Stay Strong Rather Than Stay Safe?
Last week we asked whether we Catholics might consider an alternative to "Stay Safe." The title of today's post gives away the answer. Today we'll see why we asked the question. It all goes back to that old acquaintance of mine whose recent group email punctured my "resistance bubble." That's the protection I use to avoid spending too much time with speculations, opinions, and outright agenda-driven propaganda regarding the nature and danger of our current COVID-19 pandemic.
First, here's some Catholic-men-at-work context:
Anyone who owns or works for a business knows that playing it safe doesn't always make sense. Sometimes a business has to take risks. Prudent risks generally make the most sense, to be sure. But a prudent risk is a risk nonetheless.
A quick example: At the time I started my current business, I took a big risk. My previous employment paid very well. I had no way to equal that earning power in my new business. In fact, there were no guarantees I would be able to earn enough from the business to support my family. And, as is not uncommon when you start a new business, the first years were a real struggle. I had to dip into savings to stay afloat. Over time, though, things worked out. While my income will likely never equal my best years in my previous two jobs, I can't complain. And I really enjoy what I do - something that wasn't always true when I was an employee. But I had to take a risk to get here from there.
I'm not a particularly courageous or even daring person, although it did take some courage and daring to go out on my own. But you don't have to be a business owner to have some experience with taking risk in your work life. The simplest example might be moving to a new job - especially when your previous job paid pretty decently. I've had that experience a few times. I moved for different reasons each time. But each time there was risk involved. As the old saying goes, "The grass always looks greener on the other side." I knew that and had no assurance that my assessment of my new opportunity was 100% accurate. Indeed, it rarely was. But I took the risk, dealt with the misconceptions I might have had, and made the best of the new job.
Okay, all of that is true for anyone who's working. But doesn't life itself require us to take risks from time to time? Almost any decision to make or accept a change includes some element of risk: moving to a new location, buying your first home, a new car, choosing a school for a child, etc. All come without hard guarantees.
And let's not overlook our spiritual lives. Here the risk may be the greatest in this sense: We have to rely totally on God for any spiritual progress. We've gone over this many times in the past, so this shouldn't come as a surprise. While we work at it as if our spiritual progress depends on us, the fact is only God's grace and solicitude assures any progress we might make. Fortunately, we have a loving God Who does indeed come through for us. It may not be in the manner we desire, nor on the timetable we prefer, but if we plug away with complete trust in His love and mercy, our spiritual life will flourish.
Put another way, we have to throw all caution to the wind, and completely put our hope in God first.
So we who work, who provide for loved ones, who practice our Catholic faith have already been tempered to some degree by the risks we've had to take throughout our lives. And yet, it seems this COVID-19 pandemic finds many of us cowered to some degree by the danger to our health it seems to present. We're not talking about exercising the virtue of prudence here. We're talking about a fear that, to my old acquaintance, seems excessive. Using the words of the email I received, we'll let him explain:
"...it would be a dereliction of duty not to make some comment on what we are witnessing around us and what it means for us as Catholics, as citizens, and as civilized men and women. I do not feel competent to discuss the initial cause of a disease that has affected the entire globe, nor would I in any way wish to minimize the real suffering and loss that this malady has entailed for many people. But what I do believe an educator needs to stress is the way in which a controllable pandemic has been transformed into a totally unnecessary pandaemonium; a horrifying illustration of the diabolical disorientation accompanying all of the ravages of modernity, and one that has allowed a painfully hollow modern society to titillate itself with the “feel” of living through the Bubonic Plague without actually doing so."
Those were the words that grabbed my attention initially. His use of the term pandaemonium echoed a term I've taken to using: a mess. But then comes this "diabolical disorientation accompanying all ravages of modernity." If you're not familiar with how "modernity" has evolved in its full flowering of anti-Catholicism, seeded by the Protestant Revolution and spurred on by the so-called Enlightenment, I urge you to read and study to get up to speed. Without such an understanding the rest of what this fellow has to say might not make much sense. But if you do understand, you'll certainly grasp the meaning of "a painfully hollow modern society" that would "titillate itself with the 'feel' of living through the Bubonic Plague without actually doing so."
These are strong words, but they come from a deep thinker who has spent his life attempting to educate Catholics about how their religion and the society and culture it created and fostered for centuries has been ravaged by modernity.
From this general perspective, he then drills down to our present mess with a knowledge and understanding of history to comment on those who now hold our lives in their hands:
"Our Socratic forbears taught us through their “Seeds of the Logos” that the reasoning man does not have to be an expert in a given field to be able to make a competent judgment regarding whether he is dealing with leaders whose advice he should heed or reject as fraudulent. Frauds demand absolute faith in their claims, treating the confused doubter with contempt for his invincible ignorance. Such imposters may seriously believe that they are omniscient experts. But when they tell young or otherwise healthy persons that they are in the same condition as the weakest of the elderly or the already ill; when they say that in order to protect itself the vast mass of the population has to abandon its livelihood, the well being of its country, the cultural life of its civilization, and the tools required for its eternal salvation they must be dismissed for what they actually are: quacks.
We find ourselves today at the mercy of well educated, possibly well meaning, but ultimately highly dangerous and arrogant guides of this sort. These Masters of Them That Know are pressing us to destroy everything that we hold dear for the sake of creating an antiseptic, barren, soulless world unfit for human beings to live in---and die in---with dignity."
These comments connect with and augment our own recent reflections on who and what we can/should believe about COVID-19 and the government lockdown (HERE and HERE).
