The Enormity of Normality

Times are strange, to say the least. Most people will admit that. Yet, it seems that when a man recognizes this and subsequently rejects a particular, oppressive authority in this modern world he is quickly lumped into a category of being opposed to all authority generally. Disobedience at any level will likely land you be labeled as an anarchist or rebel. To draw a line anywhere is somehow perceived as abolishing all lines everywhere. Never mind the clear and obvious fact that the accusation was prompted by your saying, “Here! This is a line that I believe in!”

The reason for the name-calling is that it shifts the attention—it is an immediate defense mechanism that the accused use in order to make their accusers look lunatic. The “anarachist” or the “rebel” will point out the oppressive behavior and say, “He is to blame.” Then, before any investigation into the legitimacy of the claim can begin, the blamed hurls the diverting label.

Now, ‘anarchy’ is a much abused word. The typical view is that anarchists despise any semblance of order. Some do; but some is not all. Anarchy can simply be a refusal to be governed by particular authorities or by particular manners. To be opposed to a certain order is not the same as opposing order, altogether. Simply because a man rejects certain theoretical physics does not mean he is opposed to physics. As a matter of fact, the contrarian might be opposed because he so staunchly believes in the laws of physics. Likewise, just because we are opposed to the morals of the modern world—its economy and its politics—does not mean that we are opposed to morality. As a matter of fact, we are contrarians because we staunchly believe in morality.

The labels of ‘anarchist’ and ‘rebel’ might be appropriately distracting if what we are suggesting were some brand new world order or some cockamamie scheme. Yet some ‘anarchists’ and ‘rebels’ believe in order, just not this current one that is vastly centralized and largely irresponsive. The faith of these sort of folks is “free, efficient, creative, enjoyable, and enduring.” Consequently, the nemesis of these same folks is “bigness,” which is “impersonal, insensitive, and lusts to concentrate power.” Now, how that means we are gone-bonkers, lunatics, and off-our-rockers, I don’t know. I just think that this means we believe in common decency and the dignity of the human person. As such, we are not espousing any new morality, simply a recognition of the basic morals of life, liberty, and property, not to mention the pursuit of happiness. Despite the perception, we actually have very high standards and very much believe in legitimate authorities.

The problem with modernity is that it has mutilated the ordinary life into something despicable. Normal people are gutted of their spirit and souls as they are further conformed to a mechanical life. We cannot imagine lives where less is more, small is beautiful, and humility is power. The past holds only examples of extraordinary people who resemble the Amish more than ourselves. Yet, I am firmly convinced that despite what the commercial world tries to tell us, that in the heart of every man is a small family farmer. It is the primitive Adam & Eve in each of us. Is this romanticizing the past or violating some rule against nostalgia? Maybe. But at least it lends some meaning to our lives and our labors that our 40-hour week, corporate world do not. Can we really be called dreamers because we believe in something real? Can we really be called silly idealists because we believe in the power of property, work, and material? We’re the spiritualists and the realists, both at the same time. Our position, oddly enough, is quite incarnational.

Modernity is fundamentally opposed to normality. Morality, being the common song of every soul, not only tends toward the normal, but resides therein. ‘Vulgar’ may have a foul connotation, but I’ll take it over modernity, any day. In its purist sense it simply means the common-folk, or the common-place, which may, indeed, have people rough-around-the-edges, but, at least, they have edges. At least they are willing to recognize they are not all-encompassing, that they begin, and they end. As a matter of fact, they end where you begin, and they see that. Vulgarity may not respect silly rules of etiquette from the cultured elite, but it does respect people. Modernity can’t say that—it respects an idea, an abstraction, a vision of progress. The problem with classic liberalism, a professor recently said, is that “it will line a human being up on a wall and shoot him for the sake of the abstraction.”

