Carpe Cakem!

There is a question, sometimes posed as a lament, in many of the writings I’ve come across lately. I could write down quite a list, but I don’t actually remember all the places. Another one came at me today though. It is the idea that there used to still be adventures to be had, unexplored places to chart, great feats to accomplish, but that for the most part, they are all gone. I remember reading as a child about the mysterious jungle of the Congo and how there was still things in there that no man had ever seen and lived to write about. That was an exciting prospect. But now, we have GPS, and I can pull up Google maps and grab the satellite imagery of my own car parked in the lot of my office building. Then I can swing it over a few degrees and peer deep into Africa and see right where that dangerous path by the waterfall leads. What’s the point in going there now?

Thomas Merton, in his book Mystics and Zen Masters, (which is about 90% straight-up history and reads like a graduate dissertation), discusses the story of St. Brendan’s expeditions and how he found an island paradise somewhere beyond the Atlantic. Nobody could ever find it again though, but tales like this fueled exploration and also deeper desires inside of us. Christopher Columbus would have been well aware of this particular (myth?) when he set out to the new world. Merton (writing in the 1960’s) discusses how the complete mapping of the earth has changed the face of spiritual pilgrimage and wandering. Searching for that special place has forever lost some of it’s potency. Nevertheless, we will pilgrim on because the thing that drives us inside of has not diminished one bit. We are still looking for our creator.

The protagonist in Arturo Perez-Reverte’s novel The Nautical Chart wrestles with this same deep issue:

Because after so many novels, so many films, and so many songs, there weren’t even innocent drunks anymore. And Coy asked himself, envying him, what the first man felt the first time he went out to hunt a whale, a treasure, or a woman, without having read about it I a book.

Being a slave to sin in some area of life has always been a frustrating and somewhat confusing situation to me. I can certainly say, with the apostle Paul:

For what I am doing, I do not understand. For what I will to do, that I do not practice; but what I hate, that I do.  - Romans 7:15

Merton possibly sheds some light on this situation.

The mere ability to choose between good and evil is the lowest limit of freedom, and the only thing that is free about it is the fact that we can still choose good.

To the extent that you are free to choose evil, you are not free. An evil choice destroys freedom.

We can never choose evil as evil: only as an apparent good. But when we decide to do something that seems to us to be good when it is not really so, we are doing something that we do not really want to do, and therefore we are not really free. (New Seeds of Contemplation, p. 199)

Don’t think about this too hard, but DO give it some thought. Don’t be like an invertabrate reporter earlier this week commenting on a related statement made by actor Will Smith:

A Scottish newspaper recently quoted Mr. Smith as saying: “Even Hitler didn’t wake up going, ‘let me do the most evil thing I can do today.’ I think he woke up in the morning and using a twisted, backwards logic, he set out to do what he thought was ‘good.’ ” The quote was preceded by the writer’s observation: “Remarkably, Will believes everyone is basically good.” After Web sites posted articles alleging that Mr. Smith believed Hitler was a good person, the actor issued a statement Monday saying that was an “awful and disgusting lie” and calling Hitler “a vile, heinous vicious killer.”

Thomas a Kempis on why you don’t need to surf YouTube all evening:

If thou wilt withdraw thyself from speaking vainly, and from gadding idly, as also from listening to novelties and rumors, thou shalt find leisure enough and suitable for meditation on good things. (The Imitation of Christ, Ch. 20)

I’ve been working through The Imitation of Christ by Thomas A’Kempis. Parts of it are really wonderful. Whole sections of it read like they came straight from the Psalms in a style not unlike e.e cummings psalm rewrites that sound better than the originals. Some of it sounds like it’s straight from Proverbs. Good stuff. He also has some very harsh words to say to those obsessed with religious academia and high theological arguments. Those are some of the best parts! I’ll be posting a sampling of that soon.

BUT, (and “That’s a pretty big but(t)” says the little fish in Finding Nemo), A’Kempis also gets on my nerves. The book is chock-full of stuff like this:

Whoso, therefore, withdraweth himself from his acquaintance and friends, God will draw near unto him with his holy angels. It is better for a man to live privately, and to take care of himself, than to neglect his soul, though he could work wonders in the world. It is commendable in a religious person seldom to go abroad, to be unwilling to see or be seen.

Let not thy peace depend on the tongues of men; for whether they speak well or ill, thou are not therefore another man. Where are true peace and true glory? Are they not in [Christ]? And he that desireth not to please men, nor feareth to displease them, shall enjoy much peace. For inordinate love and vain fear ariseth all disquiet of heart and distraction of mind.

It is better often, and safer, that a man should not have many consolations in this life, especially such as are according to the flesh…When a man hath perfect contrition, then is the whole world grievous and bitter unto him.

Stop the tape! That’s easy for you to say. Let’s tear ourself away from the world and meditate on the Lord, rejoicing in quite communion with him. That’s all great, but I think this all needs to be taken with a grain of salt. Why? How dare I question the wisdom of this highly-spiritual church father?

• He was never married, never had to learn to communicate with a wife.
• He never had to raise any children.
• He never had to take care of toddlers. (Yes, this deserves it’s own bullet point.)
• Living in the monastery, he never had money so he never wrestled with managing finances.
• He had lots of work to do, but never a job with a boss, staff meetings, finite sick leave, and a house full of dependents hanging on every penny bought home. Just 50+ years of chores.

I think the little bio on the back of the book puts it plainly:

Thomas A’Kempis (c. 1380-1471), a Dutch priest, quietly lived to more than ninety in exercises of devotion, writing and copying, reading, preaching, and exhorting others.

Hey man, whatever floats your boat. Sounds nice actually, but it’s not what God has called me too. Therefore, I won’t get upset about these kinds of idealistic exhortations any more. I won’t feel like a failure! Right…

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