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'Tis the Season to be Paranoid

I have a strong suspicion the guys who impose these readings every week never talk to one another. I mean, we've had these "repent-and-be-on-the-alert" gospels for weeks now, and only two weeks ago we had Matthew's version of this same parable about the master who left his money in his servants' care and went off someplace, waiting to swoop down unexpectedly.

I have a strong suspicion, too, it was in this same long liturgical stretch before and during advent that some manic depressive songwriter wrote: "Ya better watch out, ya better not cry." It fits, doesn't it? "Makin' a list, checkin' it twice, gonna find out who's naughty and nice." Not to mention, "He sees you when you're sleeping; he knows when you're awake." Reminds me of Psalm 139: "Lord, you know when I sit or when I stand; you read my thoughts from far away." Subconsciously, I think this combination of the repent readings week after week with "ya better watch out" oozing out of every Muzak box in town make us a bit paranoid, as if the Kingdom of God were some kind of transcendent police state. We get the idea Santa and God and Big Brother have their cameras and parabolic mikes on us every minute, and the spies are sensitive as hornets to our every screw-up.

And while I'm airing my gripes about Advent, I might also mention that Advent and Lent have more than I'd like of "let's pretend" about them. I mean for four weeks before Christmas, we're enjoined to pretend we're getting ready for the birth of the Baby Jesus--forcing ourselves to become amnesiac about the fact Baby Jesus already did come. And during Holy Week we're asked to get all sad and gloomy that Jesus is about to suffer and die, when we're betting our Christian faith Jesus not only did that, once for all, long, long ago, but also that he came back alive--in fact, super-alive. That same kind of pious self-deception I used for at least two Christmases as a kid when I'd found definitive arguments there was no Santa Claus, but went on pretending so my parents wouldn't have their Christmas spoiled.

And yet.... (You knew "and yet" was coming, right?) And yet Lent and Advent are good reminders: Jesus is coming to us, every moment, and Jesus is suffering and dying all around us, every day.

In Christianity, everything depends on a critical balance of opposing forces: liberalism held in check by conservatism, puritanism deflated by mischievousness, rigidity challenged by spontaneity. Every virtue--unchecked by its opposite--becomes a vice: prudence without open-heartedness becomes cowardice, hope without hard-nosed realism becomes empty-headed optimism, even love without impartial judgment becomes enslavement.

There are people far too Advent-watchful about their sins--too scrupulous, too self-lacerating, too sadly narrow-minded. And there are people far too Lent-sensitive to the sufferings of Jesus in our brothers and sisters all around the world and in our own streets, mired helplessly in the liberal guilt complex. It's really sad so many think Christianity is about guilt-guilt for our occasional stupidities or guilt for our inability to do enough for others.

But--to be honest--most of us aren't stuck at either of those extremes. Most of us are content and cozy inside cocoons of inertia and self-absorption, rather adept at becoming quickly forgetful about our sins on the one hand and about our indifference to suffering on the other. Like kids snuggled into the easy chair in the warm living room, hypnotized by cartoons, we need Mom to boot us out into the snow. We need reminding.

Advent's a time to remind ourselves it's Jesus ringing that bell outside Macy's, Jesus lined up outside P.O.T.S, Jesus with the dark lavender sockets under her eyes and her hand out. And Advent's a time to remind ourselves we honestly need to bring our sins home and apologize. Not to savage ourselves with guilt and self-recrimination. But a time for a Fall cleaning: toss out the junk, clean the smelly stuff out of the fridge, broom the cobwebs in the attic, fumigate the cellar. The cliche says "confession is good for the soul," and cliches qualify for longevity because they never stop being true. But--like most cliches--that one's more honored in the breach too.

I don't know whether any of you has noticed, but each week at Mass I pause at the outset and ask people to remind themselves of their real need for forgiveness, but after that I try never to mention sin again. What I'm trying to say by that is that I think a sense of sin is important; if my sins don't matter, if my stupidities are all trivial, then I don't matter; I'm trivial. But once they've been gotten out of the way, there's no need to harp on them over and over; we've got more important things to concentrate on here at Mass than our sins, like the consecration and the greeting of peace and Communion. On the other hand, a sense of our faults is not something to forego entirely. To be a person of honor, I have to be honest with myself.

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