The seven deadly virtues - and pitfalls of the vernacular

My readers must be cautioned that I am rather irritable lately. In another of my characteristic, loose associations, I am recalling how my father, Sam (who died in 1997 - his statistics would undoubtedly be worse yet now), said for years that "seven out of ten people walking around are nuts." In the later years of his life, he modified this statement to "twelve out of ten are nuts - it went up." If I may be forgiven by those more adept at mathematics, I have found that Sam was quite correct - both times.

I once had a reader of the blog comment that my posts are not 'personal' enough. As I stated in my last post, I am one much to enjoy the things of the world, and highly sensual in my way, so I may not meet any common definition of 'ascetic.' Yet I indeed embraced ascetic theology - which is based on keeping things in perspective and avoiding distractions to prayer or love of God and neighbour, not on hair shirts or the cilice immortalised in Dan Brown's novels. Since true asceticism has an element of self forgetfulness - which I am far from attaining, but admire from afar nonetheless - the topic of my blog is not the very ordinary 'me.' I use anecdotes from my own experience to illustrate points, but hardly think anyone wants to know every last detail of my days.

However, if some of you 'want personal,' I'll share a series of irritating coincidences from the past few weeks. They underline traits I've seen bud, then flower, then smell like a florist shop full of dead roses, within the past thirty years or so - and they got worse the more the Internet 'self help groups' and traffic on 'self help aisles' increased. Self absorption - and that to an extent which seems to underline a total lack of the transcendental or the awareness that others are on the planet - is rampant. For reasons I've never discovered, even if I observe the manifestations regularly, many people have become both nagging busybodies and totally defensive.

I'll not go into details about the few people I met by chance in recent weeks - but it makes me wonder if being a virtual solitary might not be a blessing in more ways than those I already recognised. To give only one example, when one lady asked me about a local restaurant, and I replied that I'd never been there (meaning I therefore had no idea of their quality and the like), she lapsed into a defence as if I'd condemned dining out, and assured me that she never eats out and always brought a packed lunch all the years she was employed. I've studied logic in many varieties, but still am trying to grasp why my never having been to a particular eating spot is a general condemnation of dining out (which I love, by the way.) With my having, as Sam would say, 'book learning but not the ways of the world,' I honestly but idiotically said that I dine out rarely only because I am of limited income. Wrong move! The next question was "then what did you pay for that perm?" (Huh?... Oh, yes. I keep forgetting, having had it from birth, that no one has naturally curly hair...)

That's only one of numerous examples - and I chose it because, being silly, it is harmless. But those with whom I had this pattern of defensive talk were getting me wound into a knot! I was not criticising them or anyone, but it seemed every word I said led to a defence.

Of course, much as I pine for a pulpit or lectern from which to lecture, this jarred memories of how the 'defence mode,' often one with elements of rage that puzzle me, can thwart the best efforts to speak of ascetic theology, church history, even liturgy. That's a huge area to treat, so I'll just use the virtues as an example today. (...groaning at how moral and ascetic theology offend some on principle, because it proves elitism in assuming that mankind is somehow superior to non-human animals... )

There's nothing new, of course, in that theological terms can be confusing for two major reasons. First, as is true in many fields, frequently a term which has a specific meaning in theological or philosophical use can have a drastically different sense in vernacular usage. Second, even those who should have known what the term really meant twisted the meaning! I well remember when a prominent (and verbose) parishioner complained when a brilliant preacher whom I know mentioned Jesus' humility. I would not have expected a protest - I had expected that Jesus might be assumed to be perfect in all virtues... But the outraged loud-mouth seemed to be confusing the true meaning of humility (truth... and, I must add, seeing ourselves as we are in the sight of God - which, considering the deification we have through Jesus' Incarnation, is rather glorified indeed) with self abasement or being worthy of horrid humiliation (...He indeed did have that in the crucifixion, but I'll save that for another time. It isn't the meaning of humility.)

I was telling a friend recently (in a conversation that had a larger context - it is not that I use social occasions to preach!) that I myself have always struggled with envy. (My 'regulars' will know how brilliant I thought James Alison's treatment of that topic to be.) I meant it in a different sense than my friend saw - she was in a professional group where women are encouraged to 'envy' of another sort, because wanting to achieve what others have can motivate them to accomplishment.

It seems to me that any virtue one mentions today could lead to someone's being enraged. I sadly remember the 'workshops,' articles, rallies, whatever, that spurred women to consider rage to be a virtue back in the 1970s - when belligerent 'assertiveness training' meant biting off someone's head to prove one could not be belittled. One who had dedicated her life to loving service was suddenly informed she had been an indentured servant. Missionaries in what now would be called the third world were horrid sorts who imposed an alien culture by bringing the message of Christ.

I know the meaning of anger, believe me! And I've bit my lip at sexism on many occasions (not because I fear talking, which I'm sure is obvious, but because I don't want to say things I'll later regret.) Yet injustice can poison us - as can hearing something which has an element of truth, perhaps, but is highly exaggerated. We can start to believe it is true if the presenter is persuasive enough.

Think of all of the names of the virtues... and I'll not even need to explain why these glorious gifts all would be considered offensive by someone or other today.