I Am Suspect

For all who decry the modern state.

We sell ourselves as subversive, incisive, even revolutionary, the new intelligentsia. And there is yet a grain of truth.

When we take to the blog interface, we know we have something to argue, something to condemn, some flag to hoist in triumph. We pound and eviscerate the dreadful, outrageous falsehoods of contemporary culture, raging to get to a point. We clash and bang and make a scene. But what is left after all of our brilliant syllogisms have been arrayed upon the Thyestean table for us and our friends to feast upon.

We are more of the judge and less of the critic, more of the hangman than the priest.

We all agree it is easier to find a problem than to solve it. We even agree to solving it. We come to council, say "Aye, this can't go on", and go our ways to fill the world with justice. But sensationalism and vituperation usually take its place.

Marc Barnes writes of an ubiquitous internet humor that compromises the agency of our statements: "The Internet-writer gathers page-views by writing in the ironic, depersonalized spirit of anonymity that characterizes the online aesthetic, as if his work was simply burped up from the bowels of the Internet itself, bearing no relation to a subjective personality." This humor is harmful in many ways, one being that, while the outside truth or "fact" to which we refer may be valid, its manner of presentation is usually flippant, caustic, provocative, rude -- funny only to those who agree with us. We say, "Oh my gosh, look how stupid this is", and go about our day as if everyone has now reached a consensus from our ability to strip someone naked and leave them there in shame. Moreover, we assume that we offer up an absolute, that for a challenge to arise would be ignorant and insulting -- "What do you MEAN you don't agree? Are you stupid?"

While such antics may be cloaked in the trappings of the most witty and popular social commentary, and while the presentation may involve excellent turns of phrase, incomparably precise diction, infallible logic, the result remains the same: a great and terrible fallacy has only been disproved (occasionally, one adds a final line to the effect of "don't be like this").

But what are these social ills? What is the object of our fast-flying fingers over cacophonous plastic keys a million miles away from the source of our righteous glee? Do we lurch in our seats, sighing, wishing we could be present to make an end of such evil, to see it resolved? Is it not caused by humanity? Are we not responsible?

Are we gods that walk with heedless adamant heels through the stinking crowds of sniveling mortals? We are as bad as that, and not so smart and edgy as we believe. Intelligence lies in winning the opponent to love and truth. The purpose of argument is its opposite.

But the parts we often play fall short of beneficent:

• Toward our opponents -- the surgeon who removes a leg to cure an abscess. 
• Toward our friends -- the parent who so desperately desires the love of her child that she gives him cake when he requires meat.

Our unfortunate instinct drives us to crave shock and awe for savoring, horror for indulgence, absurdity for mocking, and indignation for pleasure in pride. As the mitigators of instinct, it is nothing short of shameful for us to inspire these feelings in our readers for the sake of a few more page-views. This is a sort of prostitution, where we forsake the dignity of our subjects for fickle fame or an extra buck. God knows the various exigencies that may drive one into desperation, but if we are to be genuine lovers of mankind, our word must mirror reality. And reality is not so near as we pointedly surmise in verbose denigrations of our opposition.

The reality of love is a far more difficult endeavor and a far deeper intellectual matter. To leave the flock for the lost one is to place oneself open to attack, critique by one's friends, humiliation and floundering, shame, depression, and the low esteem of all. You may find that you are wrong.

But the jewel of it is a heart won by trial -- and not "won" to our cause, but to a greater.

When we are challenged aggressively with stimulating fervor from another social force, do we not wish to respond in kind, to challenge in return with hard and fast impenetrable rebuttal? And what is gained? One may exercise and solidify his own suppositions, but have either traded any wisdom. Do we not dash ourselves to pieces against a wall?

Moreover, when we do engage debate on Facebook or in infamous comment sections, we often retreat to the blogosphere to save our pride. We present the refined oration to our friends for their praise. In doing so, we discriminate. We say that "only your opinion, your esteem is valuable to me, but as for you others, go back to the shadow". We, cowards, enhance our reputation in the dusty archives of presupposed assent, and Truth gets bored with us, until it decides to leave our intolerable company.

