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Day of Renewal

Roundtable

O'Malley's Best

What You See...

There's probably no one in this room who feels spoiled rotten, right? I mean, even whichever of us is the richest, handsomest, brightest, most charming could--faster'n electricity--come up with a sizable list of people who have more. And yet it's unavoidably true that even the least of us look like the children of Arab sheiks to the majority of our fellow travelers on the Good Ship Earth. Among those many classroom signs I talk about, one says that, if the world were compressed to just 100 people, 70 can't read, 50 haven't enough to eat, 80 live in sub-standard housing. Only one out of that 100 has a college education, and only one owns a computer. And six Americans own 60% of all the wealth available for the 100. That means that those of us in the more rarefied segments of those yardsticks are stupefyingly lucky. No need to feel guilty about that, but it does behoove anyone thus blessed not to take it for granted. At the risk of being, at the very least, insensitive.

More strange is that, the more gifted we are, the more implausibly arrogant we can get. For one thing, we can delude ourselves that "Whatever I've got, I by-God worked for!" As if we did something to merit our talents, our background, our being born American--despite the fact we never "achieved" even existence. It was given to us, with no deserving on our part, since a non-existent couldn't really "deserve" anything. And being born to intelligent parents who worked hard was sheer luck. We delude ourselves even further that our gifts should somehow be permanent, untouchable, so that, if we lose something precious, that's somehow unfair. In fact, however, none of us has the slightest ground on which to gripe about a sudden change in our accommodations or our companions at the Life-Banquet, since--again--none of us did anything worthy of an invitation in the first place.

But the self-delusion this story of the Transfiguration suggests to me is that we believe that, if something's true, we ought to be able not only to see that it's true but to see why it's true. (Like God's purpose in allowing suffering.) That unfounded arrogance seems to grow exponentially with every year we endure schooling.

We're all quite intelligent people. After all, even in these blessed United States, at least a third of our fellow citizens are functionally illiterate; they can read street signs but can't follow the directions on a cake box. But you and I can at least poke our way into the writings of mind-numbing thinkers like Plato and Freud and even Sports Illustrated. Still and all, we believe that, if there is a reason for something strange, we ought to be able to comprehend it, or if something existed (like God), we by rights should see it. This conviction holds even despite millennial clichés so dear to mothers, like "It's right there under your nose, doofus!"

Humbling truth to tell, you and I do not see even the overwhelming majority of realities right in this room, right at this moment. We see hardly none of the light spectrum. We're totally unaware of the radio signals from WFUV whanging off the walls and floors without even tingling the hairs on the backs of our necks. We're oblivious to the muons and gluons and quarks and neutrinos skewering us every minute, and slicing on through the whole earth without hardly being slowed down. We're insensible even to the physical processes of digestion in the person inches away, much less being alive to their far more important heartache or confusions or fears.

In brutal fact, you don't even see me. All you can see is my body, and from the way it moves and the things that come out of my mouth, you make educated guesses about the much more important part of who-I-am enshrouded within this sack of skin.

Which brings me to the juncture where all these detours connect to the story of the Transfiguration. The disciples really believed they knew Jesus. Well, uh, at least everything about him that counted. But in reality they hadn't the slightest inkling. It was only at this moment that who Jesus really was burned through the appearances--and nearly blinded them.

So that's what I'd like to challenge you to during the next week, as you paw your way (like Helen Keller) through the limits of what you convince yourself is real. In your imagination, try to sense the godliness that burns inside each of the unpromising solid bodies you brush shoulders with. Try to sense the electric crackle of aliveness under the skins, the whining of uncomfortably grinding gears, the sputter of hopes. Try, if you dare, to "connect" in your imagination to the hyper-kinetic Energy of immortality in even one of them.

Then, if you really dare, try to connect to that undying power within yourself.

Copyright © 2008, McQuaid Jesuit