What Would a Unicorn Do?

On Got Medieval, there was a 'contest' back in July to see what seven words readers would come up with to describe the Middle Ages. The origin of the idea, which is described here, was a disheartening day in class when the new crop of students was asked to free-associate their way to a picture of the era. They came up with 'knights, knights, knights,' 'other knights,' and 'things about knights,' basically, and the writer of the blog uses the story on social occasions to set others at ease when they start to apologize, upon hearing his profession, for their lack of knowledge about Ye Olde Medieval Tymes.

I don't think it's particularly odd that nobody here knows anything about the Middle Ages, because I would imagine most people at cocktail parties would be equally hard pressed to come up with much about the Renaissance, or the Enlightenment. (...Uh, Luther, yeah, Martin Luther!, em, art! there was lots and lots of art! The Crusades! no, em, no, those big skirts with the hoops in them? no, wait.) I may sound more generally pessimistic than is warranted, perhaps, but I will give him this: I do think the Middle Ages probably are a more complete void in most people's understanding of history than are other periods. Before reading his account, though, I hadn't really thought about how thoroughly jousting, heraldry, and ladies-in-waiting with long pointy hats encapsulated the era for most.

The lazy explanation is that it's down to The Media, since any film set in that time tends to have Chain Mail in the leading role, with horses, maidens, and scrofulous serfs filling in the gaps. But if after watching Le Weekend I don't feel I have a complete understanding of 20th-century French history, is that really Godard's fault?

Still, the reality is that most Americans think that, like, nothing happened in Western civ for ten centuries or so. Other than the Black Plague and jousting, that is. Plato or somebody died, and then everyone went to sleep - in really dirty clothes - until da Vinci, or maybe Martin Luther woke them up. (At which time, of course, they then wore hoop skirts and codpieces and really ugly hats with buckles on them and everyone had syphilis.)

But, although the whole thing makes me sad, as does the idea that his (very hilarious) blog gets lots of hits from people looking for sexy chainmail pictures, I like to think of what my list would be, and it was fun to read other lists, because it shows how unique our own perspectives or prejudices are. I would probably put:
-neo-Platonism
-monasticism/orders
-Norman Conquest
-Sacking of Constantinople
-East/West
-books
-The Church

There's repetition, and there's no form of 'music,' or 'law' or even 'Law,' but I think if you take what themes I do have, you end up with those anyway, and much more besides. I suppose you could just say 'The Church' and come up with my whole list incidentally, not to mention unicorns and guys in chainmail, but with a book-banning vice-presidential candidate, I can only muster so much self-loathing.

Hopeless Causes, Claretians, and Charisms

'La caridad me urge, me impele, me obliga a gritar.' -St. Antonio Maria Claret

'You will find something more in woods than in books. Trees and stones will teach you that which you can never learn from masters.' - St. Bernard of Clairvaux

'To reach something good it is very useful to have gone astray, and thus acquire experience.' - St. Teresa of Avila

'Arm yourself with prayer rather than a sword; wear humility rather than fine clothes.' - St. Dominic



With all that being said, in regards to my statement in the last post about there being no one-fits-all spirituality, I do not mean to say that some truths cannot be universal, nor either that admiring and utilizing elements of other traditions is inherently wrong or fatuous. But trading one inadequately-investigated tradition for superficial adherence to another, one set of misapprehended truths for another yet more confusing system, is every bit as goofy as Chesterton makes it sound. Familiarity is a no more sufficient basis for renouncing a spiritual tradition than it is for divorcing a spouse or vowing never again to read Dostoevsky or eat ice cream.

Augustine defended his use of Plotinus by likening it to the Jews taking the gold out of Egypt, and varied things from different sources may have especial resonance to individual seekers. What is necessary when confronted with all these sparkling jewels is a determined refusal either to make lead out of them or to appropriate what seems convenient or commonsensical while gravely mistaking its essence.

In that vein, there are as many different spiritualities available within Catholicism as there are Catholics. John Dunne, John Dear, John Main, and the fourteenth-century Dominican John Tauler have not only the same name but a shared focus on contemplation and meditation that would not be entirely unfamiliar to a real Buddhist. Martin de Porres, Vincent de Paul, Francis of Assisi, Oscar Romero, Dorothy Day, Antonio Claret, Cesar Chavez, Jean Vanier, and Simone Weil can give anyone a good start who wishes he could combine his love of the poor and the suffering with his love of God.

And this is where the saints come in. There are two primary ways to look at the saints. One is as Friends of God. They did so well in this lifetime that they have God's ear in the next, so while you are praying to God directly that the Red Sox please, please, please take the pennant this time, you can also suggest to St. Jude that this may be the sort of hopeless case worthy of his attention as an advocate. If you are struggling in school, you can ask a brilliant scholar like Aquinas to help you along, or you can petition someone who battled the same challenges to at least give you the courage to keep plugging away diligently.

The other way to see them is as Heroes for Grownups. Saints can indeed be intimidating: they were saints, after all, and we are probably not. But each is as memorable for what he or she overcame as for what s/he accomplished, and meditating on those struggles is often where we can gain the most. They were also individuals, with distinct tendencies and temperaments, walking very different paths toward union, and just as we feel greater sympathy toward particular people we meet in daily life, so, too, will different saints' stories seem more or less apropos of our own journeys, strivings, and weaknesses.

I don't know why people are scared of saints. I think particularly if we refuse to idolize them, to make them into something they were not (i.e., perfect), we can see in their examples how far a small, flawed, and eminently human being - possibly a human being who shared some of our own fears and failures - can get in this life by not letting those fears and weaknesses surmount him.

'There is something in humility

which strangely exalts the heart.' -St. Augustine

Just to bring humility, tolerance, and the common limits of our human understanding more fully into this rant about arrogance, bigotry, and factionalism, here is a quote about science and religion from turn-of-the(other)-century Muslim scholar Mustafa al-Maraghi. I want to use a Muslim because about as many Christians as atheists consider them unschooled and indelicate of thought, and also because the Muslim's relationship to the Qur'an as revealed rather than written, unchanging, untranslatable, and truly as the Word Inlibrate, is of a quite different order from other traditions' belief in and veneration for their own holy books. (In other words, I guess I conceive of this as the strong form of the argument to which other traditions could likewise accede in moderated form ?)

'True religion cannot conflict with truth, and when we are positively convinced of the truth of any scientific remark which seems to be incompatible with Islam, this is only because we do not understand correctly the Qur'an and the traditions. In our religion, we possess a universal teaching which declares that, when an apodeictic truth contradicts a revealed text, we have to interpret the text allegorically.'

Such a stance wisely refuses to conflate a holy book with a science text, to demand from one what it can never give and what, moreover, the other was explicitly designed to provide. It also places what might be an unsettling responsibility on the reader to read his book as well as the natural world carefully -- but this should be unsettling only if you find using rationality in your pursuit of wisdom and truth ignoble. For me, it points again to the need to recognize our limitations: there is much that each of us will never understand in this lifetime. Even if you don't believe there is one who is omniscient, it is pretty clear that humans are not. And a stinky-type atheist might do well to recognize that he is as limited in his understand as both the stinky and the thinky believers.