The Star Wars films have their cinematic gems–and lightsabers, which better be well-stocked in heaven–but if the stories were ever to be retold, I’d want someone other than George Lucas in the lead X-wing.  Someone like…me.

Yes, I’ve thought long and in nerd-level detail about how I’d re-envision the world of the Jedi.

Were I given the opportunity and more money than Han Solo could image, I would tell the story of the rise, fall, and redemption of Anakin Skywalker in a three season HBO series.  My Anakin would be radically different from whiny space brat we all know and regard with a cringe: extraordinarily powerful and intelligent, magnanimous, and with a long way to fall.  The overarching narrative would center on his story, but not every episode would focus on him.  His tale would be like the Dude’s rug, tying the whole room together.

Before I further explain what I would do, permit me to mention what I’d remove from the story: the clones, the Clone Wars plot, the Death Star plot, the extermination of the Jedi plot, the Virgin Birth, the planets having a uniform terrain and environment, Jar Jar Binks, and Skywalker temper tantrums.  Instead, the series would be about the political, cultural, and religious conflicts the Jedi Order have with the government of the Republic and the multiple planets throughout the galaxy.  Anakin’s rise and fall would mirror the deterioration of the Jedi as “guardians” and as political players.  While they lose control of their exemplar knight, they also lose control over the Republic.  Anakin’s redemption through the love of his children, Luke and Leia, would expose the limitations of the Jedi way.  Lucas touched upon this theme, but I would like it explicit and cardinal.

I would keep Palpatine as a sly and powerful senator and secret Sith Lord, but he wouldn’t be working to transform the Republic into an empire.  His goals would be more in keeping with the way of the Sith: growing powerful in the Dark Side of the Force while working behind the scenes to undermine the moral and political authority of the Jedi.  He’d be an expert player of the game of thrones, maybe even the best, but his ascension to power would be more subtle, more the designs of a closet religious fanatic than a would-be emperor.

Obi-Wan, Mace, and Yoda would also play prominent roles, but as less likeable characters than they were in the films.  They’d still be good guys, more or less, but more morally flawed, more open about using Anakin and later is children for their own religious, cultural, and political purposes.  Through them and other Jedi we’d learn much more than Lucas ever told us about the Jedi mythos and ethos.  The origins of the Jedi, and whether they are as history records them, would be an important theme.  I’d also get into the conflicts that emerge between the Jedi way, which has the backing of and power over the senate, and the multiple religions and cultures that each planet would reasonably have.  In my Star Wars, the Jedi wouldn’t be the only game in town, but they’d want to be, and they’d blur the lines between the Light Side and Dark Side of the Force in their Force-fueled futile attempts to remain the mainstream galactic religion.

Luke, Leia, Han, and Chewbacca would mostly feature in the third and final season.  In order to maintain continuity between the second and third seasons, i.e., not have a 20 year gap, I would have the Skywalker twins conceived in the first season.  I’m not sure yet who their mother would be, maybe a fellow Jedi or a bounty hunter or a senator, but not the wife of Anakin.  No secret marriage in my version, although Luke and Leia’s mother would be among the main characters throughout all three seasons.  Oh, and Leia would also be a power Jedi like her brother, but in conflict with him about how best to save their father. The method they ultimately choose would be similar to what Luke did in the films–refuse to fight and appeal to love–but it would cost them more than the death of their father.  I’d probably have at least one of them slain by Palpatine.

As you can tell, my telling of Star Wars would not be for young children.  It would be grand, dark, tragic, and morally ambiguous.  So, what do you think?  Am I off my AT-AT?  Am I dramatically idiotic to imagine a remake?  If you could remake Star Wars, how would you do it?

Genece Cupp, Study of Georges de La Tour's Penitent Magdalen

I find it easier to get into the liturgical spirit of Ash Wednesday than that of Good Friday, perhaps because that latter is only a few days from the celebrations and festivities of Easter Sunday.  As much as I try for a somber disposition when meditating on the death of Christ, I cannot get out of my mind the approaching joy manifested in the image of the resurrection.   My ritual involvement in Good Friday is like the experience of re-watching a climactic film scene in which a beloved character seems dead but really isn’t. The image of death points to the image of life.

