I've said it before, but it bears repeating:
These are intensely, even savagely purposeful times. Which is to say, most of us tend to take our "higher" purposes - moral, political, theological - very seriously. And in particular those on which we've duly and morally deliberated. The apparent assumption being that we, as a Radically Enlightened Aggregate Globe,* are finally getting on the Right Track, or Right Side, or whatever. Which can further mean that, depending on how enlightened and virtuous we deem our Purpose to be, most of us don't take any too kindly to things not turning out the way we intend. Especially when we've already pre-determined what the proper course of events and outcomes should be - like, again, say, a Right Side of History. Not to mention how our own actions - and yours too, for that matter - should ideally reflect and reinforce that right pattern. With no exceptions or deviations.
*Whatever the grosser deficiencies/sins/errors of individual nations and states: Hungary, Florida, etc.
And yet, as much as most of us would like to do exactly what we intend to - with not so much as the slightest deviation arising from impulse, perplexity or circumstance - the fact is that our actions don't always conform perfectly to our intentions. Being human and fallen, we often fail to live by the things we profess. Or else certain other things get in the way - often despite our own best efforts - leaving us frustrated, or discouraged, or chastened. Sometimes even humbled.
Yet even then, I think, far too often (but especially in these Russo-Ukrainean times?), the solution for far too many of us is simply to double down on the Original Aim. As if conforming our actions perfectly to Its requirements was a mere matter of greater discipline and tenacity. Of putting all our mind and will to it, and thus getting exactly what we intend. To the point, indeed, where not just our own Best Selves, but whatever god, superior being, higher power or larger purpose we esteem ourselves to be serving, is presumed to be in fullest agreement with our tenacity. And even with our "stubbornness," if you will. And self-frustration. And self-disgust. Almost as if this Higher Power or Purpose were not just requiring nothing more of us, by way of command, but could offer nothing more to us, by way of grace, and help. Other than maybe "That's right, do it again! But this time DO IT RIGHT!"
And seriously, what's the use of any god that's unable to be gracious? or even illuminating? What's the good of any supreme being, power, purpose, plan, etc, that merely rubberstamps all our most self-obsessive moralistic compulsions?
So, again, I find this to be an Age that fervently believes in and swears by discipline - indeed the all-but-limitless power of disciplined self-invention and self-command - to open just about every door, and to remove practically every obstacle. Including those involving what some would call - or used to call - nature, or gender, or national identity. Or even, sometimes, the barest semblance of national, regional or local autonomy, and self-determination. After all, if truth is Truth - and how much more our hard-won truths of self-creation and self-discipline? - and if our Truth be such that it must be expounded not just economically but militarily throughout the globe - then why should it be constrained by borders of any kind, whether geographic or biological?
An older generation - one, say, more conscious of its debt to German moral philosophy - might somehow feel like it's been here before. Might even recall lots of stirring talk about the Power (or even the triumph) of the Human Will. And by no means only among those German belligerents, along with their many admirers, of the Second World War. But however we like to phrase it nowadays, I find this generation to be one that believes in the power - the almost boundless power for good - of choice, decision, resolution, DISCIPLINE.
At the same time, again, we all know how even the best-laid and most disciplined resolutions can fail us. What we often fail, I think, to realize is how sometimes even our best decisions can have outcomes worse than failure. How not just the worthiest, but the most successfully-carried-out resolves can warp, distort and denature our actions. To the point where, even with some of our apparently most successful executions of aim, the result becomes something different - indeed disturbingly different - either from what we intended, or from what those most affected by our actions might have wished we'd intended.* But either way, the result is revealed to be something deeply disappointing. If not downright brutal and ugly.
*Just think of all the civilian populations of Libya, Syria and Yemen who during these past twelve years were terrorized, oppressed and dislocated, either by ISIS, or by what were very likely ISIS- or al Qaeda-fellow travelers or competitors. And who now have every reason to wish that the intentions of US policy-makers had been either very different, or very differently executed.
But, again, this is nothing if not an Age of fierce, even implacable resolution and determination. And so nowadays we have all sorts of people, professing a wide gamut of religious and quasi-religious beliefs, who are firmly resolved upon loving (what they take to be) God and neighbor, as if the matter depended entirely on their mere strength of resolution. And determination. And DISCIPLINE.
My question is, How's it all really working? And working out? To what extent is it making us more effectually charitable, and compassionate? And in a Way that actually changes us for the better? And not just for the more staunch and resolute? And up-in-arms? And confrontational?
What I think we've been learning, but especially today - and that from the hardest of teachers - is what a miserable thing it is to try to love God with only a part of oneself: what an angry, barren, recriminatory thing it is to resolve, and strive, and strain to love God with all one's mind and strength, before we have first yielded to Him our heart.
Now of course no moral act is ever a matter of mere emotion - as this Righteous Age never tires of reminding us. But that doesn't mean our emotions cannot be allies, and even conduits and instruments - imagine it! even of the God who made them. And of course there is more to us than our hearts, nor are they all of us that matters. But personally I know of no better portal to the soul than the affections - at least when we have allowed them to settle, so that our oldest, most secret desires are at last visible from the pond's surface: no clearer sounding into that Depth of us which hungers most desperately and ravenously, as it were, for God. In any case, and whatever the passing deceptions and superficialities of our hearts, they reveal a very different - if I may say, a far more childlike? - face, as we allow God to be their molder and sculptor. And lover. They may even point the Way to a soul we hardly knew was there, much less realized that it, too, has a voice, and a longing, and a wisdom. "Oh, but who could have imagined it? I mean, just what exactly does the soul DO?"
Well, I can hardly claim to be anything like an expert on the soul's actions. But if nothing else, I suspect it knows a far gentler and surer path to love, whether of God or of neighbor, than even our most staunchly convictioned vehemence of intellect and will. Not to mention - provided we let God be its searchlight - it tends to know and search us. And far more thoroughly, I believe, than all our most brilliant combinations of heart, mind and strength could know the life of a mouse. Much less that of any man or woman. And maybe least of all a child's?
Pray for the peace of Kyiv.
God heal America.
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