It's curious how artists are often able to describe realities with far fewer words than scholars. What takes a scientist or a historian hundreds of pages takes a lyricist or poet just a few lines or stanzas.
It's also curious how sometimes an outsider's take better captures the reality of insiders. A little critical distance, a little objectivity, helps a lot. Clarity and enlightenment ensue.
In a combination of both of these tendencies, the late postmodern novelist and atheist, David Foster Wallace, said something remarkable about us all when he unexpectedly characterized us as "religious." In a famous commencement address, Wallace said, "Everybody worships." Here's the full context of that comment.
Everyone is Religious
"Because here's something else that's weird but true: in the day-to day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship-be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles -- is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive. If you worship money and things, if they are where you tap real meaning in life, then you will never have enough, never feel you have enough. It's the truth. Worship your body and beauty and sexual allure, and you will always feel ugly. And when time and age start showing, you will die a million deaths before they finally grieve you. On one level, we all know this stuff already. It's been codified as myths, proverbs, clichés, epigrams, parables: the skeleton of every great story. The whole trick is keeping the truth up front in daily consciousness." Excerpted from This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life by David Foster Wallace
The bucket seems pretty large for what Wallace might count as something we worship. It could be any of the things we might traditionally imagine like the institutional or historic capital "R" religions. Or it could be something like going to the mall, as James K. A. Smith has argued. Or sports fandom. Or sundry other things.
What if we have a religious relationship with our work?
In the 1960s, a Senate Committee issued a prediction that by the year 2000, Americans would only work 14 hours per week. There was significant hope increased automation and efficiency would mean that Americans could enjoy more leisure. It would be the first time in human history that a population so large would be working so little.
Perhaps much to our chagrin, the Committee's prediction never came true. In fact, it now seems rather silly. In our workaday world, it's difficult to fathom how someone could have imagined such a leisurely future. In contrast, many of us would claim we work more than we ever have. Even our own personal devices are a leash to the workplace, with e-mails, text messages, alerts, and calendars calling out to us at all hours.
Work and Worship
Writing in The Atlantic, Derek Thompson laments that so many younger workers have grown up in a world that recommends finding meaning and one's purpose in their job. Americans even use religious language to talk about it. Our jobs are our "callings." And when we talk about callings, the most common synonym that immediately comes to mind is "job," so ingrained in our imagination is this way of thinking.
Thompson suggests, following David Foster Wallace, that our jobs have become like altars, places of worship. They command our ultimate allegiance. We often hope to find a sense of deepest fulfillment from our work. We bow to our job like a god. Thompson calls this new religious impulse "workism."
Before workism, there was the culture of "total work." The early 20th-century philosopher Josef Pieper, writing in Germany just after WW II, expressed deep concern about how work had taken on a religious dynamic. The "total work" world is what produces workaholics, Pieper thinks.
His concerns are the kind that give us pause. In trying to describe how we imagine working as a normative feature of our existence (everybody should work [hard]), Pieper helps us to wonder why. Why is a "normal day the working day?" Or similarly, he wonders why we imagine vacation as "time-off" as if the "on" of our existence -- the normal way of things -- is to think of ourselves as always working. That the workaday world has such an influence on us to shape our imagination of daily existence in this way is why Pieper refers to our culture as one of "total work." Work is totalizing in its effect on our imagination. It's nearly impossible to think outside of it.
We've made "work" the center of our universe. Well, perhaps better, work has unwittingly become the center of our universe, without our having asked for it. Pieper's thought helps us see all the other words and ideas that orbit closely around it. In fact, he suggests, our whole lives seem to orbit around work. Our early years of getting an education are preparation for the workforce. "Retirement" has to do with that period of life that's "after" our working period.