Ash Wednesday, however, perhaps because of its distance from the merriment of Easter, retains for me its themes of penitence, mortification, earthiness, and death.  The ritual words of the day, “Remember that thou art dust, and to dust thou shalt return,” speak not of a miraculous movement from death to life, but of the all-too-real progression of lifelessness to life and finally to death: ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

My personal tradition on the day, besides receiving a cross-shaped smudge of ashes on the forehead, is reading T.S. Eliot’s haunting poem “Ash Wednesday,” which I’ve posted below, most of it below the fold.

Ash Wednesday

I

Because I do not hope to turn again
Because I do not hope
Because I do not hope to turn
Desiring this man’s gift and that man’s scope
I no longer strive to strive towards such things
(Why should the agèd eagle stretch its wings?)
Why should I mourn
The vanished power of the usual reign?

Because I do not hope to know
The infirm glory of the positive hour
Because I do not think
Because I know I shall not know
The one veritable transitory power
Because I cannot drink
There, where trees flower, and springs flow, for there is nothing again
Because I know that time is always time
And place is always and only place
And what is actual is actual only for one time
And only for one place
I rejoice that things are as they are and
I renounce the blessèd face
And renounce the voice
Because I cannot hope to turn again
Consequently I rejoice, having to construct something
Upon which to rejoice

And pray to God to have mercy upon us
And pray that I may forget
These matters that with myself I too much discuss
Too much explain
Because I do not hope to turn again
Let these words answer
For what is done, not to be done again
May the judgement not be too heavy upon us

Because these wings are no longer wings to fly
But merely vans to beat the air
The air which is now thoroughly small and dry
Smaller and dryer than the will
Teach us to care and not to care Teach us to sit still.

Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death
Pray for us now and at the hour of our death.

II

Lady, three white leopards sat under a juniper-tree
In the cool of the day, having fed to sateity
On my legs my heart my liver and that which had been contained
In the hollow round of my skull. And God said
Shall these bones live? shall these
Bones live? And that which had been contained
In the bones (which were already dry) said chirping:
Because of the goodness of this Lady
And because of her loveliness, and because
She honours the Virgin in meditation,
We shine with brightness. And I who am here dissembled
Proffer my deeds to oblivion, and my love
To the posterity of the desert and the fruit of the gourd.
It is this which recovers
My guts the strings of my eyes and the indigestible portions
Which the leopards reject. The Lady is withdrawn
In a white gown, to contemplation, in a white gown.
Let the whiteness of bones atone to forgetfulness.
There is no life in them. As I am forgotten
And would be forgotten, so I would forget
Thus devoted, concentrated in purpose. And God said
Prophesy to the wind, to the wind only for only
The wind will listen. And the bones sang chirping
With the burden of the grasshopper, saying

Lady of silences
Calm and distressed
Torn and most whole
Rose of memory
Rose of forgetfulness
Exhausted and life-giving
Worried reposeful
The single Rose
Is now the Garden
Where all loves end
Terminate torment
Of love unsatisfied
The greater torment
Of love satisfied
End of the endless
Journey to no end
Conclusion of all that
Is inconclusible
Speech without word and
Word of no speech
Grace to the Mother
For the Garden
Where all love ends.

Under a juniper-tree the bones sang, scattered and shining
We are glad to be scattered, we did little good to each other,
Under a tree in the cool of day, with the blessing of sand,
Forgetting themselves and each other, united
In the quiet of the desert. This is the land which ye
Shall divide by lot. And neither division nor unity
Matters. This is the land. We have our inheritance.

III

At the first turning of the second stair
I turned and saw below
The same shape twisted on the banister
Under the vapour in the fetid air
Struggling with the devil of the stairs who wears
The deceitul face of hope and of despair.

At the second turning of the second stair
I left them twisting, turning below;
There were no more faces and the stair was dark,
Damp, jaggèd, like an old man’s mouth drivelling, beyond repair,
Or the toothed gullet of an agèd shark.

At the first turning of the third stair
Was a slotted window bellied like the figs’s fruit
And beyond the hawthorn blossom and a pasture scene
The broadbacked figure drest in blue and green
Enchanted the maytime with an antique flute.
Blown hair is sweet, brown hair over the mouth blown,
Lilac and brown hair;
Distraction, music of the flute, stops and steps of the mind
over the third stair,
Fading, fading; strength beyond hope and despair
Climbing the third stair.

Lord, I am not worthy
Lord, I am not worthy

but speak the word only.

