Lent 2013, XIII

XIII. What does the infinite worth of the human person have to do with detachment? Well, it’s a matter of priority. If wisdom is, (as I define it) the virtue of choosing that which is most valuable, then a proper understanding of people is a necessary part of wisdom. Put it quite simply, a person is more valuable than a thing. Since a person’s worth is infinite, and the worth of a thing is finite, it is logical to assume that even the smallest person is worth more than even the greatest thing. In fact, one person is worth more than all of the things. Imagine all of the things that you would like to have. Suppose I was given the chance to receive a billion of the things that we call dollars, if only I was willing to insult someone on the street that I didn’t know. Let’s say all I had to do was walk up to a prostitute and call her a whore. That would still not be worth it. She is worth more than all the dollars that ever were or ever will be, so I would be selling her dignity far too cheaply.

Lent 2013, XII

XII. JPII defines a person as “that which does not admit of being used.” This means that a person can never be a means, only an end. He also says the each person is called to a unique, exclusive and unrepeatable relationship with God. Each person is the result of an absolutely singular thought of the Divine Godhead. Each person that I meet in my life, including the ones I don’t even notice because I’m too busy watching my own feet and thinking deep thoughts, has been literally loved into existence by God Himself, and redeemed by the blood of Jesus on the Cross. That annoying snob that isn’t worth my time is well worth Jesus’ time. He sits night and day in the Tabernacle waiting for that annoying snob to come and pay a visit. I shouldn’t wonder at that. After all, He does the same for me.

Lent 2013, XI

XI. So now it is time to take these thoughts to the next level. So far I’ve been thinking mainly about how practicing detachment from material or sensual goods, far from being an indictment against them, is actually the road to true appreciation of them. But that is only the beginning. There are things in life greater, far greater, than material or sensual goods. Even the most sublime created thing, representative though it may be of transcendental realities, is essentially finite. However there exist in our world created beings (not things) which are infinite and as such far outweigh even the most brilliant pizza ever made. I speak, of course, of people.

Lent 2013, X

X. In order for lesser goods to remain good they must remain lesser. To make them idols only destroys them. Understanding this, however, is not simply a matter of intellectual knowledge, because intellectual knowledge will not make that half-gallon of ice cream or random bikini girl less attractive. In fact, in their own essence, they cannot be made less attractive. Each created thing in its own way is good, and I cannot lessen that good. Wishing I could is rather a churlish thing to do, demonizing them in order to make myself feel less pathetic. You can see this sometimes in some Christians’ overly legalistic approach to modesty. Some men try to impugn some crass or evil tinge to the bodies of women, when really the issue is not the body that God created but the concupiscence we do not control. Our problem is that we do not focus on the good that is, but rather on the evil that we are tempted to and then we blame the thing that tempts us. Essential to the concept of fasting is that I am not denying but rather affirming the good of the thing that I am fasting from. So if I give up pizza for a time, it is not because pizza is bad. Perhaps my use of it tends toward the bad, so by turning myself for a time in the other direction I am actually doing more to respect the great gift that is pizza than I ever could by incessantly gobbling it down. When I return to pizza I will be able to appreciate it more.

Lent 2013, VII

VII. Life is a gift. Our existence is a gift. Food is a gift. Sunshine, air, water, rain, clouds, animals, plants, sex, bodies and minds are all gifts. We are gift. I am, myself, not only a gift from God to myself, but the man God created me to be is a gift from Him to me, which I am free to accept or reject. My acceptance of that gift is my gift to Him. But I am also meant to be a gift to everyone around me (as we all are). The coconut that sits on my desk right now (that’s right, I’m going to eat a fresh Thai coconut later today. Possibly on a sunkissed, windswept sandy beach overlooking the ocean. It’s okay to be a little jealous. But I digress.) That coconut is a gift of God, His way of sending life and energy into my body, through all of my cells, which I can use for whatever I choose, good or bad. And it is going to be delicious. He didn’t have to make it taste so good. But the fundamental nature of a gift is that it has to be given. It cannot be coerced or it changes what it is. It is no longer a gift. It is existentially corrupted. It cannot be taken, only received. And this is the existential warp in our nature, that Adam and Eve tried to take by force what God had not given them freely. They grasped. We now grasp. We fear not having enough or not having our rights or the pleasure we somehow feel we deserve. It is a lack of trust in the moment by moment providence of God. This ruins our relationship with Him, for how can there be relationship where there is no trust. It ruins our relationships with each other, for if I cannot trust the God who created me I certainly will not trust my fellow human. And it even ruins our enjoyment of the things we so desperately grasp at.

Lent 2013, VIII

VIII. My Grandpa got his teeth pulled when I was a kid. I remember him freaking his grandkids out by removing his dentures and sucking his lips in over his shrunken gums, and eventually he just got tired of using his dentures at all. One of the last times I saw him was less than a year ago, while he was still battling cancer. I think it was a few months before he took a sudden turn for the worse, so despite the pain and the tumors and all the weight he had lost he was still living life much as he ever had, shooting pistol at the range every week, drinking a six pack a day of his favorite beers, eating his favorite foods, as well as he could without teeth. On this particular day I was sitting with him at the kitchen table, talking about everything from politics, to the military, to medicine, to religion, to family, just wandering from one topic to the next with the quiet enjoyment that was so typical of him. During one pause in the conversation he watched me cutting what was, for me, a typical slice of cheese. I would call it a “man-sized” slice of cheese. I made my cracker sandwich and started chowing down, while he cut his own slice. As he did he said, “You know, I never figured this out until I lost my teeth, but I like to shave the cheese really thin and just set it on my tongue and let it melt. I think it really brings out the flavor, a lot more than a bigger piece. But I never figured that out until I lost my teeth.” I tried it and what do you know? He was right. A little bit of patience brings out the flavor of the cheese, almost as if I had never really tasted it before. Biting off huge chunks and choking them down crippled my ability to enjoy that cheese to the full.

Lent 2013, IX

IX. Is the enjoyment of a little bit of cheese such a big thing? No. But it is an illustration of the greater problems that come from grasping after good things. The more I clutch at them, the less I am able to enjoy them. Self-control and right order are necessary, not only so that these temporal goods don’t become idols, but even so that I can enjoy them at all. An alcoholic is, of all people in the world, the least able to appreciate a Guinness draft. A sex addict is the person who enjoys sex the least, but craves it the most. Someone who cannot say no to chocolate, cannot enjoy chocolate. A professional athlete is the person who is least likely to play simply for the love of the game. What is at stake here, on this lowest, most natural level? It seems as if it were freedom, really. The goal of disciplining my desires is so that they do not become needs. Need is the enemy of desire. I am not yet talking about Lenten discipline, but this is a broad understanding of the discipline requisite to daily life. This is ordinary human discipline, which means it will not get us to heaven, but it will prevent hell on earth, and it is the basis of something much, much greater.