Subtlety, then, and not a subtlety of cleverness, an underhandedness, but a subtlety in truth that becomes an ancillary virtue to love of one's enemies -- this is to be sought. I think of no better names than Mother Theresa (who would deny her?), Ghandi even -- success lies in truth, but truth is integral to the approach, not distinct from it. Words that attempt to express some eternal verity in incendiary or even mildly hurtful language can not.

The truth is absent from self-righteous declamation, from rabble-rousing, from flag-waving. And it is not the reserved quest of poetry to seek beauty. Beauty is for the world. If what we say is beautiful, and how we say it, then who can forget us? Against true beauty there is no defense, for it, too, is love.

Therefore let us speak as we believe. Enemies are friends, and if they are not, then we are the enemy. Let friends be enemies if they choose: let them make up their minds for themselves without the distraction of glitz and furor.

Let us go about our vocation as determined as the hermit, as fastidious as the theologian, as just as the critic -- let us make his reputation so.

The Fight and Flight of Street Art

In Poland. By Natalia Rak.

As a rule, respectable people are inclined to think of street art as vandalism, and in many cases they are right to do so. For the most part, they are thinking of graffiti in its depictions of gang signs, obscenities, or general absurd ugliness or mundanity: "The Dell," "Klue," "F*ck what they think," etc. We are apt to judge objects by their worst traits, as we do each other.

But, primarily suburbanites, we offer ourselves little exposure to the world. The graffiti we encounter is generated by those not so unlike ourselves as we like to think -- suburbanites, perhaps disgruntled teens or young adults who just need to shout and get out.

In the cities, the centers of business and the pretentious avant-garde, where the battle for the soul rages more fiercely and the opposing voices clash and shatter against one another, there is a presence that knows it cannot reach its audience with mere mediocrity or annoyance. It knows that it must put up a fight to be seen, to be felt, and to transform. Extraordinary and intrusive -- it can be no less.

In Lodz, Poland. By ETAM Cru.

Beyond the merely sexy and suggestive, beyond the mere representation of culture or its values as they stand, there are some artists who are weaving a new tale, telling a new story, teaching by gift, service.

Such beautiful, complex works of art on the building walls are the artists' heart on a plate. One does not destroy such things unless through guilt, self-hatred, agony -- and such marks (such cuts on the face of Our Lady of Częstochowa, for instance) are the sign of a war on beauty, a war on the self.

But why is the "vandalism" of graffiti necessary? It is not "necessary," per se, but imminent, just as the destruction of countries, cities, lives is imminent in any war. Modernity made its war on the person long ago, and street art fights back with love. The world tears out her hair, and he crowns her head with flowers to assuage the loss. Street art now is a true revolt. It is the mother who, suffering, says no to the child.

It is true that many artists today, more than ever, are isolated within their world. The selective social media that effectively operates our daily lives makes sure of this. But the artist does not want to be seen by other artists only. Even more than this, he must not be seen by other artists only. The artist is for the world. Like Christ, he draws when there is nothing left to say, even if he must draw in the sand, or on a concrete slab.

One of Andre Amador's Playa Paintings

The hardened law is what must be broken, taught, and with such non-aggression as a flower in its gun barrel, a sad human face on its corporate morgue.

The world was made of and for color, light, play, and passion deep as the blue of the deepest sea. And to combat it with handcuffs or paint-overs is to bend the natural law and to hasten one's own death. The cities need "illicit" art because they have become dungeons. And even art that hangs limp on gallery walls can suffer the glare of the evaluative modern mind. Churn, spit, rotate -- that is our definition of sophistication. And when the museum-infected red square #24 plays in service of that mind, laying out a sea of blood to be filled with the self's own manufactured ideals of libertinism and commerce ... it too has gone to the gallows and hung itself.