A Place for Leisure
But it wasn't always this way. Pieper's discussion of work comes in a strangely titled book, Leisure: The Basis of Culture. What makes the title strange, at least to our ears, is that we often think of "leisure" in the same way that we think of laziness. Both are forms of "not working" and, therefore, they're often thought of synonymously. Leisure does have a positive connotation, often referring to some kind of relaxation and even fun. But again, Pieper's concern is that we are defining relaxation and fun in the same vein as we think of "time-off."
To illustrate the power of Pieper's point -- that we live in a culture of total work, or that work is totalizing in that it so powerfully shapes our imagination -- consider why the title of his book sounds so strange. If we hear the word "leisure" and one of the first synonyms that comes to mind is "laziness," why is our take so negative? Perhaps it has to do with the fact that leisure, in its association with time-off, connects laziness to a lack of productivity. And productivity seems to be the highest value in the total work world, according to Pieper.
This should be no surprise in a world so famously defined by the Protestant work ethic, a term many of us have heard, even if we're unaware of its source. The great sociologist working at the turn of the 20th century, Max Weber, bequeathed to us this term in the title of his book The Protestant Work Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Yet it's perhaps that "spirit of capitalism" that plays the more important role in our reflection. For Weber argued that the highest good in a culture of total work -- a culture of productivity -- is profit. The more profit the better. And how is profit achieved? Greater and more efficient productivity.
I think Pieper is right. It's hard not to imagine our life without reference to work. It's true for me, and I know it is for many others. I also think that, because Pieper is right, David Foster Wallace is also right. We allow work to have so much importance that it takes on a religious significance. It becomes an altar where we worship, whether we realize it or not, whether we consider ourselves religious or not.
Affording work a place of religious significance is exactly what Thompson argues in The Atlantic. Framed between David Foster Wallace who says that everyone worships and Josef Pieper who says that we live in a culture of total work, Thompson's claim that we look to our work to find meaning and purpose -- even thinking of our work as our life's calling -- should be no surprise. Workism is one of the new religions of 21st-century Americans.
Purpose Beyond Your Job
Yet, perhaps you've found yourself at one time or another wondering, "What more is there?" While we can all find certain kinds of satisfaction in our work, it's not always like that. There are days when we drag ourselves out of bed and coerce ourselves into showing up, whether you work in your living room, a laboratory, or on the factory line. Dissatisfaction easily creeps in.
An ancient monk speaks to us from days long gone, telling us our feelings of dissatisfaction are quite valid. Martin Luther would be just as troubled as Pieper concerning how we conceive of work in our time. His thinking about work is helpful for those of us caught up in the religion of workism in two different ways. First, he advises us to think of work in a manner that includes much more than only our jobs. Second, when work is so broadly understood, we can go on to imagine how we might discover purpose and meaning within a cosmic framework, one that transcends the mere workaday world.
In the first sense, Luther points out the presence of lots of other kinds of work in our lives. Work isn't just where you make a living and earn a paycheck. You're working when you're changing your children's diapers and seeking to raise them well. You're working when you're obeying the laws of your society, which aim to bring security and peace to you and your neighbors. You work when you watch out for your neighbor's home or pets while they're away, lend them a tool, assist in a project that you have the skills to help with, or volunteer for any number of sundry opportunities in your community. In short, following the words of Jesus, Luther thinks of work so broadly because he imagines it as a fulfillment of what it means to "love your neighbor as yourself" (see Mark 12:31). Work, from Luther's point of view, is always understood as a form of serving others.
In the second sense, work is caught up in something much larger than just the work itself. Work has a cost, to be sure. It's not always easy, fun, or fulfilling. And it has to be done whether we like it or not. But it has great benefits, too. Our work, viewed through Luther's lens, is connected to the activity of God Himself, the One who created and sustains all things. In fact, your work, the labor of your hands, feet, mind, and voice, is the very energy that God uses to accomplish His own work of caring for all of creation -- humans, most especially. So even the most mundane and routine things, like changing diapers, voting, mowing the lawn, and getting dinner on the table, make a difference in the world that is good for us all. Seeing work this way makes it meaningful and purposeful not from our own perspective or that of others, but from God's. He sees you and uses you. The activities of your life are caught up in something bigger than yourself.
