Discernment of Heroes - Week 5

This is our fifth week of heroic discernment here at the Guild Review, but since we started on Ash Wednesday, we're a week ahead of the official Lenten count. In other words, it's the 4th Week of Lent, which began with Laetare Sunday. Although Lent remains, with its sorrows and penance, the Church reminds us that Easter is coming.

With that in mind, we continue our questioning of the hero that each one of us is called to be. When Matt Bird writes scripts, he suggests several elements which we'll consider. Each of these makes good sense in terms of films, but will require some unpacking for practical discernment.

Secret you're keeping: Bird comments that "no matter what kind of movie it is, this can add a lot. Secrets make it a whole lot easier to add subtext to dialogue." I'd like to consider this in conjunction with a second matter... Secret being kept from you about your past.

Some of us have been keeping real secrets from our employers, our friends, our families, and often even ourselves. I'm not talking about complicated aspects of your life that you've never explained to certain people because, well, it's complicated. I'm talking about those dark corners of our hearts that we wished didn't exist, the kind that make you feel the need to take a shower or get some fresh air just for having thought about. Such secrets often involve shameful sins, the likes of which we should take to confession before Easter. In other cases, our darkest secrets pertain to things that have been done to us. With God's grace, we need to confront those things. Sometimes that simply means being honest with yourself or forgiving someone you haven't seen in years; at other times it means a very long road to healing, one that will require extended support from family, friends, a spiritual director, or professional counselors.

One need only watch a few movies - particularly movies involving super heroes - to realize that not all secrets are dark. A fairly standard plot line involves the hero who does not know that he is a prince or that he has super powers. As Christians, we already know some of the most important facts about our past. We are created in the image of God and by virtue of our baptisms we not only have our sins washed away, but become Priest, Prophet, and King with Christ. That's some serious business! Still, the details involve some working out. Thus, let me propose two questions: First, what "secrets" about yourself have already been revealed to you? Think back to our second week, for example, when we considered "special skills". Was there a time when you did not recognize these? Their presence may have been revealed in a single epiphany, or gradually over time. How did that happen for you?

Second, what kind of secrets might be revealed in the future? You could say, "If I knew that, they wouldn't be secrets!" And you'd be right. So think of this as a kind of brainstorming. What hobbies do you have that might turn out to be more than hobbies? What interests did you drop years ago that you might pick up again? What further education might you pursue? Like all brainstorming, this should include a mixture of whimsy and practicality. Even if you're not likely to ever return to school, you can probably say with certainty that you could go to law school some day, but medical school is definitely out (or vice versa). Likewise, if you are married, a call to the priesthood or religious life is extremely unlikely - and would be unfortunate, in a sense, requiring as it does the death of your spouse - but the call to the diaconate or some third order, lay association, or covenant community is possible. Such brainstorming is not a crystal ball or proof of God's will, but it does help place things on your radar which might not otherwise have been there.

This relates to another element Bird discusses, the biggest shock coming. He comments that "whether they’re the hero or villain, everything shouldn’t go according to their plan. Make them improvise!" This makes sense for a scriptwriter because audiences want to see something that mirrors reality; everyday life is full of struggles, and if the hero has none, it is hard to empathize with him. Just as we can brainstorm about future possibilities, future secrets (in the good sense) revealed, it is worth also considering future downturns. What if I lose my job? What if the relationship I'm currently in doesn't work out? Asking such questions now, before these eventualities arise, offers several kinds of insights. First, having thought through some possibilities ahead of time, you may be able to better improvise if the need arises. Second, you may realize new directions you'd like to pursue. If the thought of losing your job makes you smile, consider a career change!

Finally, there is one more dimension to secrets: the good secret the hero keeps from others. Aragorn, for various reasons, does not reveal to everyone that he is the king; Gandalf often keeps his thoughts to himself, only telling people as much as they need to know. Think too of Mr. Darcy's conduct at the end of Pride and Prejudice. Often your good qualities or good deeds are known to you alone. Indeed, on Ash Wednesday Jesus reminded us to "beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them; otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.... When you give to the poor, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing." Thus, we should not meditate on our hidden virtues in a way that is an occasion for pride. Rather, we should consider them so that we can lay them at God's feet and ask him how they might best serve him.

Today's image of Mr. Darcy and Lizzy Bennet, by C. E. Brock from 1895, comes via Wikipedia.