When will men be men? This is a question Gilbert Keith asks. They will be men when they realize that they are, in fact. When they realize that they are not cogs in a machine, not interchangeable parts. When they realize they are not radicals or anarchists or rebels, at least not in the way that others are supposing and implying. Men will be men when they stop settling for less so that others might have more—we will be men when we assert our right to normal, dignified, and simple lives. We are not relying on dreams or ideals, but real things and moral standards. As G.K. reminds us, when the modern-day Rockefeller says, “You are a rebel!,” you must respond, “No, I am a respectable man, and you are not. You, sir, are a robber.” We are not rebelling, but reclaiming; not proposing new, but relying on old; not opposed to authority, but opposed to usurpation; not asking for the extraordinary, but desiring to be ordinary. Normal lives—lives centered on God, property, family, and hard, life-sustaining work—is what will make men men.

Optimism with Flannery

There will always be a special place in my heart for Flannery O’Connor. Having never met her in person, she has, nonetheless, irreversibly touched my life through her writings and stories. A master of wit, fiction, and character construction, Flannery helped introduce me to my Faith in stories where her theology permeates the engrossed reader. Not only did she bring me closer to God, but through her art (which she unreservedly calls “grotesque”) she managed to make me an optimist.

Optimism, it would seem, is an unfashionable attitude these days. Most people you’re likely to meet will unabashedly pronounce their pessimism or their agnosticism (which is nothing more than pessimism in denial). Too, people (like one of my good friends) qualify the eras into which their positivity extends--like Tolkien, they are "historic pessimists, but eschatological optimists." I, however, am not willing to say my optimism begins anywhere but now and forever. Call me a fool, but I believe in my heart that we can do better, and that, indeed, we shall—even on this side of eternity.

This ability to hope and believe was taught to me by Flannery who showed her readers how to see. Optimism, not surprisingly, depends on optics, on sight. Optimists are capable of believing that good will prevail in the world, in time, in the lives of men because they are able to see the best even amidst the worst. Using our optics to see the good is what gives us the word, optimal. The root of optic (sight) and optimus (the best) is derivative of two Latin roots: ob- (in front of) and ops- (power). And that is what truly well-trained eyes are able to do—to not only see what is in front of them, but to have the power to pierce this encounter and see beyond, as well—all the way to the good, to the best.

The God and Faith that Flannery was willing to share with me and bring me to is one that allows me to encounter mystery daily. She is always willing to note her critics who claim that her Faith limits her art. Flannery, however, resists this view: “I have found nothing further from the truth. Actually, [Christian dogma] frees the storyteller to observe. It is not a set of rules which fixes what he sees in the world. It affects his writing primarily by guaranteeing his respect for mystery.” And it is not only true for writers, but all artists, and, in fact, all humans.

We are only able to see best when our world is so broad and deep that we couldn’t possibly see everything—when mystery is always glaring us in the face. This mystery must be the pivotal encounter, the focus which draws us and attracts us—whether it be the profound truth of the foolish situation or the alluring beauty of the simple sight—we must long for this immensity in each tiny object. It was the Ancient Hebrews, Flannery correctly notes, who were “genius for making the absolute concrete.” These folks revealed that even in the immanent we can touch the transcendent. The more grounded and probingly microscopic our vision becomes the more awesome visions we behold—suddenly we see the person and world in front of us, in their entirety, in their dignity.

If the world is to be a better place, an optimal place, then we must all stop thinking carrots are the answer to poor eyesight. Actually, it is humility that helps us to see. We must first discover our own eyes by discovering the mystery inlying our very selves. "To know oneself,” Flannery suggests, “is, above all, to know what one lacks. It is to measure oneself against the Truth, and not the other way around.” When we discover Truth and its effect on us, we see for the first time the Fallen world and our place in it, and are compelled to be fulfilled by engaging the depths for heights, humility for ecstasy, and suffering for satisfaction. We go out to meet the world with our capacity for incapacity and become prophets in our everyday activities where our “prophecy is a matter of seeing near things with their extensions of meaning and thus of seeing far things close up.”

“The roots of the eye are in the heart,” Msgr. Guardini reminds us. And our hearts’ beatings are the pulse of our visions and the rhythm of our dreaming. If we fail to see and achieve a future worthy of our faith and befitting He who died for us, then it was because we refused to let Him cure our blindness (which is because we hardened our hearts). Pessimism (whether it be historical and/or eschatological) is a heart disease brought about by blockage which can be near or far.