Jesus once said, "Man does not live by bread alone" (see Matthew 4:4). I say that humans cannot find purpose from a job alone. Jesus continued, saying that we live only from the very Words of God. As a corollary, our lives are only purposeful because our Creator puts us to use.
Luther's biblical understanding of work helps us transcend workism. If you've found yourself wondering if there's something more than just work, something more to life than just drawing a paycheck and living toward retirement, Luther says, unabashedly, yes! Religion then, ironically enough, matters to our work, even if our work should not be our religion. Luther would say Thompson's view is a bit short-sighted, a bit too narrow. Rather, you honor God in your work because your work inevitably brings about benefits for your neighbor. And God cares for you through their work, too.
Written by Chad Lakies
You can share your thoughts on this blog by clicking here and leaving a comment.
You can let the folks at THRED know what you think by clicking here.
Tuesday, December 22, 2020
Tuesday, December 8, 2020
The Perilous Frontier of ME: Why "You Do You" Always Fails Us
An Unexpected Journey
Here's a familiar story many of us learned in our American history classes. The main characters are pioneer explorers Lewis and Clark. Their task was to find a waterway to the Pacific Ocean. Their journey begins on the Mississippi River. The journey ends where the Columbia River, which now forms part of the border between Oregon and Washington, meets the saltwater of the ocean.
The explorers were 15 months into their journey. Portaging their canoes, they were about to crest the highest ridge they had yet encountered. Having made camp for the night, the explorers dreamed with excitement about what they believed they would discover the next day. Flowing down from the crest of the ridge would be a gentle descent toward the shores of the Pacific. Or so they thought. The next morning revealed a surprising and unexpected reality.
Keep in mind that Lewis and Clark, along with their fellow explorers, only knew the lands of the Eastern United States. Broad, flat plains. Navigable waterways. Unintimidating mountain ranges. As they departed for their journey west, there was no reason not to expect more of the same.
So they were unprepared for what they did see. And it terrified them. Ahead was no gentle plain, no ocean shores. Instead, they faced the eastern foothills of one of the most terrifying and deadly mountain ranges in the Western world: the Rockies. Yet rather than turn back, they leaned into their charge to find a way to the Pacific. Abandoning the assumption about waterways leading to the nation's western shore, they left behind their canoes, knowing they could later make more. They made friends with those they met -- natives for whom this new frontier was nothing other than home -- who would lead and guide them toward their ultimate destination.
Suddenly making it up as they went, negotiating each new circumstance one at a time, the leadership writer Tod Bolsinger says Lewis and Clark learned how to "canoe the mountains."
Facing New Frontiers, but Unprepared
Like me, if you grew up playing Oregon Trail, you too are unprepared for the terrain you face today. Yet ours is not navigating the formidable frontiers of new territory. Ours is a social frontier, one we never expected and for which we lack the training to navigate. In fact, we might even say the training we did receive has in many ways been detrimental.
By "training," I mean something simple. Playing Oregon Trail, we learned not just about geography but also, however subtly, about independence and a kind of rugged individualism. To make your way in the world, you had to look out for yourself. Much of the formation we experienced in our education encouraged this, too. "Think for yourself," we were told. In the present time, we say to one another with a hint of vivifying encouragement in our voices, "You do you" (implying that we will do the same). We may have heard from time to time about the vice of selfishness, but it's difficult to deny that many of our experiences in life emphasized and even taught us habits of self-focus. The number one person you need to be concerned about is yourself. Your own success should be your primary goal.
Life in the midst of a what feels like a never-ending social crisis is difficult to navigate if we simply seek to serve ourselves and meet our own needs.