Lodz, Poland. The site of a wondrous artistic phenomenon. Murals of gigantic proportions appear in panoply upon the broadsided buildings throughout the city, with subjects ranging from the grotesque to the pastoral -- all done with skill. And, strangely enough, embraced unreservedly.

by Aryz

From the Huffington Post: "The public/private partnership and the addition of the artwork has attracted business and investment, and of course urban exploring tourists who can follow a map to see the works within a couple of hours. As a model for employing the talents of street artists to create public art in service of the re-invigoration of a city, this one appears to be very successful at respecting the work while adding value to a neighborhood, district, city, and community." (Full article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jaime-rojo-steven-harrington/large-murals-transform-lodz_b_3428241.html)

The immediate subject of all art is life, regardless of what is portrayed. It is a commentary and a question, an appeal and a message. It should always inspire the sort of activity mentioned in the above article. Unfortunately, it often encounters a different response:

In Greenpoint, NY. By Banksy.

Thanks be to God, the same intelligent minds whose art is destroyed in the service of an arbitrary and disjointed sense of order know just how to respond. When small arms fail, send a missile.

In London, England

by Banksy

As Banksy says, "Some people become cops because they want to make the world a better place. Some people become vandals because they want to make the world a better-looking place."

I am certainly not promoting unrestrained hooliganism, nor am I condemning the justified burial of offensive material -- unless it offends for the right reason. One retains one's right to his property if he is a good steward of it. For instance, the Lodz venture might be considered good stewardship: if you find yourself in possession of a great ugly gray block of concrete, it is a good decision to fill it with something beautiful. 

However, if you place your animal in insufferable conditions ... or you do the same to humanity by denying its better voices, you have lost your rights. You are a failure as a steward to the earth, and what is government but an appointed steward to act for the best interests of humanity. At this point, someone else must assume the throne. And authority is not given the steward to deny the return of the king.

In "The Duty of Society to the Artist," E.M. Forster provides a helpful illustration of the conversation between an artist who wishes to paint a mural and a city official. The city official is very happy to pay the artist, but wants to know exactly what the artist shall paint (for it must, of course, thinks the official, be of service, of usefulness, to the state). The artist does not know what he shall paint. He needs to begin. He needs to create, experiment. He is not an engineer or a chemist. He is an artist, and the artist makes out of love, not out of mere design. His creations do not have a purpose, per se, but a meaning. They are not schemes, but the story of life itself, manifesting the reflective nature of man toward himself and the cosmos. They are appeals to the deepest and truest sensibilities of human nature, and thus allow the elusive Real to be actualized as the imagination takes hold and seeks to make itself like unto beauty.

But the city official shakes his head. He does not understand, nor does he care. He is a vandal, unknowing.

We can do with no more vandals. Plenty of vandals have made our love run cold, placed it under fire of scientism's laser beams. I say let the love pour out upon the city streets. Let the snowy-capped mountains be moved to the weirdly Mordor-esque towers of New York and Chicago. Let Banksy be Banksy. His money's where his mouth is and he can bank with mine anytime (with some -- or many --reservations, of course). 

At least let the artists go back to the streets without timidity. Art is to be seen, remarked upon, rejected if need be. But it must be seen. 

Go out and make fishers of men. Go out and be praised and shamed, for is this not your calling, the very essence of your work? Its public nature, its communal nature? Go out and paint the stars back into the sky. Go and replant trees in the most unjungled of concrete jungles; remain to water the feeble saplings. Go out and paint icons of the kings of men, and dare the world to mutilate its very face. Go out and dare. Go out and make fishers of men.

Bydgoszcz, Poland. Mural by Pener and Sepe.

I. Trois Couleurs: Bleu

Krzysztof Kieslowski

For quite a long while, I have been putting off these posts on Kieslowski's Three Colors trilogy. Perhaps this is because they are so dear to me that I hesitate to touch them lest their significance be lost in too ponderous and compact a thought.

Regardless, I have made my disclaimer, and so refuse to accept any blame for the comments that follow. They are meant as a guide, or a jump-start, to contemplation of what must be privileged the name of masterworks.

