — and indeed, it can be tasted and breathed and found noticeably different. There isn’t anything I don’t love about that land except the fact that they didn’t hold to their stance on divorce and abortion. The Celtic Tiger has gone past economic health, when it shuts a church to open a pub. It’s as unnerving as the churches that closed in Moscow, to reopen as pink discoteques (I can NEVER spell that correctly, sorry).
But I’ve seen Ireland, haven’t I, whereas others who long with all their souls to be there for even a few days, have not seen her, nor ever will, most likely. It just seems ragged of me to ever even think of going again, until some others have gone, too. In a way, it has broken my heart to have seen her when another has not. Princess Carol.
And that filtered down into my thinking system until I realized that I should not feed my appetite even the fill of healthy things it wants, unless those others who desire food, get food to fill them. The best I could translate my thinking into some real penance was to become a vegetarian. That way, even if hungering others don’t get my portion of meat, the animals themselves may hold onto their flesh a second longer. We were given dominion over the animals; we were not supposed to inject them with chemicals, tie them to stakes that they not develop muscle, nor put them 4 to a cage the size of a file cabinet drawer, nor force-breed them, take their calves, and then when they are completely exhausted, slaughter these dumb prisoners, nor were we supposed to (insert a few hundred etceteras here)..
On the home shopping channel, we’ve gone well past jewelry for every hiccup of function.. I have seen $400 ostrich leather bags (snakeskin, alligator, etc.) If we could picture Mary with that..or iPod wires draped across her neck, or Jesus with a *gulp* big white Lincoln.. we’d fall over in a dead faint of how ludicrous we are.
Payless Shoes was offering 3 pairs of sandals one summer for $10. That IS a deal. But.. who made them? What were they paid? Was it a 12-hr. day of slave labor? Perhaps of child labor? And if one is on an American kick about all that, does this shoe bonanza take away from American companies? Did outsourcing close any of our shops? Indeed, many global woes spring directly from the Golden rule, if not concurrently from the shatterings of the commandments.
There is so much to think about, once we open that box.
“Those who aim at perfection will not reject the gift, but add a corrective; they will add the bitter herbs to the fatted calf and the music and dancing; they will not refuse the flowers of earth, but they will toil in plucking up the weeds.”
I am lacking in such toil. It’s like having pneumonia.
I do not believe that you are “lacking in such toil”; you are heartbroken by others’ destitution; you give up meat in solidarity with those who are hungry; you offer your time and energy in soupkitchens, and on and on. You are not lacking. But as you say, once we open this box, it is very difficult to put the lid back on, once our eyes and hearts have seen inside it.
I received an iPod as a gift from the family about a year ago, and have just actually begun using it, so I am now one of those with the wires draped across my neck. Did I need it? Absolutely not. Should that money have been spent on something more important? Yes. How many breakfasts would it have bought for children? How many taxi rides would it have purchased for someone going back and forth for chemo treatments? How many blankets for those who have none? I tell you, I cannot look at that iPod without seeing all these possibilities, and more and more these types of choices enter into my daily thinking and routine. But I have so far downloaded the Divine Mercy Chaplet, some inspiring homilies, music, etc., and perhaps, just perhaps, in some way, through someone’s podcast, it will end up being a tiny instrument that stirs me to greater action for others. I hope so.
This is how I can justify a vehicle I don’t deserve — it will, I hope, pick up additional group home folks one day and bring them to Mass.. or to somewhere else they’ve needed to go. For now, it brings me and numerous others to work and on needed errands without having Cosmo Kramer on meth to drive us in his broken taxicab. Oh, God bless cabdrivers everywhere.. but perhaps most especially here. I’m still trying to bring my eyebrows down to normal position. At this rate, I can never play poker again.
And I know you’ll understand this.. to have come from such a pit of wounded nothing, to being nominated for Pastoral council by a priest (of all people!) and being told about it at the altar after Mass on Easter Sunday–well! I came home to a magnificent dinner table that lacked nothing — nothing! With a family I was nuts about, and all of us trying so hard to be holy, and there was extended family, and I sat down to it, stunned. I mean, why me? Why this wretch? Why not the quiet/sweet/holy.. and indeed, why not some who are so hungry, they have no CHOICE but to ingest hoodia? O, You are too Good for me, Sir. And if I thought I could’ve gotten away with it, I’d have truly thrown ashes (like Francis) onto that magnificent plate I was about to tuck into, even on — perhaps especially — on this, His RisingForUs Day.
We are overwhelmed, sometimes.. not only by badness, but far more astoundingly by Goodness. Sheer Goodness.