Faith and Reality

In Season Two of More Than Politics, I aim to lay a groundwork for how we, as individuals, might consider the political issues and dynamics of our day. And I aim to go as wide and deep as I am able: into history, into faith, into how humans relate to one another, into complicated messes and simple truths.

Here in this second episode of Season Two (note that you can also listen to a podcast version of this essay), I’ll begin with the most personal, essential elements of my view on the world: my faith, and how I understand reality itself.

But first, a couple of disclaimers:

One – I never have, and I do not now, consider this podcast to be exclusively for Catholics or Christians or even people of faith in general. I hope it will be interesting and helpful to people of good will, no matter their religious persuasion.

But I believe in being honest about perspective, and so I will keep explaining my perspective to you. In this season, and especially in this episode, that means I will be talking a lot about my faith in God, and how it informs my view on the world.

Two – I am no theologian. I am simply one who watches. I am a curious, dreamy introvert with a tremendous appetite for the news and a growing appetite for Scripture. I spend a lot of time chewing on the big questions and digesting what I learn, and I have come to believe that I have some insights worth sharing.

I will not pretend to be an authority; I can only promise to tell you what I have observed and concluded, and that I offer it to you in good will.

Now for the meat of today’s episode – on Faith and Reality.

For someone who feels as devoted to the Catholic faith as I do, I struggle more than you might expect with the concept of faith. It has just never felt natural to me – it’s almost as if my brain cannot absorb the word’s definition.

The words “Light,” “hope,” “love,” “mercy,” even “duty” – they mean something to me. They draw me in. They help me grow. But I struggle with the word “faith.”

Maybe it’s because doubting has always felt so natural. My mind is super good at running circles around itself – I can question everything. The concept of “faith” has always felt somewhat blind to me, and I want to see.

Not that I think I’m right about this – I understand, deep-down, that it would be better to be faithful. You know those passages in Scripture where someone in need of healing reaches out to Jesus in faith? Where he performs a miracle and tells the person that their faith has healed them? Those passages challenge me. They show me how much farther I have to go.

There is another concept, however, that feels strong and good and important to me, and that draws me closer to God than the idea of “faith” ever has. It is the concept of “reality.”

That might seem strange. Reality should be so basic! But as you’ll learn in this season, I feel – keenly – that there are different levels of reality – it’s just that some are easier to notice than others.

Have you ever had one of those moments when life seems to pause, when you feel like you’re waking from a dream? One of those moments in which you feel like a haze has been lifted and you’re seeing life as it really is?

I have them every so often. One happened a few years ago and what I remember most vividly about it was the floor.

I was kneeling in prayer at the Seton Shrine in Emmitsburg, Maryland, and it was nighttime. Lights from above were reflecting off the floor, and I was suddenly so bowled over by gratitude that I could barely lift my head to look around.

I saw it all clearly – how I live most of my life in the haze, or on the surface, dwelling in the reality that we all acknowledge: The responsibilities, the work, the running, the never-ending lists of things to be done or bought or decided. The piles, the messes, the conflicts, the resentments. The worries, the fears, the goals, the mindless escapes.

They are all real – these things make up the biggest part of our everyday lives. But they are not the deepest, truest realities. They are not the ones that will last.

Looking at that shining floor, I was overwhelmed by the gift of having had so many glimpses into the deeper kind of reality – the clear, eyes-wide-open truth. The reality that is more whole and good than we typically have the courage to acknowledge.

Sometimes those glimpses took the form of ideas, of insights. They came to me in prayer, or in daydreams, or in deep, mind-opening conversations, or in sudden bolts of understanding.

Sometimes those glimpses took the form of experiences – of exquisite, deeply-felt moments:

· There were moments of awe at the beauty of a grand cathedral, or a field at twilight, or even just the afternoon sun lighting up my dining room.

· There was the thrill of singing a difficult piece of music in a capable choir – of that perfect moment when human voices come together in a way that seems unexplainable in human terms.

· There was the memory of sitting at my grandmother’s deathbed while she slept, listening to her breaths, staring at the hands that cared for so many people, so lovingly, so actively, for so long.

· There was that moment with those women, when I knew I was doing work that mattered.

I suspect that when I reach the end of my life, it will be this deeper reality that looms large to me. The hazy, surface-level reality of my everyday life will fade to the background. God willing, I will be experiencing something like I did that day staring at the floor, shining lights emphasizing the many, precious, deep, true gifts I have been given.

Alright, now that I’ve told you that story, I’d like to better explain to you what I mean by the deeper, truer reality.

To do so, I’m going to introduce a concept I’ll talk about in much more detail in the next episode. And I’m going to tell you another story.

Now, you’re familiar with physics, right? It’s the branch of science that deals with matter and energy and how they interact with one another. It explains movement, gravity, magnetism, etc.

Well, in the past several years I have come to notice something similar when it comes to human interactions, and I have been thinking of it on two levels: a human physics (akin to the surface-level reality I described a moment ago) and a spiritual physics, which operates on a deeper level.