Too many dismiss idealism as a simpleton’s wayward notion proven by history to be untenable. Plato believed we had to leave this fallen world to escape (clearly a historical pessimist) to the heavenly bliss (clearly an eschatological optimist). Yet, it was a silly Jewish carpenter who proved historically that idealism was possible by rejecting the Platonic divorce for an Incarnational wedding. It was He who demonstrated that henceforth there is no room for pessimism; but first we must see, and we must see why (which in His sight are quite literally the same thing).

Pessimism says that because we’ve tried so long with no avail, that we never shall. Yet, it is another good literary friend, Gilbert Keith (Chesterton) who said, “the Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.” You see, the other way the aforementioned Jewish fellow changed our view on idealism is because He also changed the misconception about 'the' ideal. He said that optimal future is not one free of suffering, but only free of illegitimate suffering; it is not free of hardship, but full of support. He did not promise solid gold toilet seats to everyone, nor seal-skin bed sheets. But He did suggest we could live good lives, and that we could do so for eternity. In fact, we can begin as soon as today, as we first open our eyes, as we take up the task of heralding in an optimistic future. One may see us as backwards and odd as we usher in the era, and they will be somewhat right, since we must appear confusing, suggesting we are eye-doctors primarily concerned with cardiology.

Maybe so true you'll have to laugh (and then call me crazy)...

***Prefatory Note from Author: The commentaries expressed in this blogpost are entirely mine, however, they were written over the weekend during a moment of what dope-smokers and drug-addicts call “moments of clarity;” i.e. when they were high as kites. At the moment of penning this post I was suffering under the influence of Benadryl combined with beer, which the label says not to do. But the type on the label is too small for: a.) people whose allergies cause their eyes to swell, itch and blur; and, b.) people drinking beer.

We are about to see a remarkable event in the history of warfare. It is an odd thing for a writer in 2011 to suggest the end of the Cold War is near. Nonetheless, that is what I am saying: “the end of the Cold War is near!” The year most of my opponents will interject to correct my error would be 1989; yet this date was simply the beginning of the remarkably brilliant military strategy of the Soviets. The year 1989 was actually the year that Communism, which had always affirmed the validity of their own philosophy while denouncing Capitalism’s depravity of merit, discovered two fundamental points on which they were totally wrong—first, Communism realized that it had nothing to offer; second, Communism realized that Capitalism had at least one thing to offer—its own demise. Having come to this dual realization that they themselves were philosophically bogus and that they could destroy the enemy by destroying their bogus selves, Communism made the logical and strategic choice to bow out of the front-lines of the battle.

In the meantime, the Cold War raged on with one notable caveat: the debunked Communists never had to foot another bill or fire another shot. As soon as the first hammer sounded against the soon-to-be-demolished Berlin Wall, the last gavel at the Stock Exchange could be heard (at a distance). In the years to follow the Communists underground discovered two more fundamental truths: a.) that, indeed, the Capitalist monster was actually better at producing capital for longer than they would care to admit; and b.) that they themselves where not totally depraved of ability—that they could accelerate the demise of the Capitalist by being passive Communists and buying the Capitalist’s debt.

So for twenty-three years the Communists retreated from Moscow, disappeared from Europe, and passively minded everyone's business (by gobbling up U.S. debt) in China. We killed the Communist, Capitalism may gloat with photos of Reagan and a crumbled Berlin Wall—but the suicide will likely be less prideful, for to be a good marksman eliminates the likelihood one will brag at having shot themselves in the foot. However, we have. And we have because we neglected to realize that peace must mean something.

After our Red enemies fled from Moscow, leisure and life ought to have taken the forefront of everyone’s thoughts. Mom, apple pie and baseball should have been our priorities, yet these could not possible fixate the Capitalistic mentality. Sure, they temporarily were embraced, not because they were worthwhile, but because they were worth something. Capitalism (come to discover) doesn’t care about spirituality, sentimentality, or leisure, unless, of course it can sell. So, we embrace “Mom” by creating Mothers’ Day, complete with a whole line of Hallmark greeting cards and floral arrangements and cheap-smelling, but expensive, perfumes. We embrace “apple pie” by invading and razing Central American populations to grow cheaply the fruit for our pies. We embrace “baseball” by making idols out of athletes so we can sell tickets and holy vestments that the industry calls “sports apparel.”

