Wednesday, September 30, 2009

Living our Christianity

I came upon a good quote I'd like to share. It's from the Jesuit Henri de Lubac:

"In the last analysis, what is needed is not a Christianity that is more virile, or more efficacious, or more heroic, or stronger; it is that we should live our Christianity with more virility, more efficacy, more strength, and if necessary, more heroism -- but we must live it as it is. There is nothing that should be changed in it, nothing that should be added (which does not mean however, that there is not a continual need to keep its channels from silting up); it is not a case of adapting it to the fashion of the day. [The Christian faith] must come into its own again in our souls. We must give our souls back to it." (Quoted in Archbishop Chaput's book, "Render Unto Caesar", p. 108-109.)

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

"Julie and Julia" and Narcissism

I saw the film "Julie and Julia" a few nights back. It was very entertaining, especially Meryl Streep's performance as Julia Child. The movie raises an issue that has often troubled me. For those who don't know the story, Julie is a frustrated author and amateur chef who decides to seek fulfillment through blogging about her project to cook her way through Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" in the course of a year, 524 recipes in 365 days. She gets a little too obsessed with it all. At one point her husband accuses her of thinking that she is "the center of the universe", and that the fans of her blog will commit mass suicide if she neglects to post one day. So here I am, blogging away, wondering, "Isn't there something essentially narcissistic in all this?" I mean, I try to avoid the use of the first person singular pronoun as much as possible (this post and the previous one are exceptions!), but even so there is a subtext, sometimes rising to the level of conscious thought, but often not, that says, "See how clever I am! I have such interesting insights, such original ideas!"

As I grow older I become more and more convinced that humility is the key to all the virtues and an unshakable foundation for happiness in this world and the next. By humility I primarily mean forgetfulness of self. The narcissism that infects our culture is a major reason why so many people are so unhappy today. And I'm not immune. Anyway, I struggle with that. Pray for my soul!

Monday, September 21, 2009

Christina Lake

Well, I'm back blogging again after a lengthy hiatus that included a relocation from one end of the country to the other: from St. John's, Newfoundland to the little town of Christina Lake in south central British Columbia, an area known as the West Kootenays, to be more precise. The family owns beachfront property at the southern end of the lake. Sitting on our deck, my view of the water is framed by two weeping willows. They were saplings when my father planted them, back in the fifties when he acquired the property, but they are immense things now. The trunks are close to fifty feet apart, yet the upper branches of the two trees almost touch. In front of the one on the east there is a small garden, and buried in that garden is an urn containing my mother's ashes (God rest her soul). That's where she wanted to be. For us, that is sacred ground.

I love to sit out on the desk just at the hour when evening is fading into night. That's when the bats come out. Fascinating, extraordinary creatures! Some of them spend the daylight hours under the eaves of our house or the tiles of our roof. I've never seen them up there, but they leave an unmistakable sign of their presence on our deck below, which I dutifully sweep away in the morning.

And then full night comes on, and when the weather is clear, the sky is a panoply of cold sparks. There's Ursa Major, the North Star, Cassiopeia, a thousand thousand other stars and constellations whose names I never learned, all seeming about to break into song from sheer exuberance of being. The night sky is closer, more alive here than anywhere else I've ever lived.