The Ring of Power

"All we ever wanted was the illusion of control. But we have none, not really. And neither do the people around us who seem so intimidating in all their radiant perfection. Ultimately, we can all take comfort in the understanding that they're not actually perfect, and that none of us ever will be. We're not, as we've been promised, 'as gods.' On the contrary, we're animals but we think we're not animals. We're products of the mud."
 ~Will Storr, Selfie: How We Became So Self-Obsessed and What It's Doing to Us 

Now I would like to just leave those words there without further comment, as I think in many ways he has hit the proverbial nail on the head. However, since in doing so, he has bent the nail a bit sideways I feel it necessary not to remain silent and thereby express my consent.

We are not products of the mud. After all, if you multiply mud times mud I am quite sure you only get mud.  (Or maybe a mud square.)

Aside from the math jokes, we are in some sense from the mud: Dust thou art and unto dust thou shalt return. However, we are more than animals. We may not yet be like gods—or at least we may not feel like gods—but we do have immortal souls and therefore are far more than animals. Yet we are still animals, influenced very much by our fleshly existence and our genetics and sometimes so much so that it seems like we have no free will at all.

Despite whether we think we believe in free will or not, we constantly act out our belief in it on a daily basis. We try to seize control of our situations whether by understanding why we feel a certain way, trying to keep our houses clean, or starting businesses or ministries to change the world.

It is as if the Ring of Power lies before us and we strive with all our might to seize it.  We are ignorant of its true meaning: that if we do indeed place it upon our finger, we shall then be bound in slavery to our greatest enemy who wants only our destruction.

 

We want to be like God. We want that power, that control, that ability to make something out of nothing.

At the same time, however, we do know our weakness and brokenness. We know we have no real control, but somehow we seek it anyway. Somehow we are not yet willing to surrender it all to the One who loves us more than we love ourselves and who knows all that was and is and ever will be. We prefer to seize power for ourselves, even knowing that it will never satisfy, and that it is in the end no more than a mirage.  This is enough for us:

"All we ever wanted was the illusion of control. But we have none, not really. And neither do the people around us who seem so intimidating in all their radiant perfection."

There is much comfort in realizing that and in knowing that we are not perfect and never will be so long as we walk this earth. In some sense, it lets us off the proverbial hook, at least if we will let ourselves off of it instead of clinging yet again to another illusionary idea of control. For a desire for perfection can itself be a desire for power and therefore a two-edged sword that will turn against us.

That is why we must let go even of that last vestige of illusion if we want to seek reality. Yet we do not always prefer the truth. We choose instead the darkness:

And this is the judgment: because the light is come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than the light: for their works were evil. (John 3:19)

Here it is we face the crux of our choice: we can will to descend into the darkness and surrender to the kingdom of evil or we can nail our will to the Cross, letting in the light and the Kingdom of God. Our will then is what matters and not our feelings of brokenness and inadequacy and hopelessness, for these are only feelings. Why they weigh us down, none can say, save the One who holds the universe in His hand and who stirs our hearts with longing for His presence, which alone can satisfy the deepest longings within us.

Mirror of the Soul

Sometimes it is far too easy to question the purpose of being an artist.  Why put hours upon hours upon hours into creating some flawed piece of writing or theatre when there are so many people starving to death across the world?  Why should I expect spending years of my life on a novel about pirates to be worth anything if I could have spent that time helping the poverty-stricken?  Why would people come to see a play I've written and produced when those in other countries are dying from martyrdom or disease?

Blessed Albert Chmielowski struggled mightily with a similar question.  He ultimately decided in favor of poverty, living with the poor in order to show them that they were loved.

Karol Wojtyla found inspiration in Blessed Albert's decision for his own journey from the arts to the priesthood and even enshrined the memory of that holy brother in a beautiful play titled Our God's Brother.  His decision led him down the path to become the much-loved Pope John Paul II.

With such mighty giants striding before, is there not great precedent for abandoning the arts for a greater call?

Yet the Church has ever encouraged the arts throughout the centuries.  If there is reason for the Church's support of art then it must be more than mere frivolity.  It must have an essential purpose—a teleological reason for existing.

It may seem odd to turn to a man who proclaimed himself an atheist for many years and whose later belief in God—if belief it was—seemed a peculiar cross between his Protestant upbringing and a study of Eastern religions, but truth is often found in strange places.  One may see the light and speak the truth without yet knowing it fully.  Without further ado, a quote from the well-known playwright:

"You use a glass mirror to see your face;

you use works of art to see your soul."

~George Bernard Shaw

There Shaw succinctly describes the reason we need art.  If we are to come to know ourselves in order that we may come to know God—the very reason for our existence—we must find somewhere a mirror to reflect back to us our very souls.  For there is found the image of God.

The artist then must delve deep, deep, deep into the darkest depths of the human heart.  If he would produce that glass that tells no lies, then he must fear nothing as he searches out the wounds of his own heart, sweeping out all the pains and evils into the light of day, hiding nothing in his creative effort.  No coward would face the discomfort of unveiling the reality hidden there.  Only a brave soul can stand face to face with the Truth.

Abandon Your Fantasies All Ye Who Enter Here

You seek for God, beloved soul, and He is everywhere, everything speaks of Him, everything offers Him to you, He walks beside you, He surrounds you and is within you.  He lives with you and yet you try to find Him.  You seek your own idea of God, although you have Him in His reality.  You seek perfection and you meet it in all that happens to you.  All you suffer, all you do, all your inclinations are mysteries under which God gives Himself to you while you are vainly straining after high-blown fancies.  God will never come to dwell with you clothed in these imaginings.

~*~

Those words from Abandonment to Divine Providence always strike me particularly, as do many passages therein.  It seems there is little to add by way of commentary, for de Caussade speaks so clearly and directly in this beautiful and mystical passage.

Perhaps in his mysticism, de Caussade speaks more to our hearts than our heads.  If so, then we must let go of our need to analyze, our desperation to know absolutely clearly, and our efforts to dissect reality into neat little labeled boxes.  Instead we must open our hearts to the presence of God who dwells within us, the presence of God who comes to us in a simple wafer of bread transubstantiated, and the Holy Spirit who whispers to us in the secret of our hearts.

In my spiritual journey, I have seen how our Lord has led me to draw nearer to Himself and to let go of all my false conceptions of who He is again and again, stripping away the layers of fantasy and bringing me back to the great and glorious reality.  Although that reality is less neat and perfect than my desires, it is ever so much more powerful and awe-inspiring.  His working truly amazes me when I can open my heart to see what my eyes cannot.