The COVID-19 pandemic requires us to navigate a world full of other people who may or may not carry the virus (any of us could have it, too), and so we seek to prevent further transmission by wearing masks, washing our hands, socially distancing, and staying home. Well, some of us do. And this presents a challenge. There's vast disagreement about how to behave, inconsistent observance of medical guidance, disagreement about whether the guidance is valid, and deep suspicion and mistrust of others, perhaps most especially the so-called authorities and experts. If "you do you" and so does everyone else, how do we move forward united?
There's more than a pandemic shaping our social frontier. Think of the unrest over racial tensions. An election year characterized by vitriol. Contempt and anger fueled by the "outrage-industrial complex" of the 24-hour news cycle and bots that capitalize on social media algorithms. The loss of work, the loneliness of isolation, anxiety about the present and the future, the fog and the boredom of working from home, the longing for a hug from loved ones who are frail or far away, and so much more.
Formation Gone Wrong
Our training was not for this kind of world. Ironically, perhaps our own formation has created it. Living solely for oneself, we might say, has produced the conditions we now experience. Autonomous individualism pits me against you, us against them, and leaves us at a loss for how to move forward with a sense of togetherness that is derived from anything more than anger and a wandering eye looking for whoever is to blame for this hell in which we feel trapped and hopeless.
Even seeking to blame others, whether people, systems, or institutions, is indicative of just how difficult it is for us not to think first of ourselves -- someone did this to me; it cannot be my fault.
If we are to find any help out of this self-myopia, it might be found in the most unlikely place. The mirror. How, you might ask, can a mirror, with all of its self-referential power, help me to escape the grip of an exclusive interest in my own needs, my own concerns, my own self?
A Hard Look at Ourselves
There's a lesson to be learned from the response given to an inquiry sent to British intellectuals in the early 20th century. G. K. Chesterton was a journalist and essayist. He was one of a number of distinguished thinkers to whom The Times, a British newspaper, sent this question: "What's wrong with the world?" Chesterton is said to have written the shortest response, saying something like this: "Dear sirs, In response to your question, 'What is Wrong with the World?,' I am. Yours, G.K. Chesterton."
What if we adopted Chesterton's posture? What would it mean if we began not by pointing the finger of blame away from us but, in a reasonable and humble manner, toward ourselves? What if we answered, "What is wrong with the world?" by thinking first of ourselves and our own self-seeking, instead of the problems of others?
Of course, in a time in which we prize positive mental health and self-care, this approach could be rejected as just too damaging and brutal. Why cause more harm by thinking about our failures? Yet, it is meant only to recognize, like St. Augustine, that just as there are parts of the world that we do not like but cannot do anything about, so also are there things about ourselves which we do not like but can do nothing about.
The Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn had good reasons to point the finger of blame. He was unjustly imprisoned for challenging an unjust social system. Yet, he looked first in the mirror, recognizing his weaknesses. His time in the Russian gulags generated deep reflection, after which he admitted, "If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"
Solzhenitsyn's question is obviously rhetorical. None of us are willing to destroy a piece of our own heart. So we must turn elsewhere to deal with the evil we experience.
Moving Toward Selflessness
In his brief account of the life of Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker Movement and often considered while she was alive one of the most radical activists in the American church, David Brooks suggestively wonders if Day was just a little crazy in his The Road to Character.
"Day was unusual, maybe even perverse, in that she sometimes seemed to seek out suffering as a road to depth. She probably observed, as we all do, that people we call deep have almost always endured a season of suffering, or several such seasons. But she seemed to seek out those seasons, and to avoid some of the normal pleasures of life that would have brought simple earthly happiness. She often sought out occasions for moral heroism, occasions to serve others in acts of enduring hardship."