St. Patrick's Day

Turlough O'Carolan (1670-1738) was the last of the great Irish bards.

In ancient and medieval Ireland, the bards were poets and musicians who kept the native folklore alive. They traveled from house to house, telling old stories and composing new songs, relying on the patronage of the island's great families. However, in the 17th century, after the Flight of the Earls, most of the great clan-leaders had no choice but to become grantees of the King of England. They were no longer chieftains, but simply landholders.

O'Carolan was born after the Flight of the Earls when the old Gaelic order had already collapsed and was nearly extinct. As a boy, his father took the family to Roscommon so he could work for the MacDermot Roe family, who had formerly been chieftains but were now living as landholders. The MacDermot Roe family, however, still kept up the family's role as patrons of the arts. The young O'Carolan showed promise as a poet, but was blinded by smallpox at the age of 18. Lady MacDermot Roe had him trained as a harper and then gave him a horse so that he could take up the life of a bard, traveling the countryside, performing for what remained of the Irish gentry. The MacDermots Roe remained his patrons for the rest of his life, and he expressed his gratitude to Lady MacDermot Roe in particular with one of his finest compositions, "Princess Royal."



As can be heard in "Princess Royal," O'Carolan was influenced by the European art music of his time. He reportedly went to Dublin to hear the Italian baroque virtuoso Geminiani perform on the violin. Given his affinity for baroque music, it is not surprising that one of his best-known planxties (melodies composed in honor of a patron) has been dubbed his "concerto."



In the past half-century, O'Carolan's music has been revived, beginning with Sean O'Riada, whose group Ceoltóirí Chualann later morphed into the Chieftains, who for the pat fifty years have regularly featured pieces by O'Carolan (above all the "concerto") on their albums and in their concerts. Even Clannad, the Donegal family that became famous for its New Age music and for launching the career of Enya (the stage name of Eithne Ní Bhraonáin, the sister of several of the members), recorded a simple, but beautiful, arrangement of "Eleanor Plunkett" on one of their early records.



After years of wandering as a bard, O'Carolan married and settled down in Leitrim. But, after his young wife died, he returned to Adlerford House, the seat of the MacDermots Roe, and lived his last days there. It is said that upon his return, he greeted Lady MacDermot Roe, went to a bedroom, and composed his "Farewell to Music." O'Carolan is now buried in the MacDermot Roe family crypt.

Discernment of Heroes - Week 4

In the first two weeks we mostly considered what you might call background information.  These are items that Matt Bird or other scriptwriters would use to craft a character.  Last week, when we considered roles, we began getting into the meat of a story, its plot.  This week we'll continue that shift toward our story arc.

In terms of discernment, the shift is similar.  For the past three weeks we have been essentially asking who you are or where you have come from.  This can be quite enlightening, but is, in some sense, water under the bridge.  The bigger questions we often ask tend to involve where we are going.

This may be the week where the fact that these reflections are essentially natural (or literary) and not supernatural (or theological) becomes truly apparent.  Why?  Because ultimately our future is in God's hands.  If you really want to know where you are headed, ask Him.  But grace builds on nature and God often speaks through the rational workings of our minds, so let us probe as best we can our own stories, and hope that divine light will aid our task.

Stated goal: What do you tell others you are pursuing?  For most of us, there are numerous answers to this question: a good job, a nice spouse, holiness, the ultimate home-brew beer...  The list could go on.  The key here is to consider what you tell people.  When you meet someone at work or at a party, what do you tell them you do?  If you are wrapping up one stage of your life (graduating, moving, etc.) and someone asks you what you're doing next, how do you answer?

Secret goal: What are you really after?  This is a classic movie element, the protagonist who has a goal he has not revealed to his love interest.  But it is worth taking a moment to consider the secret goals of our own lives.  In the first place, are the goals you tell others really the things you plan to seek?  In other words, are you being honest with others?  But, secondly, we can take this deeper: What are you really interested in?  One way to approach this deeper meaning is to ask yourself about alternatives.  If you could do things over again, where would you go?  What would you do?  If you had all the money you wanted, what would you buy?  Stripping away limitations sometimes helps us think about what we'd really like.  Often circumstances force us in a particular direction, and we tell ourselves we have accepted that new direction; and yet, we cling to some part of our original dream, working at cross-purposes with ourselves, pursuing both the conscious, limited goal, and the unconscious, unlimited goal.  That can be a lot of baggage, things we need to bring before the Lord.  But you can't give Him what you do not know you have.