I see in them patterns, systems to how people relate to one another, and to how their actions play out on a moral stage. I’ll talk about them more in the next episode.

But before we go any farther in exploring that subject, let me explain to you how watching human relationships play out (and observing the human and spiritual physics at work in them) dramatically increased what – I guess – you might call my faith.

Or, to put it another way, how observing these realities drew me closer to God.

For most of my life, I couldn’t tell you why I believed. I was born into my Catholic faith, and there was just some element of my personality that made belief essential, if not always easy. I doubted, but I also had this intangible attachment, a conviction I couldn’t grasp.

But then a few years ago I was struck by the story of Saint Paul’s conversion.

Here was this man who was deeply invested in the system of his time – so invested that he was striking against the first Christians, persecuting them for flouting the system, for following the teachings and example of Christ.

Then, while on a journey to track down, to capture, to persecute Christians, he experienced something so powerful that he changed his life completely. He saw a light, he heard a voice, and it was all over: Everything he was committed to was upended. Paul went from hating Christians to becoming one of them; he went from persecutor to persecuted.

By the usual rules of the world, this makes no sense. It makes absolutely zero sense to go from being a respected, privileged member of the society that dominates your place and time to becoming a member of a persecuted subculture. Especially when that subculture is built, not on impending political revolution or the promise of wealth and power, but on the concept of loving to the point of self-sacrifice. Jesus had already been crucified when Saint Paul began to follow him. Paul knew what kind of earthly reward awaited the first Christians.

So no – Saint Paul’s conversion makes no sense. Not in the way we usually think about it. Not in the way our frail, fallen human nature generally leads us to behave. Paul’s conversion points us to another, greater reality – a spiritual physics that leads to love, to wholeness, to goodness, to truth, to beauty. And we are often so blind to it.

It’s that greater reality, that deeper reality, that sunk its teeth into me. Paul’s conversion was dramatic, but I could always ask myself: Was his account true? Was Paul even real? The doubter in me was not satisfied – until I watched the world with Paul’s upended life in mind.

Watching the world – how we treat one another, how we strive to get ahead, how we think primarily of ourselves and those closest to us – it’s easy to see a very human physics that describes and predicts our behavior toward one another. People generally seek wealth. We seek power. We seek pleasure. We are most sympathetic and protective toward those who are most like ourselves. We are territorial. We are tribal. We don’t want to be told what to do. We are greedy for things and love and attention. We equate the good with our personal good.

In order for Paul to choose another path – or for any human to choose another path – there had to be something else at play. Something that explained goodness – true goodness.

In our daily life, we see plenty of goodness to counteract the base inclinations: We see generosity, we see loving kindness, we see service. Goodness is not rare. But neither is it ubiquitous. It is not automatic. Rather, goodness seems to me to be a choice – a denial of our gut-reaction selfishness in service of something higher.

When we allow someone in front of us in line, it is not because we wish to wait longer. It is because we choose to sacrifice a few moments of our time as an act of kindness. When we forgo pleasure and independence to care for our children or our elders, it is not because we do not want pleasure or independence. It is because we choose a self-giving love instead of a self-serving one. When we bite our tongues in disagreements with loved ones, it is not because we don’t value our own opinion. It is because we choose to value the person over the argument.

Where do these choices come from? They don’t seem natural to me. They seem to flout our most basic desires to be first, to be autonomous, to be right. They seem to me to come from something else – from goodness and love itself. From God.

Just as Saint Augustine observed that “our hearts, Oh Lord, are restless until they rest in thee,” I believe that there is something on our hearts that invites us to participate in the things of God. There is something in us that draws us not just toward goodness, love, truth, and beauty, but invites us to participate in them and to share them with others.

And when we cooperate with that invitation? That’s when we move forward. That’s when we walk in the direction of truth, goodness, love, and beauty. That’s when we have the opportunity to make something – a situation, a relationship – more healthy and whole. That’s when we point ourselves toward God.

I know that when I choose to live that way – when I choose to act, first and foremost, out of love and kindness, out of a desire for authentic beauty, out of a devotion to the truth – I notice a profound difference in my life. There is a difficult-to-describe peace, a softness, a sureness, a light.

It can be fleeting! Because it depends on me doing the work, on denying what needs to be denied and pursuing what needs to be pursued. But it is so clear to me: There is an incredible difference between a life lived in service of my base inclinations and a life lived in service of the ultimate good.

Thinking of Saint Paul and watching the world, I see how, when we are left to our own devices, we get in our own way. We miss the point. But when we pursue something deeper and greater than ourselves, we contribute. We grow. We bear fruit.

I see, as inclined as we are to the human physics, it’s the spiritual physics that is deeply, deeply true.

I don’t know whether you’d call it faith (because I still struggle with that word), but I know that all this wrangling I’ve done with that truth, with that deeper level of reality – it has changed me.