"Who would intentionally seek out suffering?" we're meant to wonder. Brooks' account of her life seems remarkably out of place, especially in our time when suffering is usually treated as a problem to be solved, something in need of a cure. Yet Brooks continues, assuring us that Day is not out of her right mind, saying,
"She was not a trapped animal compelled to suffer by circumstance; she ardently chose suffering. At each step along the way, when most people would have sought out comfort and ease -- what economists call self-interest or what psychologists call happiness -- she chose a different route, seeking discomfort and difficulty in order to satisfy her longing for holiness. She wasn't just choosing to work at a nonprofit institution in order to have a big impact; she was seeking to live in accord with the Gospels, even if that meant sacrifice and suffering."
The way Day lived was grounded in a particular story, a mission.
Facing the frontier of the brutal West in search of the shores of the Pacific, driven by President Jefferson's commissioning to seek a route for travel and commerce, Lewis and Clark "canoed the mountains," in part by seeking wisdom from those for whom that land was native territory, home. There is wisdom we can receive from others who've suffered difficult roads.
Dorothy Day, and the other figures about whom Brooks writes, offer images of wisdom for our time. We are not quick to choose suffering. Yet, in all our myopic concern for ourselves, there is a part of us -- a part of our hearts as Solzhenitsyn would say -- that longs to make a difference, that longs to live otherwise and meaningfully, to feel a part of something that connects us to others.
Day points us in that direction. She sought to live in accord with the Gospels. In those ancient accounts, we meet a man named Jesus who lived His life entirely for others, even to the extent that He let Himself be killed that others might live. His followers recorded these words, which give us a sense of Jesus's philosophy of life.
"Whoever wants to be My disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in His Father's glory with His angels, and then He will reward each person according to what they have done" (Matthew 16:24-27).
This is far from our contemporary saying, "You do you." Yet Jesus doesn't merely leave these words for us as a command or some point of reference against which we judge ourselves as a failure. Rather, He calls to you and me and promises to help us do it. For those who follow Jesus, who reflect on their own lives realizing that there are things about themselves that they do not like but can do nothing about, Jesus gives grace, helping us to see that what we think is impossible, is very much possible.
These words of encouragement from one of Jesus's greatest known followers, St. Paul of Tarsus, show us the way: "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus ... for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill His good purpose" (Philippians 2:3-5; 13).
Jesus invites us. Let us venture into our social frontier by taking stock of what we see in the mirror, asking God for help, and letting Him use us to make a difference in the world, through the same care and compassion that drove Him to give His life for us. Perhaps living our lives for others might truly be the wisdom (and revolution) we need.
Written by Chad Lakies
You can share your thoughts on this blog by clicking here and leaving a comment.
You can let the folks at THRED know what you think by clicking here.
Here's a familiar story many of us learned in our American history classes. The main characters are pioneer explorers Lewis and Clark. Their task was to find a waterway to the Pacific Ocean. Their journey begins on the Mississippi River. The journey ends where the Columbia River, which now forms part of the border between Oregon and Washington, meets the saltwater of the ocean.
The explorers were 15 months into their journey. Portaging their canoes, they were about to crest the highest ridge they had yet encountered. Having made camp for the night, the explorers dreamed with excitement about what they believed they would discover the next day. Flowing down from the crest of the ridge would be a gentle descent toward the shores of the Pacific. Or so they thought. The next morning revealed a surprising and unexpected reality.
Keep in mind that Lewis and Clark, along with their fellow explorers, only knew the lands of the Eastern United States. Broad, flat plains. Navigable waterways. Unintimidating mountain ranges. As they departed for their journey west, there was no reason not to expect more of the same.
So they were unprepared for what they did see. And it terrified them. Ahead was no gentle plain, no ocean shores. Instead, they faced the eastern foothills of one of the most terrifying and deadly mountain ranges in the Western world: the Rockies. Yet rather than turn back, they leaned into their charge to find a way to the Pacific. Abandoning the assumption about waterways leading to the nation's western shore, they left behind their canoes, knowing they could later make more. They made friends with those they met -- natives for whom this new frontier was nothing other than home -- who would lead and guide them toward their ultimate destination.
