Have you ever met anyone who was, let us say, extremely conscious of the power and freedom of their own choices? So much so, in fact, they simply couldn't see how anyone else may have had impact on the shaping of their decisions? Much less influence, or even guidance?
But especially of their good and wise decisions?
Then again, maybe you've met lots of folks like that. More than you could ever count, much less remember. Plus you've been loving every minute of it.
Now I think I may know why some of you believe that's a good thing. And that there may be more people like that nowadays than ever before. And why that, too, is a good thing.
It's because - surely? - we are more encouraging of people to be themselves than ever before. It's because we are - or at least the more progressive/enlightened souls among us are? - today more brimming-over-with-compassion-and-understanding than ever before. In human history. More painfully, agonizingly aware and supportive and consoling of EVERY ever-so-minutely unique individual situation and predicament - and choice - out there. Along with, of course, the various (often stridently) political grievances / positions / entrenchments / resentments that inevitably accompany these multiple life-challenges and -choices. Once and for all, whatever it is: We GET it. And we support you.
Again, we Moderns are: More eagerly listening. And understanding. And supportive. And COMPASSIONATE. Of EVERY life-story and -circumstance. Than ever before.
Right. No doubt that's why our 150 flavors of American political hatred and contempt are more mellow and benign (and nonviolent?) than they've been in 150 years. And why even our sharpest differences of political and social opinion have never been more free of impatience, rancor and misunderstanding.
So what do you suppose is really going on here? How is it that our present American context is, if anything, more or less the direct opposite of the near-utopia described in the preceding paragraph? Why is it that the more our present America commends itself for being so unprecedentedly, lovingly affirmative and supportive of every human condition, the less we seem able to get along, or work together, or maintain the most basic sense of common citizenship? or common humanity?
And not just at the most opposite religious and political poles either. Sometimes even within the same (orthodox) church faction. Or the same church household. Let's say, for instance, that you and I are comparably traditionalist Catholics who attend the same Latin Mass. And are stalwart members of the same Rosary group. Granted, then, we both share more or less the same religious and political beliefs. At the same time, be pleased to remember: I'm much farther along the Right Road than you are. Alright then. So how else am I supposed to secure and consolidate my own progress, and minimize risk of contamination - or worst of all, regression? - than by inserting gradually wider and wider degrees of spiritual separation between us?
So how did we get here? How did we Americans become almost overnight, as it were, so "universally loving," and at the same time so full of . . . well, ideologically-driven fear, distrust, contempt, even hate?
My own hunch, anyway, is that today we are living in one of the Great Ages of American Self-Creation. Nowadays (since c. - very roughly - 1995) we individualistic Americans have become pretty thoroughly constituted - i.e., consumed - by the sovereign and omnicompetent choices we've made. And not just the ones we've made for ourselves, but - increasingly, I notice - the choices we've made of ourselves. So much so, that it's getting harder and harder for us to see any other choice, whether of man or God, that may also have gone into making us who we are. Almost as if we were all finally admitting (contrary to the admonition of a recent president): "You know, as a matter of fact I DID build that. And, best I can tell, with little or no significant (i.e., unpaid) help, or even input, from anyone else."
Now you can plead all you want about how sentiments like these often conduce to greater self-worth, accomplishment, productivity, etc. All the same: if the above "attitude" is not, at very least, a challenge to the exercise of a reasonable, practical, modest humility - as distinct from the more self-martyring kind - honestly, I can't imagine what is.
Then again, one might argue that whatever social factors make humility more challenging are all to the good. That an "anti-humble" society is in fact the best crucible of virtue - because the humility thereby achieved has by far the greater merit. Exactly: any humility I've achieved in the teeth of great obstacles is one I'm sure to be that much less proud of. And that much less conceited and overconfident regarding my own hard-won wisdom. And so, of course, that much more open to the possibly different wisdom and insights of my co-worshipers and colleagues. Brilliant.
So much for the self-martyring, self-advertising kind of humility. That still leaves us the earlier-mentioned, humbler sort. Without which, frankly, I can't for the life of me see what hope you and I have of understanding any thing, much less anyone. Certainly not with any degree of practical accuracy. For instance, I may see you simply the way I choose to see you - and be the whole time surrendering to my own pride. Or I can strive to see you in exactly the way you choose to see yourself - and be all the while surrendering to your pride. Or we can both strive to see each other through the prism of the political/ideological group - or company, or church, or charity - to which we belong. And find ourselves both submitting to a still uglier, more conglomerate pride.