It is held that these films are themed according to the values of the French Revolution: liberté, egalité, fraternité. And while said values are expressed in these films far better and in far purer a manner than was within the capability of those revolutionaries, themes of human sorrow, love, loneliness, regretted revenge, and great joy are also compellingly portrayed in Kieslowski's characters. As Kieslowski himself stated, "The words [liberté, egalité, fraternité] are French because the money is French. If the money had been of a different nationality we would have titled the films differently, or they might have had a different cultural connotation. But the films would probably have been the same." (Wikipedia)

Just as there may be found the themes mentioned above, there may also be found the traditional elements that make a story in film: plot continuity, character development, appropriate setting and costume.

Yes, there is a story in Bleu. It is the potent tragedy of a female musical genius who loses both the husband she made famous and her young, innocent daughter in an automobile accident.

However, just as the capricious human element forces the film to transcend its presumed themes, the dynamics of music and color accentuate those archetypal human compulsions so that the film transcends a particular plot, a particular character -- while yet retaining the indispensable characteristics of particularity. We are conscious, ever, that we are watchers, that even Julie is a watcher, a voyeur, of her own daily life, a tableau of the cosmic fable of which she too is a part -- the giant, the miniscule at times overwhelming each other, but always interpenetrating.

Bleu is a display of this participation. We are meant to understand that the score is composed by Julie herself. And yet the score plays throughout the film, as if pre-existent, ever-present. It is outside and inside. It is also outside and inside of Julie's ownership. There is a man who plays the recorder in the streets of Paris; he plays her music -- or they play a common music. She asks him how he knows it: "I like to play. I make up lots of things."

Moreover, the cosmic purview of the music -- or the great silence to which it gives birth -- enhances the intensity of every particular emotion, every personal encounter, every knock on the door at night. Even Julie seems aware of its rare effect, and appears at once detached and submerged in the flights and plunges of agonized self-isolation, passionate self-destruction. She seems intuitively aware of the spiritual significance of suffering, in a fashion -- at least aware that it is leading onward to something, and this is why she does not complete her attempted suicide.

Onward and onward to the purge of loss, a heart speared and quivering. And strangely finds peace in the knowledge of her husbands affair.

She is not so indebted, not so deeply bound by ties of identity. The relationship between husband and wife is revealed to be less than she had perceived -- and so she is more of the heroic composer of great music than she had created in her husband -- he detached with the lover, he only a face, a name, she the reality.

In the beginning, after her release from the hospital, she seeks out a colleague who keeps the record of her music, and destroys the only known copy, but in a strange foreshadowing, the music continues.

By chance, Julie catches a glimpse of television, where her husband's colleague (Olivier, who is and has been in love with her) is being interviewed concerning his attempt to finish the incomplete composition. (Another copy has been kept -- "one cannot destroy something so beautiful.")

After the interview, photographs are displayed on the screen of her husband (Patrice) and his lover, of whom she had theretofore been ignorant. In this strange moment of ... grace, if you will, both she and her music are freed in some way -- she from a portion of grief, the music from its limbo of spousal ties beyond the grave. The old is not lost, but a new life can begin -- Julie awakens to a frustration with Olivier for presuming to attempt the fulfillment of so great a work of art freighted with such personal memory. She sets out to stop him, but instead hears him out.

She helps him to understand the beauty, the strain. A new thing is formed. What is broken is renewed, and the human story is woven with a new complexity, hence a new beauty.

"I may speak with every tongue that men and angels use; yet, if I lack charity ..."

I simply insist that you hear the soundtrack. You will live ... better. ... I certainly have. The film is part of the ostentatious Criterion Collection, and therefore may be found on hulu. Alternatively,

:)

Enjoy. Tell me about it.

Thoughts Concerning Homosexuality

Boys (game boy) -- Kuzma Ptrov-Vodkin, 1911

Note: I have deleted the second and third parts of this post, as, while relevant to American society in general, they were not appropriate within the context of this blog, whose primary mission is to highlight the artistic forces at work in the Transfiguration of culture.

I am not appalled or disgusted by homosexuality with any particularly strong sentiment. There are many other faults that I find more disturbing, and these include sexual faults, sins, such as rape, molestation, sexual obsession.

Homosexuality, in fact, has a very logical place in our current society. It is the most intuitive sin for our times. It fits in the setting like an atheist mega-church.