Well, today's post has already run longer than usual, so we'll have to defer further comments until next time. But the length reflects both my respect for this gentlemen's opinions as well as my view that it's time to stop simply accepting our current mess. Our entire concern should not be trying to totally eliminate any risk associated with this disease. We're already used to taking risks in the normal course of life. Why not here?
First, here's some Catholic-men-at-work context:
Anyone who owns or works for a business knows that playing it safe doesn't always make sense. Sometimes a business has to take risks. Prudent risks generally make the most sense, to be sure. But a prudent risk is a risk nonetheless.
A quick example: At the time I started my current business, I took a big risk. My previous employment paid very well. I had no way to equal that earning power in my new business. In fact, there were no guarantees I would be able to earn enough from the business to support my family. And, as is not uncommon when you start a new business, the first years were a real struggle. I had to dip into savings to stay afloat. Over time, though, things worked out. While my income will likely never equal my best years in my previous two jobs, I can't complain. And I really enjoy what I do - something that wasn't always true when I was an employee. But I had to take a risk to get here from there.
I'm not a particularly courageous or even daring person, although it did take some courage and daring to go out on my own. But you don't have to be a business owner to have some experience with taking risk in your work life. The simplest example might be moving to a new job - especially when your previous job paid pretty decently. I've had that experience a few times. I moved for different reasons each time. But each time there was risk involved. As the old saying goes, "The grass always looks greener on the other side." I knew that and had no assurance that my assessment of my new opportunity was 100% accurate. Indeed, it rarely was. But I took the risk, dealt with the misconceptions I might have had, and made the best of the new job.
Okay, all of that is true for anyone who's working. But doesn't life itself require us to take risks from time to time? Almost any decision to make or accept a change includes some element of risk: moving to a new location, buying your first home, a new car, choosing a school for a child, etc. All come without hard guarantees.
And let's not overlook our spiritual lives. Here the risk may be the greatest in this sense: We have to rely totally on God for any spiritual progress. We've gone over this many times in the past, so this shouldn't come as a surprise. While we work at it as if our spiritual progress depends on us, the fact is only God's grace and solicitude assures any progress we might make. Fortunately, we have a loving God Who does indeed come through for us. It may not be in the manner we desire, nor on the timetable we prefer, but if we plug away with complete trust in His love and mercy, our spiritual life will flourish.
Put another way, we have to throw all caution to the wind, and completely put our hope in God first.
So we who work, who provide for loved ones, who practice our Catholic faith have already been tempered to some degree by the risks we've had to take throughout our lives. And yet, it seems this COVID-19 pandemic finds many of us cowered to some degree by the danger to our health it seems to present. We're not talking about exercising the virtue of prudence here. We're talking about a fear that, to my old acquaintance, seems excessive. Using the words of the email I received, we'll let him explain:
"...it would be a dereliction of duty not to make some comment on what we are witnessing around us and what it means for us as Catholics, as citizens, and as civilized men and women. I do not feel competent to discuss the initial cause of a disease that has affected the entire globe, nor would I in any way wish to minimize the real suffering and loss that this malady has entailed for many people. But what I do believe an educator needs to stress is the way in which a controllable pandemic has been transformed into a totally unnecessary pandaemonium; a horrifying illustration of the diabolical disorientation accompanying all of the ravages of modernity, and one that has allowed a painfully hollow modern society to titillate itself with the “feel” of living through the Bubonic Plague without actually doing so."
Those were the words that grabbed my attention initially. His use of the term pandaemonium echoed a term I've taken to using: a mess. But then comes this "diabolical disorientation accompanying all ravages of modernity." If you're not familiar with how "modernity" has evolved in its full flowering of anti-Catholicism, seeded by the Protestant Revolution and spurred on by the so-called Enlightenment, I urge you to read and study to get up to speed. Without such an understanding the rest of what this fellow has to say might not make much sense. But if you do understand, you'll certainly grasp the meaning of "a painfully hollow modern society" that would "titillate itself with the 'feel' of living through the Bubonic Plague without actually doing so."
These are strong words, but they come from a deep thinker who has spent his life attempting to educate Catholics about how their religion and the society and culture it created and fostered for centuries has been ravaged by modernity.
From this general perspective, he then drills down to our present mess with a knowledge and understanding of history to comment on those who now hold our lives in their hands:
"Our Socratic forbears taught us through their “Seeds of the Logos” that the reasoning man does not have to be an expert in a given field to be able to make a competent judgment regarding whether he is dealing with leaders whose advice he should heed or reject as fraudulent. Frauds demand absolute faith in their claims, treating the confused doubter with contempt for his invincible ignorance. Such imposters may seriously believe that they are omniscient experts. But when they tell young or otherwise healthy persons that they are in the same condition as the weakest of the elderly or the already ill; when they say that in order to protect itself the vast mass of the population has to abandon its livelihood, the well being of its country, the cultural life of its civilization, and the tools required for its eternal salvation they must be dismissed for what they actually are: quacks.
We find ourselves today at the mercy of well educated, possibly well meaning, but ultimately highly dangerous and arrogant guides of this sort. These Masters of Them That Know are pressing us to destroy everything that we hold dear for the sake of creating an antiseptic, barren, soulless world unfit for human beings to live in---and die in---with dignity."
These comments connect with and augment our own recent reflections on who and what we can/should believe about COVID-19 and the government lockdown (HERE and HERE).
Well, today's post has already run longer than usual, so we'll have to defer further comments until next time. But the length reflects both my respect for this gentlemen's opinions as well as my view that it's time to stop simply accepting our current mess. Our entire concern should not be trying to totally eliminate any risk associated with this disease. We're already used to taking risks in the normal course of life. Why not here?
Happy Easter!
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