Moment the audience decides to trust or loathe them: In some ways this is a restatement of the one-line description we met the first week.  What is the essence of who you are?  And when does this become apparent to others?  The opinions of others can be fickle, and ought not be sought for their own sake.  But I think the question here points to something deeper.  Why would an audience trust you?  Because you revealed your truly heroic side.  And what is that?  Ah, now we're getting somewhere.  If you are a business manager - not merely by occupation, but by vocation - the moment others trust you may be the moment you reveal not merely your competence and your drive, but also you humanity, when you sacrifice your own well-being for that of your employees.  For some of us, we can point to moments in our past when others saw us for the heroes we are called to be.  For others, that moment may not have come, at least, not in a big way.  But thinking about what it might look like in the future can be a useful thing, giving us a source of inspiration for our future actions.

Emotional Arc: How many emotional states do you pass through?  Bird clearly implied "in the course of the movie" to be added to the end of this question.  Our lives are, of course, much longer.  But it may be useful to ask the question for a variety of time intervals.  How many states in a given day?  A week?  A semester or year?  In the last few years?  The answers can tell you a number of things, not only about your propensity to emotional fluctuations, but also about patterns of your usual emotional arc.  And seeing patterns, in turn, allows you to get some sense for where you are now and where you are likely to be in the future.  Patterns can, of course, change.  ("Past performance does not guarantee future returns.")  But even if you deviate from established patterns in the months and years ahead, that change itself may be noteworthy.

Today's image from Star Wars comes via the Business Insider.

Discernment of Heroes - Week 3

This week we'll be exploring two basic questions Bird poses about all characters:

What role do you play in the story?  Hero, villain, love interest, friend?

Within this role, what is your type?

  

In some regards, Bird's questions don't fit with Christian discernment.  After all, we are all baptized priest, prophet, and king, sharing in Christ' own perfect fulfillment of those roles.  In other words, we're all called to be heroes.  But this is, in some sense, semantics.  Because when Bird uses the term "hero," he refers to not only to someone who defends justice and rights wrongs, but also someone who is the main character of the story.  And let's be honest: not everyone can be the main character.  But even if we cannot all be the center of attention, we are all called to do good.  And we are called to do this not simply at the natural level, but - by God's grace - supernaturally as well.  Thus, being a "love interest" or friend can be just as heroic and important as being the usual hero.

(I briefly considered writing about discernment of villains.  After all, we are all sinners, and thus struggle with that side of things too.  But most villains are super-evil, in ways that may not shed much light on our own temptations.  Moreover, really great villain characters are - in their way - quite lovable.  This might work in stories, but in the spiritual life the glamor of evil is nothing with which to trifle.)

When working on categorizing heroes, Bird asks an important question: Why categorize at all?

What’s the point? Are movies more fun when you pigeonhole the hero into a certain category? Not really. But I do think it can be a useful tool, whether for creating your own heroes or evaluating the work of others. First and foremost, it should remind us that not every “rule” for heroes can or should apply to each particular hero. Some heroes suffer a lot, some hardly at all. Some are proven wrong, some are proven right. Some start from scratch, others show what they know. In order to know which rules apply to which hero, it helps to figure out which type they are.

The same may be said of our own lives.  We are all called to heroic lives of faith and virtue; we are all called to be conformed to the perfect image Christ.  But we live that out in different ways, emphasizing and expressing different dimensions of who our Lord and God is.  Thus, although we all aim to be "little Christs" (to borrow C. S. Lewis' phrase), we all look quite different, and live out our lives in different ways.


Bird proposes nine different kinds of heroes (and a couple sub-types), based on the three following questions:

Are you qualified?  This question, reflecting Bird's background, is story-specific rather than existential.  That is to say: you might be qualified in one circumstance, but unqualified in another.  Movies tend to only show one circumstance (ie, the super-spy doing spying, not failing horribly at accounting).  Nevertheless, there is an important reminder here: Heroes are not always qualified.  Thus, the special skills we considered last week, though important, are not the final word.  God routinely uses the weak.

Are you on the job?  There are two fairly literal ways to read this question.  First, are you currently employed?  Second, at any given time, are you at work?  In and of itself, this is uninspiring, but the implied reminder is that God can use us at all times, wherever we are.  Sometimes we focus on getting back "on the job," when divinely-written adventures await us right where we are.