Among all the other enticing and frustrating vices, to me it most closely resembles gluttony. We see that this Quail Pot Pie (for instance, you know) happens to have the most pleasurable appearance and rich fragrance we could ever imagine, and so we take two scrumptious bites ... and cannot resist devouring its entirety, after which we feel overfull, immobile, and regretful.

In my own experiences with homosexual attraction, I have found that quite the same case unfolds after a particularly indulgent mental fantasy. A close friendship may provide the perfect circumstance for imperfection, and when friendly affection becomes erotic attraction, one has not quite reached the boundary.

Yes, I believe that eros can exist between two males without sin. Eros can occur when a sort of mild mating of minds occurs, when two young men -- or perhaps women -- recognize in each other, as Anne (with an "e") would say, "kindred spirits". They come so close as to observe in each other that beauty that God hid deep in the heart, only waiting to flower before loving eyes.

Boys playing soldiers -- Francisco Goya, 1779

Yet this eros can lead too far if left unpruned ... just as it can in any relationship between man and woman. In either situation, eros may lead to a lust to have for one's own gratification. Conversely, it may lead, in either situation, to a greater love, a profounder care.

But whereas the fulfillment of love between males lies in the exchange of that saccharine fume for brotherly gaiety and the camaradarie of arms, a unique love unto itself, the fulfillment of love between man and woman bursts into a more complex passion of familial trinitarianism.

But this mystery is lost upon us. We are, after all, the most singularly selfish nation on the face of the planet.

The Austin Institute recently released a video about the "Economics of Sex." In a few fundamental ways, it hits the nail on the head. In other ways, it is deeply flawed.

The head-hitting of Austin's hammer lies in its estimation that American men can bide their time when it comes to marriage. They are in no hurry, having the upper hand in such a sparse arena. They may experiment, demand probationary periods of sexual trial. In such an arena, why would a man find interest in a woman at all (besides the merely carnal sense-probing)?

The women who wish to marry but concede to modern values when it comes to courtship are precisely the sort of sell-outs that no one likes (I am not defending the men ... just making a rhetorical point). They are the sort that are just following lower instincts in an unconscious sort of way -- somehow secure a mate, give birth, raise the next generation.

On the other hand are the Miltonic Eve-like loners, who want to assert their man-womanness because it was the latest and greatest forbidden fruit of the last century (getting old, no?). Do they have respect for the flabby gamers who somehow wear masculine genitalia? About as much as they have for the homemaker who stays up later, gets up earlier, and works harder than they do.

Nevertheless, the pant suit is more impressive than the gamer's thumb. Why would a busy, clean-cut businesswoman look twice at the mediocre-but-approximately-marriageable oaf?

The point is that the sexes are no longer interested in each other. They have had quite a quarrel that has faded to an icy indifference over the course of two fateful centuries, and it is harder and harder to go back. No, it is impossible. And no one can see the way forward.

Why would Mr. Matt Walsh point out the self-victimization of the gay rights agenda? Because it fits right in with homosexuality itself. Homosexuality is a manifestation of the inward turning of the genders, the upraising of the "we" of males or the "we" of females that will one day be a silent chorus of solitary "Is".

Man looks inward and praises his strength, his flaxen hair, his handsome angularity, his quick and sharp wit that translates into powerful and protective romance. What luscious libido! What godliness! What need has he for the women who have brushed him off for love of the capacities only he will ever retain? They can keep their shoulder pads and pixie cuts. And the girly girls that are left ... well, we'll be best friends, because we've both been hurt and will always be hurt if the world remains unchanged.

The camaraderie of failing men has become a flamboyant and resentful self-love. Of course it has. What else could it have become? How else to protect a wounded dignity?

There are, of course, many more reasons for the phenomena of homosexuality, but I have proffered some cultural causes that I find relevant. I look forward to your comments.

The Savage

I recently shared midday meals and time with strangers during a training course near the Gulf coast in Texas that I attended for work. As the training involved a supposedly "universal" incident management program, there were individuals present from both government agencies and private industry.

On the second day, I shared lunch with one man, a trainer in operations with the army. He was stationed in the area. And soon I realized that neither of us were sitting at that table for any particular reason.