IV

Who walked between the violet and the violet
Whe walked between
The various ranks of varied green
Going in white and blue, in Mary’s colour,
Talking of trivial things
In ignorance and knowledge of eternal dolour
Who moved among the others as they walked,
Who then made strong the fountains and made fresh the springs

Made cool the dry rock and made firm the sand
In blue of larkspur, blue of Mary’s colour,
Sovegna vos

Here are the years that walk between, bearing
Away the fiddles and the flutes, restoring
One who moves in the time between sleep and waking, wearing

White light folded, sheathing about her, folded.
The new years walk, restoring
Through a bright cloud of tears, the years, restoring
With a new verse the ancient rhyme. Redeem
The time. Redeem
The unread vision in the higher dream
While jewelled unicorns draw by the gilded hearse.

The silent sister veiled in white and blue
Between the yews, behind the garden god,
Whose flute is breathless, bent her head and signed but spoke no word

But the fountain sprang up and the bird sang down
Redeem the time, redeem the dream
The token of the word unheard, unspoken

Till the wind shake a thousand whispers from the yew

And after this our exile

V

If the lost word is lost, if the spent word is spent
If the unheard, unspoken
Word is unspoken, unheard;
Still is the unspoken word, the Word unheard,
The Word without a word, the Word within
The world and for the world;
And the light shone in darkness and
Against the Word the unstilled world still whirled
About the centre of the silent Word.

O my people, what have I done unto thee.

Where shall the word be found, where will the word
Resound? Not here, there is not enough silence
Not on the sea or on the islands, not
On the mainland, in the desert or the rain land,
For those who walk in darkness
Both in the day time and in the night time
The right time and the right place are not here
No place of grace for those who avoid the face
No time to rejoice for those who walk among noise and deny the voice

Will the veiled sister pray for
Those who walk in darkness, who chose thee and oppose thee,
Those who are torn on the horn between season and season, time and time, between
Hour and hour, word and word, power and power, those who wait
In darkness? Will the veiled sister pray
For children at the gate
Who will not go away and cannot pray:
Pray for those who chose and oppose

O my people, what have I done unto thee.

Will the veiled sister between the slender
Yew trees pray for those who offend her
And are terrified and cannot surrender
And affirm before the world and deny between the rocks
In the last desert before the last blue rocks
The desert in the garden the garden in the desert
Of drouth, spitting from the mouth the withered apple-seed.

O my people.

VI

Although I do not hope to turn again
Although I do not hope
Although I do not hope to turn

Wavering between the profit and the loss
In this brief transit where the dreams cross
The dreamcrossed twilight between birth and dying
(Bless me father) though I do not wish to wish these things
From the wide window towards the granite shore
The white sails still fly seaward, seaward flying
Unbroken wings

And the lost heart stiffens and rejoices
In the lost lilac and the lost sea voices
And the weak spirit quickens to rebel
For the bent golden-rod and the lost sea smell
Quickens to recover
The cry of quail and the whirling plover
And the blind eye creates
The empty forms between the ivory gates
And smell renews the salt savour of the sandy earth

This is the time of tension between dying and birth
The place of solitude where three dreams cross
Between blue rocks
But when the voices shaken from the yew-tree drift away
Let the other yew be shaken and reply.

Blessèd sister, holy mother, spirit of the fountain, spirit of the garden,
Suffer us not to mock ourselves with falsehood
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still
Even among these rocks,
Our peace in His will
And even among these rocks
Sister, mother
And spirit of the river, spirit of the sea,
Suffer me not to be separated

And let my cry come unto Thee.

The day before his papacy began, Joseph Ratzinger delivered a homily in which he made the oft-quoted observation: “We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one’s own ego and desires.”  I disagree.  At least, I disagree if we’re speaking of serious contemporary moral thought.  With the claim that modern mass society is marked by egoism and intemperance, I’ve no quarrel, but I’d call this moral laziness or the absence of moral consideration, not a dictatorship of relativism.

From what I can tell, moral relativism is very rare if we’re talking about a comprehensive moral philosophy.  Sure, morally relativistic arguments abound–Dick Cheney’s “9/11 changed everything” comes to mind–but those making these arguments are not typically people who think anything goes because there are no standards beyond a particular time and place to which one can appeal.  Cheney may be a moral monster, but I wouldn’t call him a relativist. Such ethicists exist, no doubt, but they’re not the movers and shakers of contemporary culture.  If our culture has dictators, they ain’t they.