And we ride that embrace to the ultimate discovery that it petered out on us, too. We did all this only to discover that we don’t give people enough time to enjoy all they would need to enjoy in order to keep dividends rolling and capital “optimally” producing. The pundits and bean-counters quickly announce we would need 370 Mothers’ Days every year, that people would need 61 weeks of vacation, and every state would need 17 major sports teams in each sporting event, including curling and crochet. We discover in times of peace that nothing stimulates like war. So we default to that option. Let there be little doubt that America is nothing more than an armaments-producing nation. Tools of destruction are our bread and butter, as well as our own demise. In the end, having ridden the tank to the end of the road we discover we can go no further because: a.) we are out of road-building stuffs; b.) we have 10% unemployment and still no one who wants to build roads; c.) the tank is out of gas; and d.) even if the tank weren’t out of gas, it was likely called back in order to invade another sand-flea-infested North African nation.

The Communists have implemented the strategy that the jihadists have discovered—that the key to destroying the thing they despise is not in their handiwork, but precisely in the lack of it. Che Guevara’s strategy didn’t fail, he just failed to see it work—make America’s capitalism its own worst enemy. The system has long denied that it is destructive and consuming, but, rather, believed itself to be progressive and liberating. Now amidst unrest, austerity, and debilitating debt, the Beast of Capitalism has very little to say. Not only is it lacking for words, but it finds it hard to speak as it chokes on its own tail.

Meanwhile the government is proposing one of two paths, which they claim to be competitive ideas. Tax-cuts to stimulate the corporate capitalism machine, or spending increases to redistribute capital to stimulate the corporate capitalism machine. Fighting over the means, they fail to realize they agree very fundamentally (and very wrongly) about the ends—stimulating the corporate capitalism machine. And end, I might add, that is to blame for the very predicament that we are in. As a consequence of this demise, you need not worry to arm yourselves, even though it is likely that before Capitalism takes its final death rattle that it will turn on its very people. But we need not fight her, but only resist her. The best strategy is the one embraced very successfully since 1989—to retreat. It worked for the Soviets, and it will work for you, too.

The Ambition of the Unambitious

Having a good cup of coffee and a good friend on hand makes for a wonderful combination (perhaps only better if instead of coffee it were beer). Coffee shop banter often digresses into the solving of the world’s problems by envisioning grandiose and benevolent world domination schemes that begin, “If I were king of the world…” This morning was markedly different, however, not because we decided to talk about something other than the world’s problems, but we began the conversation with “If I were king of my own life…” We talked about it in our own personal ways, our own personal hopes not to rule others, but to simply rule and live our own lives.

Among other things, it became quite apparent in our discussion that modern man has become so hell-bent on wanting to “earn a living” that he has forgotten what it is to enjoy a life—to actually make “life” a verbal form beyond mere earnings, but to actually be “living.” Living is not something you earn at an office job or through any occupation, but it is a vocation—a heeding to God’s call and will in your life. Living is not something done in the security of a paycheck or a position, but is precisely what you do in the uncertainty. To live is not to settle into a place to call your secure end, but, rather, it is to settle for a place from which to eagerly, anxiously, and wearily begin. Like a plant, sprouting roots is the beginning of a critical upward journey that is fraught with danger and abandons certitude for adventure.

Modern man, however, wants to be a seed—the only certain and undangerous phase of a plant’s life. Not having roots is easy. The unblossoming seed is nothing more than a plant too afraid to live. Yet in our offices, our uniforms, our quaint little cliques, our weekend adventures, we have resolved to make being-a-seed something laudable and fulfilling. We resolve to tuck away more and more means to ensure we have enough energy to survive within (or without) before we ever even breach the subject of breaking forth-- to settle for the occasional adventure as opposed to the life-long one. Least we forget, however, that the life-blood of a plant is not in the seed, but in the soil its roots reach out to and in the sunlight its leaves span to absorb.