He had been in California, Louisiana, Kansas, New York. I had been in Louisiana, North Carolina -- these for birth and family, education and joy. To Texas came I for sustenance, which in this State (i.e. the U.S.A.), must come from money.

After lunch we sat in my car, waiting through the 2-hour period so irregular for us, perhaps not so for the others, who were public servants. Like me, one of his enjoyments is music in the Irish tradition. We both know of Julie Fowlis.

Yet as we sat and spoke of music -- and listened -- I could not dispel the feeling that neither of us were at all capable of interesting the other. Neither of us were at all capable of engagement, cordiality, connection.

"Yes, I know this artist you speak of. Do you know this one?" And a dry exchange ensues.

He had a humility and honesty about his eyes and speech, but perhaps the iciness of Statism or the gray sky or the cold unshakeable tool of capitalism that makes its will ever known to our fears came like a silent wave and shook our plastic & leather capsule til we were subdued and wanted escape -- not from the truth but from the reminder of the truth in a man's eyes, heart, tongue.

Here in Houston, we are all killers. On the roads, we are seldom hot and angry, just full metal coolness and murder. To every man a compensatory pick-up truck. But the object dissipates as we climb into our vehicles and the desire to inflict upon mad drivers the panic only comprehended as hatred overthrows the possibility of temporal despair. And we are all lost in the welling hell.

Once back to the plastic and leather capsule of our holes, we dive into the filtering shell that seems to be an outlet but really is a thief in saving us from saving harm.

And paradoxically, you should watch The Matrix and try with good will to see how we are hastening the loss of the human. And paradoxically I will write on, aware of the death clinging to my words unless you let them live.

I do not want the grace of doctrine. If my mind is free, but every act refutes its call to free my body, my mind is in chains.

I want not to be a slave. I do not want my fruit taken with assumed justice unless I see it's worth the price. And I cannot see it. And unlike God the United States of America merits no Mystery.

What is to become of us? What is to be done, my dear fellow slaves? Dare we raise our heads and cry to God the shame upon the heads of those who bend our noses to mirrors on the ground? Dare we cry shame upon our own heads as we bend them to the ground?

God save us and have mercy.

If I were not drawn with fear and harsh words saying I neglect responsibility, I would drop this sordid towel that mops the drops gushing from the staunched fountain. Death and love and freedom rather than ongoing.

God did not make these walls.

Will someone shoot you for saying "I am a man, and will forage for food. I am a woman, and will feed my child. I am a man, and will farm this land you leave wanton and fallow. I am a woman, and will tend this house you leave neglected"? Perhaps it is best to be shot.

Shots can not harm us as we walk through the fields, feeding a living act of God's love with grain on the Sabbath.

I would invite any and all to contemplate these shots and those rocks that come in through the window in Trois Couleurs: Rouge. See earlier post for viewing information.

On the Limits of Freedom

The state of Virginia currently has the tightest laws when it comes to speed limits in America.  The interstate limit is 70 mph, which granted, is high, but the state enforces it to a tee.  Virginia is the only state that outlaws radar detectors.  Virginia also greets its visitors with much love and affection - I received a bouquet of flowers from a state trooper last time I crossed its borders.  Oh, wait, I’m thinking of another state.  Virginia greets its visitors with signs like this:

On the surface, this gripping restriction on speed seems like an abhorrent violation of our freedom.  And yet anyone who complains that their freedom is being limited because they can’t drive their BMW at 150mph is clearly not thinking logically.  Of course there needs to be speed limits, and of course they need to be enforced, sometimes strictly, in order for those BMW drivers to understand that it isn’t a speed suggestion.

But why?  Why do we insist that there needs to be limits on our freedom when it comes to things like speed, but we complain about institutions limiting our freedom when it comes to things like sexual morality?  What does it mean to really be free?  The answer, surprisingly, has nothing to do with the kind of “freedom” that is promoted throughout the Western world today.  Indeed, it’s ironic how one of the few things most valued in our society is perhaps the one thing society gets so wrong.