Are you in you element?  In other words, are you comfortable?  Again, remember: God calls us to be heroes in both comfortable and uncomfortable situations.


In short, we would all like to be "The Pro at Work," the hero who is qualified, on the job, and in his element.  But "The Worst Possible Pick" - and everyone in between - can be a hero too.  Of course, God does not call us all to be all types of heroes.  Some people, for whatever reason, are more often called to missions for which they are not qualified; these things just find them.  Maybe you are such a person.  Or maybe God is calling you in a more obvious direction, one that corresponds to your skills.  Look at your life and consider not merely what your gifts and talents may be, but also where God leads you and how He asks you to use them.

Finally, a brief word on love interests and friends.  These are generally helpful folks who support the big fellow with the flashy cape.  That kind of support can be as essential as the major deeds themselves.  It is worth asking, "What kind of friend am I?"  This may vary from one relationship to another, but chances are you often fill the same role in your relationships with different friends.  Here are a few types of friends and lovers Bird proposes.

1.  The Conscience

2.  The Mentor

3.  The Helping Hand

4.  The Total Bad Ass (that is to say, the sidekick who really helps our hero fight his battles, or even fights them for him)

5.  The Best Friend Seen in a New Light (specific to the role of lover)

There are doubtless other ways that we can be friends and supports to the heroes in our lives.  But Bird also reminds us that friends and lovers can also be stumbling blocks: corrupters, weasels, objects of envy, or nymphomaniacs.  So when you're considering the type of friend or lover you might be, make sure you're always seeking the good for others. 

Today's image of Indiana Jones comes via the Daily Mail.

Seeing Through Political Propaganda

The other evening my wife and I watched Triumph of the Will, a film some of my history students will be watching.  This piece of Nazi propaganda depicts the 1934 Parteitag, an annual week-long festival for the National Socialists at Nuremberg.  There are a number of directions in which to take a discussion of this film.  I will point out to my students, for example, the chilling fact that the Night of the Long Knives had happened only two months before the rally, at which Hitler tried to persuade members of the SA and SS - the latter of which he used to murder the leaders of the former - that there were no disagreements within the Nazi Party.



But the film also reminded me of contemporary US politics.  No, I do not think Barack Obama is the next Hitler or that Mitt Romney is going to establish a totalitarian Mormon state.  Allow me to explain...

Triumph of the Will is, in many ways, a very appealing film.  There is some great cinematography, lots of pomp and spectacle, and thousands of nifty uniforms.  The film - and the party it idolizes - denounces class conflict and Communist revolution, instead calling for national unity and cooperation.  On a practical level, the Nazis highlight the jobs they have created and the roads they have built; on a higher plane, the Nazis utilize religious-style symbolism and Hitler calls upon a generation of young Germans to commit themselves in sacrifice for an ideal larger than themselves.

All of this, in the narrow terms I have described it, is quite good.  The problem is that the casual observer might not think further - indeed, the Nazis hoped they would not.  Because behind the pageantry and the soaring rhetoric are empty lies at best and utter wickedness at worst.

Why all the militant uniforms and talk of "victory" when Germany is not at war?  What is to become of those not deemed fully German?  Why is Hitler identified as the embodiment of both the nation and the party?  What qualities make him pre-eminently German, or who put him in charge?  And to what end is all this national effort and striving?  For what are Germans asked to sacrifice?  The more one considers the Nazis and their program, the less it makes sense.  In the end, it is nothing but the worship of Power for its own sake.

Some in Germany saw through the Nazis' propaganda, and thus Hitler was opposed by the likes of Blessed Clemens von Galen, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Claus von Stauffenberg and the July 20 Conspirators, and a number of others.  Some of these men recognized the bankruptcy of the Nazi ideology early on; others only came around later.  Unfortunately most Germans lacked the intellectual insight or moral courage to perceive what was happening in their country and do something about it until it was too late.

Here in the US the stakes may not be quite so high, but the task is the same: we must see through the half-truths and the hollow rhetoric of those who would use our political support as pawns in their own games.  We must wage intellectual resistance against the political shams of our day; we must convert, ourselves first and then others.

Discernment of Heroes - Week 2

This week we have fewer questions to discern than last week, but these are weightier matters.  Several of these topics would be deserving of an entire week by themselves.