We have so befuddled the English language as to call this uneventful occupational, seedling mentality, “ambitious.” Meanwhile, we call the natural life roaming the black dirt and open air for the means to make it through the day (the life of vocation), “unambitious.” Yet how ambitious must we really be to be what the world calls unambitious?! We have the audacity to say happiness is actually quite simple and it is not the rat-race, it is not king-of-the-mountain—rather, it is king of your homestead. We have the audacity to say less is more, that simplicity is fulfilling, that a tenuous task and the constant upkeep of a home is as close to Heaven we could imagine. We reject penthouses for working the soil, we reject fashion shows for our own wife, we reject the entertainment industry for our own families—in short we reject total comfort for relative suffering. We have the audacity to want to live simply, not to rule over anymore than our small corner of the world. We have the audacity to say the small family farmer is not only acceptable, but also beautiful. We have the audacity to say that having the world is too much, that actually a small amount is enough, and, further, that enough is enough. We have the audacity to say that having to pray for good weather for you and your family’s success and survival is actually the true meaning of happiness.

What we ultimately discover in living humble lives, by rejecting worldly kings and assuming the role ourselves, is not that we were right to call ourselves ‘king;’ but that we were actually dead wrong. We learn how to properly begin any discussion about solving the world’s problems. Surprisingly, it is not with “If I were king of the world…” or “If I were king of my life..:” but instead we realize how true and faithfully we must say, “If I let God be king of my life…” And from that point, my friends, you will find the only ultimate certainty, the only absolute clarity and security, and only then will you grow into the magnificent thing He has planned. Only then will you witness “the miracle of your own life.“

"Poet as prophet."

I have an unusual series of photographs in my kitchen which always cause a stir with the dinner guests. The ruckus is over black and white photographs of urinals with multicolored fluids resting in the reservoirs. Distasteful? Alarming? Crisis-causing? Well, yes. Is it art? Well, that’s what the question always becomes and that question makes for a lively discussion at the dinner table—“What is art?”

If art is what you frame and put on the wall, it’s a tricky business denouncing my kitchen’s framed urinal motif. Art becomes little more than what inspired the photographs on my wall—a line from a Tom Stoppard character, Tristan, who defined art as “the right to urinate in different colors.” My photographs are a monument not to Tristan’s definition, but rather to a question Stoppard asks through another character, James. The question is not only perfect for the scene in Stoppard’s play, but would even be useful to ask in our own real, historical situation when it comes to art—“What do you mean?” James asks Tristan.

Meaning—does this work mean something? If so, what? Is there truth in this work? Is the truth conveyed in a beautiful way? I dare say that the two tend to go hand-in-hand. Art must please, just as it must speak and profess. The pleasure it emits, ultimately hearkens from the truth therein. There is nothing more attractive than truth, nothing more appealing than the search for it. Art-making and art-gazing becomes a magical adventure of divining and probing limitless depths with limited means. Artists take the finite to break into the infinite, allowing their work to be an indestructible portal of transcendence which once opened and unleashed calls to the world.

Yet, our society bombards us with images and works whose meaning is non-existent. The only meaning behind many works is the attempt to swindle you our of a dollar, not as a patron of the truth that you found in the work (mind you), but by the fact that the work made you think you needed something that you really did not. We call these works ‘advertisements.’ Worse yet is the work that the artist makes very unintentionally so that it may “speak for itself.” Artwork does not speak for itself. The artist and the truth embodied in the work (purposefully put there by the artist) is what speaks from the artwork—the work becomes an echo of the artist’s soul, the soul which amazingly heard a glimmer of the echo of Truth in the universe, thereby prompting the work. So, work is not art because of hopes it will one day say something. If it is made in silence, it will remain in silence. This silence has reached a deafening pitch in the modern world.