What we have been seeing, much to the horror of moral realists, is the willful abandonment of old, time-tested moral theories such as the derivationist variation of natural law ethics.  Good luck selling the idea that one can derive moral knowledge from a metaphysical study of human nature.  Not only does “Hume’s law” make a mess of things, metaphysical knowledge is in disrepute.  It is no longer persuasive to say, for example, that the biological purpose of human sexuality establishes a moral norm by which one can condemn homosexuality or contraception.  Few philosophers today tie the biological purpose of human sexuality to any metaphysical/moral truth about human nature.  Arguments in support of norms for human sexuality have to come from elsewhere.

So what we have today in the world of moral and ethical thought is not a dictatorship of relativism, but, from a bird’s eye view,  moral ambiguity and pluralism.

We’re living in dangerous and difficult times, no doubt.  I struggle with remaining hopeful for moral progress when a presidential candidate says how wonderful it is that the U.S. government may be assassinating foreign scientists or when the sitting president shows no serious moral qualms about having a secret panel compose, keep, and act upon a kill or capture list.  And these are not even near the most abominable atrocities that received some measure of justification in the past century.  I struggle, but at day’s end I find myself with hope.  Humanity has made moral progress in important ways.  We’ve slowly come to recognize the claims of justice from people who were once oppressed.  And we have developed ingenious ethical languages–theories of virtue, of rights, of obligations, and of moral value, to name a few–that have helped us chart the whirling seas of right and wrong.

Pluralism poses difficult challenges, especially for societies striving for homogeneity, but it affords us welcome opportunities as well: global dialogue, open dissent from prevailing orthodoxies, and the chance to put faulty once-dominant moral theories behind us.  Some of them, derivationism for example, deserve to be shown the door.  Others need to stay.  After all, moral progress doesn’t mean we forsake all tradition.

Today, we seem to have everything on the table and a large trash bin nearby.  That’s…disconcerting.  Rethinking ethics is dangerous business, but it’s also necessary for real moral progress.  Sometimes what’s holding us back are attachments to bad theories and fallacious arguments.

Opponents of contraception face seemingly insurmountable obstacles, not the least of which is their position’s antagonism toward today’s common sense view of sexual morality.  Opposition toward contraception is not common; acceptance of it as a personal and social good is. A few voices cry out in the wilderness, but they are just that: a few, and, by today’s standards, uncivilized.

It would be a mistake to conclude that contraception is a moral good because common sense says it is.  A casual glance at history should be sufficient to observe that a morality held in common may be a corrupt and perverse morality.  It would also be a mistake to conclude that the present common morality is corrupt because it radically differs from a past commonly-held moral sense, or that the past sense was perverse because it doesn’t cohere with the common sense of our progressive age.  The morality of an act is not determined by its being held in common as a moral good.  Common sense is a guide, not a dictator.

And yet it is a guide and not without moral weight.  Opponents of contraception cannot easily dismiss its judgments or wave them away as products of a perverse age.  The proposition that today’s common sense view of sexual morality is perverse requires careful demonstration.  Noting the correlation between widespread use of contraceptives with other social ills does not suffice.  Even if one could prove a causal relationship between common acceptance of contraception and, say, the rise of cohabitation, one would still have to show that this growing acceptance of cohabitation is also a sign of corruption.

For all the changes in sexual mores, our society has not become morally nihilistic or relativistic.  Common sense may no longer reserve sex for married couples and for the primary purpose of procreation, but it retains a set of values, virtues, and responsibilities related to sexual behavior.  The accessibility and use of contraceptives are considered good precisely because they accord with the commonly understood meaning and morality of human sexuality.

So contraception’s opponents, such as the Roman Catholic Church, have a long road ahead of the them.  Their conflict is not with a blatantly corrupt ideology, nor is it with moral nihilism or relativism; their contention is with a rationally-coherent, commonly-held moral sense.

There’s always a danger of reading too much into a vague statement some politician makes, especially when the statement is presented without context, so I want to tread carefully when examining the following quote by our would-be savior Rick Santorum.  Speaking about President Obama’s agenda at a Tea Party rally, Santorum said:

It’s not about you.  It’s not about your quality of life. It’s not about your job. It’s about some phony ideal, some phony theology. Oh, not a theology based on the Bible, a different theology, but no less a theology.