How you talk: There are a number of directions in which to take this.  In some ways the most obvious is to ask whether you engage in "right speech" - not profaning the Lord's name, not gossiping, always speaking the truth.  Undeniably, these are good things.  But I think it can be tricky for many of us to notice our own speech.  After all, we've been listening to ourselves for a very long time, and we tend to think that we talk like - well, we talk like ourselves!  So let me suggest an exercise: try writing a description of how you talk.  Maybe you're describing a character in a novel or a film.  What kind of accent does he or she have?  Does he speaking quickly or slowly?  Loud or soft?  What kind of metaphors does she use?  Does he talk like his friends and co-workers?  Does she have catch phrases?  If you manage to write out a description, lay it aside and try listening to yourself over the course of the next day or two.  Do you match your own description?  Now that you have begun to pay serious attention to how you talk, ask yourself: Do I engage in right speech?  Do I use my words to glorify God?

Physical habits:  This is essentially an extension of the previous question.  What kind of body language do you use?  What do you do with your hands?  How do you sit?  How do you walk?  Cataloging your physical habits may simply be an interesting exercise, but it may also reveal to you habits that you ought to change: slouching or biting your nails or maybe, standing before an audience you "saw the air too much with your hand, thus."

Special skills:  Every hero has 'em, right?  But do you?  Matt Bird argues that Zero to Hero stories are rare and don't work well as narratives.  Heroes almost always start out with some special skills.  That finds an echo in Christian theology, which tells us that we are made in the divine image and we are made good.  But, you might be saying, what kind of skills do I have?  Oh, I can fix a radiator or type real fast or program computers, but those are hardly heroic skills.  Christianity is ultimately not about natural perfection, but supernatural perfection, accomplished by the grace of God.  But grace builds on nature; God works with us beginning where we are.  He draws out and makes use of our natural skills in ways we could not image or do on our own.  So as you're tabulating your list of special skills, be creative - be zany!  Because something you might not consider important, something you wouldn't bother to put on the resume, might be the very thing God wants to show you.


Vulnerabilities and ordinariness: Bird contends that a hero who is too awesome makes for a lousy story.  Now, let's be clear about some theology: Christianity teaches that perfection is good, it is possible, and it is the goal of the Christian life.  But Bird's observation is still insightful.  Heroes who are too powerful are boring because we cannot identify with them.  And why not?  Because we are imperfect.  You might be good at all sorts of things; you might be rather successful in life.  Your list of special skills may be five feet long.  But you have weaknesses and failings too.  And Christ wants to heal and redeem those.  He wants to transform your weakness into His strength.  Because that's the kind of God He is.  But sometimes it is hard to offer to him struggles or failings that we did not know we have.  So spend some time and ask yourself: how am I broken?  How am I weak?  How am I tempted and vulnerable?  And how am I simply ordinary, like my fellow man?


Today's image of Ben Cross (l) and Nigel Havers (r), playing Harold Abrahams and Lord Lindsay, respectively, in Chariots of Fire, comes via Wikipedia.

The Everlasting Yea

Thomas Carlyle's Sartor Resartus is like Thus Spake Zarathustra, but with a sense of humor.

Sartor Resartus is the effort of an imaginary English translator/editor to describe the life and opinions of a solitary, mysterious German writer named Diogenes Teufelsdröckh ("God-born Devil-dung"), professor of Things-in-General at the University of Weissnichtwo ("don't know where"), residing in his rooms on the Wahngasse ("Madness Street"), and author of the treatise Clothes: Their Origin and Influence. The book, containing pompous "translations" and summaries of Teufelsdröckh's autobiographical scribblings--literally scraps of paper sorted in bags by symbols of the zodiac--and of his magnum opus, is in part a parody of German philosophy in the first half of the 19th century, but also a vehicle for Carlye to expound some of his own opinions.

Carlyle himself seems to have been a proto-existentialist, a branch of philosophy generally associated not with him but with the later Nietzsche. Both the men and their works share important similarities. Both Carlyle and Nietzsche grew up in sternly religious families and were expected to become ministers, but both rejected the faith of their youth. And yet the writings of both men retain a strongly religious feeling. The most striking evidence is that both men make use of hermits to stand for wisdom-seekers in their philosophy. Teufelsdröckh, after being rejected by his true love Blumine roams the world like the Wandering Jew, pursued by his shadow. Zarathustra, on the other hand, remains in solitude on a mountaintop before deciding to re-enter the world. (Interestingly, Nietzsche also used the figure of the wanderer and his shadow, as witness his dialogue Der Wanderer und sein Schatten.)