G. K. Chesterton wrote that “art, like morality, consists in drawing a line somewhere.” Just as in morality, the line in art is drawn to mark the chasm that separates the Truth from falsehood. Art is neither flippant nor loose, it is a not an accident that a work captures soulful qualities. Artists do not often consider themselves ethicists, but in a world so confined to our senses and what others put in front of us, our lives cannot help but imitate art. As such artists must be assured of the task ahead of them—it is theirs to preside over the wedding of truth and beauty. This feast will be both public and effective. We must steer the world from unreality to reality by our craft, our art. Artists become, as Collingwood refers to them, “the poets as prophets.” They will "show men their own hearts" by offering them an encounter with truth and beauty. Their works will revive a fallen world by suggesting “the remedy which is the poem, itself. Art is the community’s medicine for the worst disease of the mind, the corruption of consciousness.” This disease, I might add, began in a garden with a lie—a denial of truth, a denial of meaning.

Principles: A Way of Life

My soul, if it could be catalogued, might seem like a continental law book. I live by principles (which those closest to me have noticed). I have principles—not one or two, but many. My friends often question whether what I have are principles, and then they often question why I have these particular “principles.” Because these tendencies exist in me and will endure in me, I feel I ought try to explain—

A principle is not a policy. Policy is for politicians, of which I have no inclination to be. Politicians compromise and finagle, they make a living striking balances and defining things in accord with the times, with the world. Policy and politicians are not per se evil; they are not per se too worldly, too easy, or too complacent—they are, however, not me. Principles, like policy, are defined not in a semantically certain way except in how they cause the holder to behave. It is not objectively the case for one to define what is or is not a principle in or for someone else except in its adherence by the other. A principle, unlike a policy, is inflexible and inviolable.

The inclination of many of my friends is to tell me that I am too liberal with what I call principles. However, the same people that tell me I too readily label concepts as “principles” also say that I too rigidly adhere to them. What this tells me is not that I am too liberal with the label, nor too staunch in my observations, but that they simply do not like what I label as principles nor their consequent behaviors. That should be their criticism. To be called stubborn or crotch-edy would be accurate (perhaps), but not label-liberal. I may have too many principles, but I have not misappropriated the term. You may not like the rigidity of my behavior but your assent does not my principle make.

Living by a plethora of principles is both a personal preference, a matter of consideration for others, and a strategy of life. First of all, principle-living is an answer to what I consider, the problem of being overly inundated with choices. I am a very fortunate person, blessed with many varied means, skills, and talents. I have many options available to me. Many of these options are sinful, but many are not. The Lord’s principles automatically deter me (although not always) from the sinful choices. Yet, I am still left with a wide array of possibilities. My many principles help me simplistically and algebraically navigate this blessed quagmire of options. They help me to travel a narrower road as a matter of discipline—because the evermore rigorous one’s trek is through the field of permissible possibilities, the more safely one is confined from falling into the field of sin. Principles are not an idol because they are not an end—they are a means to holiness despite their often attenuated character. A single principle can be criticized as silly or even sometimes a hindrance—but its value is not in what it alone accomplishes in any given moment, but what they all accomplish in a single lifetime.

Secondly, a principle is useful as much to its holder as to those around him. Principles may often irk others or confuse them because of the peculiarities; nonetheless, principles are unmistakably noteworthy in that the more they are observed by the holder, the more constant the person seems to the Other. Constancy is a rarity in this day-and-age; fickleness is a marked trait of the world. Others may know you by your behavior; they may grow to anticipate your response’ they may come to discover more about the your soul’s structure by your actions. Consistency and constancy, immutability and unwavering unchangedness are admirable qualities of the divine which principled-living helps facilitate.

Thirdly, principles are a strategy for life. The world in which we live is boundary-less. There are no clear backyards, no clear neighbors, no clear issue touching our lives or calling us to immediate action. Technology and communication have forced many of us to reach to new, far corners of the world all the while forgetting not only our roots, but why roots matter. Roots matter because they plant us concretely and realistically in the world. Roots force relationships of proximity and necessity. Roots integrate lives most fully because they prime the situation to be the most prone for interpersonal community. Principles can be the roots we too often lack. Principles can become the boundaries we most desperately need. Principles give our crazily chaotic lives definition, even if they seem self-defined and limit-imposing.