To no one’s surprise, journalists and commentators jumped on the remarks, compelling Santorum to qualify his statements:

I’ve been pretty clear that the left in America has their own moral code in which they want to impose on this country. You can call it a theology. You can call it a moral code. You can call it a world view, but they have their own moral code that they want to impose on everybody else.

There’s a newsworthy significance to these assertions.  With these words, Santorum suggests the way he understands politics: he interprets both the aim of politics and the political landscape theologically.  You may see the political arena as a conflict of moral codes or worldviews or what-have-you, but Santorum sees it as a conflict of theologies.

Am I reading too much into this one statement?  Consider also these words by the presidential candidate, which appear on his website:

I have been asked many times, from town-hall meetings in Iowa to diners in South Carolina, to articulate what I believe in — not just about a given issue, or even something as fundamental as the role of government, but about life and reality. Folks want to know what frames my understanding of how things are and how they ought to be, my “worldview,” in order to have insight into what will guide my decision making if the American electorate chooses me to represent them in the White House.

There are two texts in particular that have framed my worldview, my fundamental belief system, as it relates to my role as a public official. One is political and the other Biblical, and both foster an orienting belief that, more than any other, directs my decision making: the dignity of every human being.

Santorum himself makes it clear that his worldview is theo-political: he traces his worldview back to two foundational texts, The Declaration of Independence and the Book of Genesis. It makes sense, then, that Santorum would interpret the political worldviews of others within this same theo-political framework.  He doesn’t object if others prefer to call something else what he calls a theology or a phony theology, but he has his term of choice.  And that term has import and consequence.  Whether Santorum is warning about secularism and relativism at home or warmongering with reference to “Islamic fascism” abroad, he’s interpreting the world theologically.  His political thought is theological thought.

Therefore, our understanding Rick Santorum’s politics requires our understanding his theology.  If Santorum’s campaign continues to do well, it may be worth considering what the grand themes and the nitty-gritty nuances of his theology could mean for his presidency and for the country.

This is a fair question to ask given the the increased control and freedom of choice contraceptives have provided women.  It’s also a question that has been implicitly raised in the debates about the HHS mandate.   E.D. Kain, for example, writing in the context of Santorum’s views on contraceptives, stated, “if we’re to really grow as a culture and a people, we have to get past the notion that somehow women are inferior or that they shouldn’t have control over their own destiny.”

Yes, we do, and E.D.’s words here are helpful. If opposition to birth control arises from the notion that women are inferior or shouldn’t have control over their own destiny, then I think it’s fair to say that the opposition is anti-woman.  Is it always true, though, that this notion underlies opposition to birth control?  Let’s consider the following cases:

First case: Katherina and Petruchio.  They do not use birth control because Petruchio forbids it and Katherina goes along with his demand.  Petruchio wants lots of children, as many as possible.  Katherina is ambivalent, but acquiesces to Petruchio’s desires, believing that being a good wife means being supportive, obedient, and submissive to her husband.

Case two: Hermione and Ron, another married couple. They refuse to use birth control as well, both strongly believing that children are a gift from God and that it would be immoral for them (or anyone else) to regulate the reproductive systems  in any way.  For them, every act of sex must be an attempt to get pregnant.

Case three: Celes.  Celes objects to using birth control because she has strongly experienced the negative side effects of their use: using them makes her feel physically ill.  She chooses instead to abstain from sex when she’s fertile.

Fourth case: Wilma.  Wilma has religious and moral objections to contraceptives, i.e., any intentional attempt to hinder procreation or make it impossible.  She chooses instead to avoid pregnancy by abstaining from sex when she’s fertile.

The opposition to birth control in the first case is blatantly anti-woman because it is rooted in 1) Petruchio’s belief that Katherina should have no say in the number of children she carries and to whom she gives birth and 2) Katherina’s belief that she’s inferior to her husband.  An argument could be made that the opposition in case two is also anti-woman because the opposition is to any control on Hermione’s part over her own reproductive processes–a control she ought to have as a free moral person.

In case three, the opposition is based on health problems experienced by Celes when she uses contraceptives.  In opposing the use of birth control for practical reasons, Celes neither demeans herself nor relinquish control over her body, so her opposition does not speak to an anti-woman disposition.

Case four is trickier than the others.  One might argue that a particular religious or moral opposition to birth control implies the inferiority of women, but this would be a difficult if impossible argument to make  in respect to all such conceivable religious and moral objections.  Moreover, Wilma has no less control over her reproductive cycle than Celes: each chooses to exercise control over her body, but each uses means other than contraceptives to do so.   I would therefore say that Wilma’s opposition to birth control is not inherently anti-woman.