Suddenly making it up as they went, negotiating each new circumstance one at a time, the leadership writer Tod Bolsinger says Lewis and Clark learned how to "canoe the mountains."
Facing New Frontiers, but Unprepared
Like me, if you grew up playing Oregon Trail, you too are unprepared for the terrain you face today. Yet ours is not navigating the formidable frontiers of new territory. Ours is a social frontier, one we never expected and for which we lack the training to navigate. In fact, we might even say the training we did receive has in many ways been detrimental.
By "training," I mean something simple. Playing Oregon Trail, we learned not just about geography but also, however subtly, about independence and a kind of rugged individualism. To make your way in the world, you had to look out for yourself. Much of the formation we experienced in our education encouraged this, too. "Think for yourself," we were told. In the present time, we say to one another with a hint of vivifying encouragement in our voices, "You do you" (implying that we will do the same). We may have heard from time to time about the vice of selfishness, but it's difficult to deny that many of our experiences in life emphasized and even taught us habits of self-focus. The number one person you need to be concerned about is yourself. Your own success should be your primary goal.
Life in the midst of a what feels like a never-ending social crisis is difficult to navigate if we simply seek to serve ourselves and meet our own needs.
The COVID-19 pandemic requires us to navigate a world full of other people who may or may not carry the virus (any of us could have it, too), and so we seek to prevent further transmission by wearing masks, washing our hands, socially distancing, and staying home. Well, some of us do. And this presents a challenge. There's vast disagreement about how to behave, inconsistent observance of medical guidance, disagreement about whether the guidance is valid, and deep suspicion and mistrust of others, perhaps most especially the so-called authorities and experts. If "you do you" and so does everyone else, how do we move forward united?
There's more than a pandemic shaping our social frontier. Think of the unrest over racial tensions. An election year characterized by vitriol. Contempt and anger fueled by the "outrage-industrial complex" of the 24-hour news cycle and bots that capitalize on social media algorithms. The loss of work, the loneliness of isolation, anxiety about the present and the future, the fog and the boredom of working from home, the longing for a hug from loved ones who are frail or far away, and so much more.
Formation Gone Wrong
Our training was not for this kind of world. Ironically, perhaps our own formation has created it. Living solely for oneself, we might say, has produced the conditions we now experience. Autonomous individualism pits me against you, us against them, and leaves us at a loss for how to move forward with a sense of togetherness that is derived from anything more than anger and a wandering eye looking for whoever is to blame for this hell in which we feel trapped and hopeless.
Even seeking to blame others, whether people, systems, or institutions, is indicative of just how difficult it is for us not to think first of ourselves -- someone did this to me; it cannot be my fault.
If we are to find any help out of this self-myopia, it might be found in the most unlikely place. The mirror. How, you might ask, can a mirror, with all of its self-referential power, help me to escape the grip of an exclusive interest in my own needs, my own concerns, my own self?
A Hard Look at Ourselves
There's a lesson to be learned from the response given to an inquiry sent to British intellectuals in the early 20th century. G. K. Chesterton was a journalist and essayist. He was one of a number of distinguished thinkers to whom The Times, a British newspaper, sent this question: "What's wrong with the world?" Chesterton is said to have written the shortest response, saying something like this: "Dear sirs, In response to your question, 'What is Wrong with the World?,' I am. Yours, G.K. Chesterton."
What if we adopted Chesterton's posture? What would it mean if we began not by pointing the finger of blame away from us but, in a reasonable and humble manner, toward ourselves? What if we answered, "What is wrong with the world?" by thinking first of ourselves and our own self-seeking, instead of the problems of others?
Of course, in a time in which we prize positive mental health and self-care, this approach could be rejected as just too damaging and brutal. Why cause more harm by thinking about our failures? Yet, it is meant only to recognize, like St. Augustine, that just as there are parts of the world that we do not like but cannot do anything about, so also are there things about ourselves which we do not like but can do nothing about.
