Sunday, August 17, 2003

 
Forming the Person

Some time back, I was doing research at the old Alma Mater, a very prominent West Coast university. The campus, which was a beautiful hodgepodge of old, new, half finished, and temporary when I was there, is now nearly perfect, speaking strictly in aesthetic terms. The shapeless mass of lawn and buildings that used to be the library area has been sculpted into a "library quad" with careful landscaping. Smack in the center of it is a coffee pagoda. At least, that what it looks like to me: a vaguely Japanese hut nestled in among the towering trees. It is a sign of the times, and not necessarily a good one, that college students who get Starbucks coffee in their cafeteria as part of their meal plan stop on the way to class and spend an extra two or three dollars for a very good cup of coffee from Moonbeam (the actual name of the pagoda, as if in honor of Jerry Brown).

One morning, I got my usual latte. To get to the seats, if there is a line, you have to cut through it, which is what I tried to do at the point that seemed most logical. There was a young lady at that spot, and it would not have required even a half step on her part to let me through. So I said "excuse me," and made as if to go through. Only I couldn't. Instead of letting me through, the woman turned to block my way and glared at me with a threatening smile. She didn't talk to me or otherwise recognize my existence. A second's reflection told me that she was actively stopping me, so I went around another way, sorry that I could not come up with a cuttring remark on the spot.

Clearly, this young lady had made her choice, a choice common at this university: to squeeze the most out of every encounter. She had no doubt practiced such maneuvers carefully, as part of a training in which she would declare her dominance at any point that she could. By age, I would guess she was an undergraduate, but she already dressed the part of a law student, and it was not difficult to guess her basic career plan.


Now, one of those things that Christians used to understand, but don't seem to remember, is that you cannot just conjure the perfect life into existence by willing it to be. You have to practice it. Virtue is not something you read about, assent to, and then do. It is something you must practice. The traditional Catholic terminology for this is formation: you are formed as a person, not willed into existence. The self-help books almost universally involve willing yourself into perfection, but you only have to spend time in any modern office to understand that this approach leads to neurosis more than anything else. The practice of virtue, not just self-control, is something else entirely.

One of the most challenging books of Catholic literature in the last 100 years is Brideshead Revisited, by Evelyn Waugh. It is a fictional recounting of his own conversion to Catholicism, including oblique references to the sexual misadventures that taught him about the futility of certain kinds of endeavor and the nature of the Gospel. Indeed, the last few pages are a beautiful expression of the relationship of Christianity to "high" culture.

The book was made into a stunning TV series in the early 1980's. I still feel that many of the episodes are among the greatest things ever put on television. And the original broadcasts were followed by a series of discussions, led by the redoubtable William F. Buckley, Jr. And at one point, one of the panelists quoted from a letter by Waugh, in which he discussed one of the main characters, an aristorcratic Catholic woman whose neuroses have driven the family far and wide. "She is not a good person, but she is a good Christian," wrote Waugh. To which a Pentacostal friend from a working class background responded, "that's not possible."

He was right. Evalyn Waugh, while a brilliant writer, was a very difficult person. Despite his prickly personality, he felt free to comment on moral questions great and small. His son, Auberon, recounts an incident following World War II. Fresh fruit, being an import to Britain, was very rare, and the government rationed it strictly. Each family got one piece of fruit per child per week. The Waughs had three children, including Auberon. And one night, Mrs. Waugh dutifully peeled the three pieces of fruit and served them to Evalyn, who ate them in front of the children for whom they were intended. It was at that point, said Auberon, that he ceased to consider his father an authority of any sort on moral questions. I am afraid I side with Auberon, and with my Pentacostal friend. You cannot be a good Christian and a bad person.

The young lady in the coffee line understood a very basic truth, and stuck to it: you have to practice the way you are going to be.

For the Christian that means being like Christ. You cannot rudely cut other people off in conversation, you cannot brush aside other people as irrelevant, you cannot dismiss their tastes and their likes, and then hope when a "real" test comes to prove an angel. Those day to day encounters are the real test.

"He that is faithful in that which is least is faithful in much."

Who were you rude to today?
posted by A Mind That Suits 4:22 PM