The key to understanding our common misconception with freedom is that we wrongly use the word interchangeably with license.  We lie to ourselves with idioms like, “I’m free to do what I want,” without comprehending the cliche, spitting it out to excuse ourselves of some behavior that tugs at our conscience.

We only need to apply the idiom to practical examples to see its absurdity.  If I am really “free to do what I want,” can I take your laptop for myself if you leave it unattended for a minute at a coffee shop?  Can I drive at 150mph on the interstate if it’s a free country?  The best answer I have received for these rhetorical questions was actually quite perceptive: “Of course not,” one man once told me on an internet forum.  He explained, “you are free insofar as it does not harm other people.”

Herein lies the rub - if freedom is limited to the wellbeing of other people, freedom is therefore trumped by a hierarchy of goods.  Make no mistake: it is very good indeed that we have the ability to choose.  However the question must be asked, “choose what?”  In the examples above, we choose the good of our neighbors’ wellbeing.  Our neighbors are infinitely more good than the good we would achieve by getting a new computation device, or getting to work five minutes early.  By not stealing the laptop and not speeding on the interstate, one sees a good for himself, but then acts in accordance with freedom to choose a higher good.  This is the proper use of human freedom, and fits perfectly with the definition given by the great doctor, Thomas Aquinas: freedom is the ability to choose the good.

Understanding freedom in this context brings us to a stark conclusion: the only hope there is to maintain a truly free society is to enable laws that protect the greater good.  If the greater good is not chosen and men continue to abuse freedom without repercussion, then society will be doomed to fail.  It will be an archetype of what freedom does not look like.

Stay tuned for a follow up post where I mention love, virtue, vice, and the odd proposition that slavery may be better than freedom.

Love in the Cold

"Many false prophets will arise, and many will be deceived by them; and the charity of most men will grow cold, as they see wickedness abound everywhere ..." (Mt. 24.11-12)

Having visited all who will with plenty of time to spend, Love turns her face to the lilies, for at least they will never turn their bright joyful heads away from her.

The cold doors of stone towers are invisible to her, their secrets forgotten. The walls of cities do not discriminate, and Love is lost in the tumult of passions good and ill.

So frequently do we strive for honor in the great effort of ecstasy, pushing outward against the senses that at once bind and make us onto more liberal frontiers -- seeking Truth, Goodness, Beauty. But what marble pillars. What frigid stones, though mountains, of thought.

Truth, Goodness, Beauty -- noble ideas to be pursued. But constantly we forget the force that drives us toward them. Too often we forget the cabman, the selfless rickshaw runner who silently bears us to and fro.

Goodness: why certainly it contains Love. But why "Goodness" and not Love? Does not Love contain Goodness? Justice, the favorite of Aristotle -- does not Love fulfill it, complete it, make it bear fruit?

And Love abounds more than these. It is Love in the artist that makes him sing bright colors onto barren sheets of white. Love culls melody from fiddle and flute. Love tears forth the tears of Whitacre's David: "Oh, Absalom!"

And Love quiets with a mothers soft forgiving arms the first sorrow of newfound sin.

At the end of Trois Couleurs: Bleu, Krzysztof Kieślowski depicts the lovemaking of the wayward, mournful beloved and he who loved and pursued her throughout her pain. Preisner's soundscore comes soaring through the scene with lyrics from 1 Corinthians 13.1: "I may speak with every tongue that men and angels use; yet, if I lack charity, I am no better than echoing bronze, or the clash of cymbals."

With the deadly egotism of savored sorrow, she had used him in her need. She had fled his warmth and honest generosity of soul for the tower of the dead. Felix culpa. In the coldness she found Love.

What simplicity.

How easy to let the power of the sea strip away the last timbers of our sorry rafts; how comforting to relax our grip.

How true and good to die.

How beautiful is art that crucifies its maker. The testament of his great love -- blindness for Monet, for Raphael. An early death for Rilke, Keats.

A desert for Teresa of Calcutta.

How many names would be added to the history books if we forsook the scales that make the dirt look like the sky, make our soiled feathers seem to fly with wings of bonded wax.

The mother stands there with a washcloth waiting and soft forgiving arms.

Goodness waits on Love.