The Russian writer Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn had good reasons to point the finger of blame. He was unjustly imprisoned for challenging an unjust social system. Yet, he looked first in the mirror, recognizing his weaknesses. His time in the Russian gulags generated deep reflection, after which he admitted, "If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?"
Solzhenitsyn's question is obviously rhetorical. None of us are willing to destroy a piece of our own heart. So we must turn elsewhere to deal with the evil we experience.
Moving Toward Selflessness
In his brief account of the life of Dorothy Day, the founder of the Catholic Worker Movement and often considered while she was alive one of the most radical activists in the American church, David Brooks suggestively wonders if Day was just a little crazy in his The Road to Character.
"Day was unusual, maybe even perverse, in that she sometimes seemed to seek out suffering as a road to depth. She probably observed, as we all do, that people we call deep have almost always endured a season of suffering, or several such seasons. But she seemed to seek out those seasons, and to avoid some of the normal pleasures of life that would have brought simple earthly happiness. She often sought out occasions for moral heroism, occasions to serve others in acts of enduring hardship."
"Who would intentionally seek out suffering?" we're meant to wonder. Brooks' account of her life seems remarkably out of place, especially in our time when suffering is usually treated as a problem to be solved, something in need of a cure. Yet Brooks continues, assuring us that Day is not out of her right mind, saying,
"She was not a trapped animal compelled to suffer by circumstance; she ardently chose suffering. At each step along the way, when most people would have sought out comfort and ease -- what economists call self-interest or what psychologists call happiness -- she chose a different route, seeking discomfort and difficulty in order to satisfy her longing for holiness. She wasn't just choosing to work at a nonprofit institution in order to have a big impact; she was seeking to live in accord with the Gospels, even if that meant sacrifice and suffering."
The way Day lived was grounded in a particular story, a mission.
Facing the frontier of the brutal West in search of the shores of the Pacific, driven by President Jefferson's commissioning to seek a route for travel and commerce, Lewis and Clark "canoed the mountains," in part by seeking wisdom from those for whom that land was native territory, home. There is wisdom we can receive from others who've suffered difficult roads.
Dorothy Day, and the other figures about whom Brooks writes, offer images of wisdom for our time. We are not quick to choose suffering. Yet, in all our myopic concern for ourselves, there is a part of us -- a part of our hearts as Solzhenitsyn would say -- that longs to make a difference, that longs to live otherwise and meaningfully, to feel a part of something that connects us to others.
Day points us in that direction. She sought to live in accord with the Gospels. In those ancient accounts, we meet a man named Jesus who lived His life entirely for others, even to the extent that He let Himself be killed that others might live. His followers recorded these words, which give us a sense of Jesus's philosophy of life.
"Whoever wants to be My disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow Me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? For the Son of Man is going to come in His Father's glory with His angels, and then He will reward each person according to what they have done" (Matthew 16:24-27).
This is far from our contemporary saying, "You do you." Yet Jesus doesn't merely leave these words for us as a command or some point of reference against which we judge ourselves as a failure. Rather, He calls to you and me and promises to help us do it. For those who follow Jesus, who reflect on their own lives realizing that there are things about themselves that they do not like but can do nothing about, Jesus gives grace, helping us to see that what we think is impossible, is very much possible.
These words of encouragement from one of Jesus's greatest known followers, St. Paul of Tarsus, show us the way: "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others. In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus ... for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill His good purpose" (Philippians 2:3-5; 13).
Jesus invites us. Let us venture into our social frontier by taking stock of what we see in the mirror, asking God for help, and letting Him use us to make a difference in the world, through the same care and compassion that drove Him to give His life for us. Perhaps living our lives for others might truly be the wisdom (and revolution) we need.
Written by Chad Lakies
You can share your thoughts on this blog by clicking here and leaving a comment.
You can let the folks at THRED know what you think by clicking here.
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