So, is it anti-woman to oppose contraceptives?  These four cases indicate that it can be, but it isn’t necessarily so.

What do you think?

[Update]

Tod makes a criticism below that I’d like to address here as well.  It should be obvious that in none of my case studies, nor in answering the question, did I contend with our very real history of misogyny, patriarchy, and systematic oppression of women.  My conclusions are therefore limited in what they can tell us, but what I’ve established is worth keeping in mind when considering the larger and arguably more important issues: there is no logical connection between being anti-contraception and anti-woman.  Has there been a historical connection?  Yes.  Must there be a future historical connection?  No.  Will there be?  Regrettably, yes.

Image from the trailer.

Comedy of manners virtuoso Whit Stillman has a new feature film coming to theaters: Damsels in Distress.

If the trailer below is any indication, his first film since 1998′s The Last Days of Disco will follow his earlier works’ signature deadpan dialogue, well-educated but short-on-wisdom characters, and insightful wit, but Damsels in Distress appears to have a look and feel all its own.

For those unfamiliar with Stillman’s work, he’s made three priceless gems about “doomed bourgeoisie in love.”  Disco was his latest.  Before that was Barcelona, and his first feature was the charming Metropolitan.  His characters talk a lot about things they’ve learned from books while displaying their ignorance about the lessons learned from life.  You’ll watch them debate the merits of reading good literary criticism instead of novels, complain that no one talks about whatever you call the thing above the subtext, and argue that Brutus was a good friend to Caesar by stabbing him in the back.  Stillman’s dialogue, though, isn’t allusive to culture for its own sake; his characters are always talking about themselves, usually unawares, even when discussing the depressing archetypes of Lady and the Tramp.

I rarely get to the theater these years, but I’ll make a special trip if Damsels in Distress opens in the area.

Godefroi dans son château roulant à l'assaut de Jérusalem

A mighty host of my coreligionists, ever on guard against looming criticisms threats to their faith, have for many years taken arms against academia’s latest culture-deteriorating enemies of truth: the postmodernists and deconstructionists.  To their chagrin, I have not heeded their warnings, at least not since I began reading postmodernism’s deleterious prophets.  I expected to find poison against which I would quickly become immune and a respectable purifier.  Instead, I discovered drinks that have done wonders for my intellectual digestive track, and I gleefully pass a bottle at every appropriate occasion.

I came pretty quickly to forsake my old realist religious faith in favor of a distinctly postmodern apophatic faith.  John Caputo, who’s to blame as much as anyone for my having gone astray, explains the kind of religious faith I’ve embraced:

The religious heart or frame of mind is not “realist,” because it is not satisfied with the reality that is all around it.  Nor is it anti-realist, because it is not trying to substitute fabrications for reality; rather, it is what I would call “hyper-realist,” in search of the real beyond the real, the hyper, the über or au-déla, the beyond, in search of the event that stirs within things that will exceed our present horizons.  In this sense, religion is, in the best and deepest sense, so much “hype.”

In having a religious faith that is not realist, but hyper-realist, I am a wayfarer uncertain of where I am, what direction I’m headed, and where exactly I intend to arrive.  I’m a little lost, on a journey in the dark, seeking in my less lazy moments to find and follow the way.  Those seemingly certain of the right path and where it leads would, perhaps, call me a poor pilgrim, and they would be right.  I’m terribly poor at this religion thing.  I fail to recognize God in the places I’m told the almighty resides.  I’m faced with thousands of years of spiritual traditions, and yet I insist that I cannot know what I love when I love my God.  I cannot be sure that a divine voice will not one day command me to depart because I have not made myself known to God.

Mine is not a comforting faith.

It is a faith of fear and trembling, which I suppose means it’s more biblical than the certainty-enriched fundamentalisms that claim, torches in hand, to have all the answers to all the really important questions and promise hellfire to people like me who desire to walk in darkness even though we may have seen a great light.  For me, being religious has little to do with certainty about God or the moral life or reality or anything else.  It’s about radical hospitality to the “wholly other,” to what may visit us from beyond the worlds we fashion, define, and cautiously defend.  It’s about self-giving and forgiveness and the impossible demands of justice.  It’s about transcending our idols and deconstructing the roads we pave for the journey.  Most of all, it’s about the unconditional love of God, neighbor, and stranger, three words that are, in a sense, interchangeable.