Surely, I can't help thinking, there's got to be another Perspective. And it is, I fear, precisely this other Perspective that has been receding more and more in the rearview mirror, the farther we go down our present road of Radical (Angry) Compassion.
In short, it's becoming all but impossible to see ourselves through the one truthful lens: the infinitely, exquisitely variegated prism of the One Sovereign Choice - that of our creation. A Choice that has quite literally made each one of us, long before you and I had the power to make any choices at all. Neither did it simply stop there, for it has gone on making us, to whatever degree we have ever done, or been, anything good. A Divine Choice that in fact continues to make us - to whatever degree we are good at all - right up to the present moment. And not just in our unity and commonality as human beings, but (and here's the weird, rather unbelievable part) in all our rich variety, our distinctness, our inexhaustible eccentricity as human individuals. At least, to the extent that we let it.
In a nutshell: God - by our leave, and making use of our trustful prayer - continues to make us all the best we can be. Somehow, He continues to render us far more interesting, more colorful, more individual, more unrepeatably distinct and fascinating creatures than we could ever make ourselves, armed with all our most high-flown dramas of ego, self-worth and self-martyrdom, or with all our most cutting-edge political narratives and agendas.
Which suggests to me one overriding theme: The more we see, and live, this vision of the utter dependence of all our goodness and giftedness on God, the better the chance of our discerning our various individual goods and gifts more clearly, and less defensively. Gifts and virtues which may prove "wondrous, passing strange" in their differences from one individual to another: thus driving home to each of us not just our common need for God, but our common - and inescapable - dependence on each other. My point is that we have vastly better odds of perceiving clearly what God has given to us to the extent that we see it as coming from God, and not from ourselves. On the other hand, suppose I were to regard my special "gifts" as in essence the product of my own arduous labor: after all, who could know better what's mine, and how I did it, than I do? It all seems reasonable enough in principle, right? Until, perhaps, such a time as I find myself, despite all my (of course) arduously heroic efforts at humility, somehow more and more tempted to a not unreasonable pride in what - please remember - I myself have created or achieved. I mean, after all, I'm only human, and as the venerable saying goes: "If you can DO it, it ain't braggin'."
In any case, I'll leave to my readers the judgment of what is, or is not, the most likely train of consequences to this line of reasoning. I mean, we all know, right? how clear and unsparing a light a not unreasonable pride can shed on what, again, belongs to me, being the product of my essentially unaided effort (/sarc). So what do you think? Given my undisputed "gifts," and the not unreasonable pride I'm allowed to take in them: In the event of a fierce difference of opinion over, say, the future direction of worship in our church, am I that much less, or that much more, likely to:
(1) be insecure and defensive about these hard-won gifts - and resultant opinions - of mine?
(2) feel threatened by, and competitive with, the similar gifts and possibly differing opinions of colleagues and co-workers?
Besides which - let's face it - even the most energizing and vigorously opinionated friction can be quite tiring. Perhaps even debilitatingly so. Or so I've often gathered. So maybe - do you think, if we all just got tired enough? - we could finally step out from behind all our masks and guises of pseudo-pious modesty. ("Think of it: I basically did it ALL by myself - yet here I am, ascribing ALL the glory to God! Well if that's not humility, I'd like to know what is?") We could at last begin to understand our various gifts as coming to us - not just rhetorically but essentially - from God (however often refracted through the prayers, mercy and kindness of others). We could understand ourselves as being every bit as prayerfully dependent on God for the direction and cultivation of those gifts as we are for their origin and content. Who knows? we might even start to see more clearly the rich interrelatedness and interdependence of our various talents. Which pooling of strengths can often mean greater clarity in identifying the common dangers that surround us. And stronger possibilities of agreement on at least the bare outlines of whatever immediate challenges we face. But agreement in particular, it seems to me, on challenges of a wider and more urgent public importance. Like, say, a suddenly fast-approaching wildfire. Or again (my own special favorite), global pandemic.
Meanwhile we continue with our vehement, adamant projects of self-creation. And we wonder how it is that - for all Today's strident love of diversity, individuality and uniqueness - we, on both Left and Right (and maybe most of all Globally Enlightened Center?), seem more monotonously arrogant and oppressive than ever before. Or, if nothing else, more keenly sensitive to the arrogance and oppression - and monotony - of our opponents?
(Edited.)
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