The most important similarity between Sartor Resartus and Thus Spake Zarathustra, though, is the message at the heart of their existentialist philosophy: each individual must need for affirm the goodness of the world, say yes to it. This is a message that can and should be taken up by Christians, albeit with some modifications, as it was by Josef Pieper in Zustimmung zur Welt. [1]

In the biographical section of Sartor Resartus, Carlyle sets out three states of soul through which Teufelsdröckh passes: The Everlasting No, the Center of Indifference, and the Everlasting Yea. Only in the Everlasting Yea, when he affirms the goodness of the world, does he attain spiritual perfection. The "everlasting No" is not simply rejection of the world, but is also profound defiance. It can best be given in Teufelsdröckh's own words from his conversation with himself during a quasi-mystical experience on the Rue Saint-Thomas de l'Enfer in Paris, when he was sunk in misery after Blumine forsook him to marry a mutual friend:

Despicable biped! what is the sum-total of the worst that lies before thee? Death? Well, Death; and say the pangs of Tophet too, and all that the Devil and Man may, will or can do again against thee! Hast thou not a heart: canst thou not suffer whatsoever it be; and, as a Child of Freedom, though outcast, trample Tophet itself under thy feet, while it consumes thee? Let it come, then; I will meet it and defy it!"

In the Everlasting No, the individual is totally alienated and is thrown back upon his own freedom. In the midst of his despair, he decides to face death with nothing but his own will power to aid him.

The Center of Indifference marks an intermediate stage through which souls pass from the everlasting Yea to the everlasting No. The soul is still sick, but is also recovering from the defiant despair by which he has been afflicted up until now; the worst symptoms are now in remission. Or, as Teufelsdröckh's English editor describes it, in terms of demonic possession:

We should rather say that Legion, or the Satanic School, was now pretty well extirpated and cast out [of Teufelsdröckh], but next to nothing introduced in its room; whereby the heart remains, for the while, in a quiet but no comfortable state.

Only the everlasting Yea marks the decisive break with despair and defiance. Teufelsdröckh's account of his conversion bears quoting in full in his hyperbolic, exaggeratedly Germanic and professorial style:

Es leuchtet mir ein, I see a glimpse of it...there is in man a Higher than Love of Happiness; he can do without Happiness, and instead thereof find Blessedness! Was it not to preach-forth this same Higher that sages and martyrs, the Poet and the Priest, in all times, ahve spoken and suffered; bearing testimony, though life and through death, of the Godlike that is in Man, and how in the Godlike only has he Strength and Freedom? Which God-inspired Doctrine art thou also honoured to be taught; O Heavens! and broken with manifold merciful Afflictions, even till thou become contrite, and learn it! O, thank thy Destiny for these; thankfully bear what yet remain: thou hadst need of them; the Self in thee needed to be annihilated. By benignant fever-paroxysms is Life rooting out the deep-seated chronic Disease, and triumphs over Death. On the roaring billows of Time, thou art not engulfed, but borne aloft into the azure of Eternity. Love not Pleasure; love God. This is the Everlasting Yea, wherein all contradiction is solved: wherein whoso walks and works, it is well with him.

What is noteworthy about this passage is that Teufelsdröckh preaches something higher than happiness, for happiness would be too selfish. Instead, he preaches blessedness in the form of annihilation of the self. Love of God, and affirmation of the world, are one and the same thing, but they entail annihilation of the self. The result of this affirmation is to be "borne aloft into the azure of Eternity." The sense of disappearing into God and nature--if there is even a distinction in Carlyle's mind--is palpable here.

However, even though all three writers believe that affirmation of the world is necessary, they all differ from each in exactly how they affirm the goodness of the world. Nietzsche sings the glory of affirmation in poems and rhapsodic prose in Zarathustra, and even states in one of his posthumously published aphorisms: "To have joy in anything, one must approve everything." But in his post-Zarathustra writings it is not quite clear whether he actually can affirm the goodness of the world. He writes his autobiography and calls himself the "Antichrist." Nietzsche may claim that he just wants to affirm the world, but it seems that he is really more of a rebel, defiant in his despair, and angry at the Christian God. As Romano Guardini says of Nietzsche, his portrayal of the perfect man as a "man who can dance" on the surface of nothingness is a Sehnsuchtsbild, a projection of his longing to attain a freedom of spirit and affirmation of the world that he could never actually achieve himself. [2] The man who wanted to overcome himself tragically could not overcome the Everlasting No.