Giotto. St. Francis Giving His Cloak to a Poor Man.

Religion’s celebrations, services, liturgies and rituals mean next to nothing if they do not prepare one to love–to seek the good of others with one’s full being.  If religion’s creeds, doctrines, and sacred texts to not call for love, then they are worth less than the breath wasted to speak them or the ink spilled to write them.  The truth which religion ought to disclose is the truth of love, which is a truth one pursues and does, not a truth one possesses and imposes.

What I call postmodern religiosity can be summarized in the words of Teilhard de Chardin:  “Someday, after mastering the winds, the waves, the tides and gravity, we shall harness for God the energies of love, and then, for a second time in the history of the world, man will have discovered fire.”

Not quite a few years ago, in a room as dark as the night sky, my wife and I held our newborn daughter close to our hearts as her heartbeat slowed and she breathed her final breath.  We had met Vivian fifteen hours earlier, when she let out her one and only loud cry.

I am often given to recollect some moment or other from her incredibly short life, and when I dwell upon these memories, her life flashes before my eyes.  It’s strange: our time together was so brief I could not come to know her personality, her character, her interests, her likes and dislikes, and yet despite all this, and while she was missing the top of her skull, she was to me then and remains to me now a whole person.  Complete.  A life lived. A story told.  Not as complete as it should have been.  Not as long a life as I would call fair or just or right.  But there it was, and here I remember it.

Perhaps this perception of fullness in the face of brokenness speaks to the power of love.  Perhaps love reveals to us what cannot be discovered by the pursuits of the intellect.   I’m inclined to believe this.  I’m inclined to say that love is the master key to unlocking the meaning of life.  I say this because, if I have not been deceived, love has shown me the world in the bruised face of a dying child.  I have seen everything because I have loved another completely, from the beginning of her life to its untimely end.

It is strange, this gift of death.  When Vivian ceased her precious movements and her body relaxed as if in slow motion, when our inexhaustible love and sadness poured out of our exhausted hearts, eternity opened before us.  When I reflect upon these memories, I am bathed in the light of a timeless, once distant world.  What is that world?  That world is love.

I detest the culture wars. I really do. My disposition toward cultural and societal difference is typically to cheer the dialogue and cherish the multitude of differing voices as we try to figure out the best ways of moving forward, and yet in my two recent posts I’ve taken sides in what is unmistakably a culture war. I’ve staked a position in support of seemingly out-of-touch, self-described religious authorities and their papal-ringed handful of devoted followers. I’d be lying if I said my raising the banner wasn’t partially due to a desire to be a faithful son of Holy Mother Church, but familial loyalty to my faith isn’t my only reason for drawing the sword. I’m a pluralist at heart. I do not yearn for a world in which my religious faith is the only game in town. I would vociferously oppose any attempt to enshrine my political philosophy and morality as the uncontestable law of the land. I’m a firm believer that my thoughts and beliefs can benefit from encounters with their other. Society as well, I believe, benefits in the long run when it welcomes the foreign, the alien, and the excluded.

Catholic morality has certainly become foreign to our culture and the culture of most Catholics. Its tenets seem everything from silly to barbaric. It’s understandable that contemporary thought would see Catholic morality buried in the sands of time, never to return. As a pluralist, that’s not something I favor. And as a pluralist and a Catholic, I cannot sit idly by when the government proposes to coerce my coreligionists to act contrary to the principles of their faith.

I’d much prefer that we as a society address our conflicts of values without famine, sword, and fire crouching for employment. I dearly hope my hope is not unreasonable. There are, for example, feasible alternatives to attaining universal access to contraceptives that do not compel Catholics to violate their conscience. I can’t imagine the church would like any of these alternatives, as it looks with a disapproving glare on contraceptives as contrary to the natural law, but it would, I suspect, tolerate one of them if it meant the preservation and protection of religious liberty. Or maybe I’m wrong about that. Like the rest of us in the postmodern era, the Catholic Church is still learning how to proclaim and make a case for its worldview within the framework of a pluralistic democracy. With all the trials and difficulties of this framework, the temptation of our time is to enforce similitude modeled on the dominant moral and political worldviews. Silly me, though: I associate justice with hospitality to those we’re tempted to leave out in the cold to starve, wither, and perish.