A principled life can be described as intemperant; but only sometimes rightly so. Rigidity can no more necessarily equated with vice than with policy. The viciousness of a position cannot be applied until such detriment appears—either subjectively or objectively. We each must navigate this world as best we can—some of us use the ever-varying winds, others the stable stars. Fixedness may not be flexible, but that does not make it flippant. If nothing else the principled-nature of principled-living makes it different, counter-cultural, and revolutionary. Accordingly, I will live as such (as a matter of principle, of course).

Veiled Emptiness: the Nemesis of Campus Ministry

Sit down. Take a moment to catch your breath and close your eyes… well, you better keep ‘em open so you can read this. Imagine this scene. University gymnasium filled with booths and freshman touting activity after activity in which students can be involved. Here I am with nice pants and a polo (a rarity) alongside Fr. Baker in his Roman clerics (not-so-rarity). We are trying to promote Catholic campus ministry with the help of other dedicated and prayerful students. Meanwhile, stalking about the tables is a fellow dressed as a 6-foot tall banana. In case this wasn’t queer enough, he felt inclined to wear an obnoxiously colored shirt that makes a new tennis ball look dull. Soon enough emerges his cohort in fashion-absurdity, a black gorilla with the same radioactive shirt to match.

Now, I am not one to criticize odd clothing—please, I think my generation was thoroughly sold out when striped calf socks, short synthetic-fiber shorts, tight polo shirts and reflective sunglasses went out of style. This is not a blog about fashion; rather, it is a blog about beauty (among other things).

You see what disturbed me (and Fr. Baker) wasn’t the juvenile costumes, but rather the activity that a 6-foot banana and gorilla were promoting—Campus Crusades. Students for World Wildlife, Students for Animalistic and Vegetative Cross-Dressing, Dramatic Student Organization, College Democrats, College Republicans, or any other half-baked lunacy would have made the scene make sense—there was a whole gymnasium of options; yet, the lean-witted dunderheads were promoting Christ.

So, the scene unfolds with Fr. Baker turning to me as we notice the banana and monkey’s shirts, and we laugh (because we would so much like to cry), and he half-jokingly says, “What would Flannery O’Connor say?” It’s hard to tell. It would be hard and blunt, but charitable, nonetheless. Perhaps, she has already said it in her letters: “At its best our age is an age of searchers and discoverers, and at its worst, an age that has domesticated despair and learned to live with it happily.”

You see, Campus Crusades wanted to get attention. They wanted to make a splash by making a scene. So they put on costumes and made the world a stage. I am not opposed to drama. But I am opposed to promoting a serious and dramatic love story through utter buffoonery and shallowness. That is what I think Flannery has tapped into when she mentions “domesticated despair.” First of all, too many Christians have tried to make Jesus “sexy” or “silly” to attract our generation of way-faring souls. Whatever happened to the Transcendentals?! When did Truth and Beauty, Unity and Goodness become antiquated like stripped calf-socks?! When did the depths of the Incarnation and the captivation of the Beatific become too complicated to be satisfactory? Small minds are entertained by small things, which is true enough, but here we were at an activities fair for university students, not a preschool bible school pageant.

Respectably-dressed man next to a habit-ually dressed man surrounded by passionate, sensible students promoting and proposing Christ, and in jumps a burly ape and a monumental banana. This is the life of campus ministry—trying to make a lost generation understand that the sublime is serious, and trying to make the serious sought-after; trying to make a lost generation hell-bent on wanting to be deep and free, to understand that this requires they get out of the kiddie-pool and take off their float-ies. Jesus doesn’t need clowns, He needs disciples; the Kingdom doesn’t need mockery, it needs fun-loving soulfulness. Christians don’t need more absurd distractions than we already have—you don’t attract people to the prospects of Calvary by pitching it as anything less than what it is—and it ain’t a dippy-do, popular, entertainment-ridden circus extravaganza. It’s a (freak) show of simplicity and suffering. Faith which has no better means to promote itself than with the flare of a 6-foot banana, rightfully requires an absurd costume to hide behind.