Carlyle reaches a more authentic affirmation than Nietzsche, but he is so full of irony that it can sometimes be hard to tell whether he secretly harbors reservations. On the positive side, his humor can be seen as a sign that he has come to accept the world. He can call the young Teufelsdröckh by the diminutive "Gneschen"! Nietzsche never could have written about a spiritual hero and called him by the nickname "Thustralein." Carlyle's English "editor" can also point out flaws in his author's style and organization, and even criticize some of his opinions. The sometimes flippant humor shows that he is not in continuous agony, like Nietzsche.

Moreover, Carlyle recognizes that our very existence is a miracle. This is one of Carlyle's core beliefs, and one which forms the basis of his affirmation of the world. He repeats this belief in clearer form in his essay on Odin in On Heroes, Hero-Worship, and the Heroic in History: "This world, after all our science and sciences, is still a miracle; wonderful, inscrutable, magical and more, to whosoever will think it." (Carlyle also holds that wonder at the divinity of nature is the chief characteristic of paganism--strikingly similar to G.K. Chesteron's views.)

On the other hand, Carlyle's irony may signal that he still feels some detachment from the world. One wonders at times whether the irony really indicates that Carlyle cannot but view the wanderings and despair of Teufelsdröckh with quiet ridicule. He may still be stuck in the Center of Indifference.

Furthermore, Carlyle was strongly influenced by German Idealism and its undercurrent of pantheism. While he was not a full-pledged pantheist, there are times when Carlyle blurs the distinction between God and nature. Moreover, in the tradition of earlier mystics, Carlyle also views happiness as an annihilation of self. In a later essay on Mohammad (also in On Heroes), he states: "Islam means in its way Denial of Self, Annihilation of Self. This is yet the highest Wisdom that Heaven has revealed to our Earth." This equation of denial of self--what Christ has called all his followers to practice--with annihilation of self--a false form of immanentism rampant in German Idealism--sets up a contradictory relationship to the world. If one hopes for one's self to be annihilated, how can one also affirm the goodness of the world? The two are not compatible--so long as one wishes to remain part of this world. An orthodox Christian, on the other hand, denies himself so that he can follow Christ more obediently and ascend to the source of this beautiful world with Him, not to be annihilated, even in the beatific vision. [3]

Only Pieper, with his characteristic serenity--remarkable for a man who lived through some of the most turbulent times in a country at the center of the last century's upheavals--seems to have actually assented to the world and reached the truly Everlasting Yea. And it is obvious from the types of books he wrote: a Theory of Festivity as well as Happiness and Contemplation; he wrote about affirming the goodness of the world without the rancor of Nietzsche or the irony of Carlyle. In a world turned upside down and full of fashionable sophists like Sartre who called being born absurd, he undertook the difficult task of explaining why the world was good, and why we should say "yes" to it. What made it possible for Pieper to attain the everlasting Yea was his belief in a transcendent God who does not demand self-annihilation as a prerequisite to happiness (or blessedness), as opposed to the quasi-Spinozan God of Teufelsdröckh and Carlyle. For Pieper, who saw himself as developing the key concept of Kreatürlichkeit ("creatureliness") he found in St. Thomas Aquinas, existence was even more of a miracle than for Carlyle--the free act of a Creator who was under no compulsion to make the world. Only with his belief in a transcendent God who created and redeemed the world could Pieper say, "Lord, it is good that I am here!"

The Everlasting Yea, in its sublimest form, is a fundamental affirmation of the goodness of the world and of its Creator. And for each of these authors, the Everlasting Yea is the source of any spiritual serenity they experienced.

[1] Pieper's book is available in English translation as In Tune with the World, but I hesitate to call it by that title because it is a mistranslation of the German: Zustimmung means affirmation, assent, agreement, or approval; it implies an active decision to say "yes" to something, not a passive surrender.

[2] Romano Guardini, Vom Sinn der Schwermut (Mainz: Matthias-Grünewald-Verlag, 2003), p. 24.

[3] Readers interested on the question of pantheism should consult Thomas Molnar, God and the Knowledge of Reality (New York: Basic Books, 1973).