There are times in one’s life where there is a lot of time for thinking but not many things to think about, and then there are times where there is not much time for thinking but many things to think about. My life has flipped suddenly from the former to the latter, and I feel mostly okay about it. Thinking, after all, is a young man’s game, and as the sun begins to set on my Rickey Henderson year, I feel that I only have a few more romps around the intellectual bases, as it were.
There have been some changes in my life lately that have caused me to reflect a bit more on the wild ride that has been my first quarter century—specifically in regards to my spiritual life.
[Ed. note: My dear friend Matthew told me that one of the best parts of being in a relationship is getting to become a Just Ask Her Out Bro1 bro on the internet. It is my solemn vow to you that I’m going to lean into this so hard. I’m going to start giving insane and unsolicited relationship advice all over the place and I’m going to turn off the replies. Try to stop me. {Managing Ed. note: We would like to apologize for the aforementioned editorial comments and let our dear readers know that the editor responsible has been let go.}]
I grew up in a vaguely practicing Catholic household for about the first 10-12 years of my life, one that went to Church when we felt like it and sent me to religious ed classes but couldn’t fully explain why. After a strong reversion on the part of my mother, we were thrust fully in to the life of the Church without full knowledge of what we were getting into, or really, what we believed. We all sort of found out—together, and yet mostly on our own—what this whole thing was about. In truth, I still don’t really know: I feel as though I find out a core element of Catholic belief that I was entirely unaware of every six months or so. Did y’all know that reception of the Eucharist remits venial sins? That’s wild.
At any rate, I realized that a large part of my spiritual journey had been to accept that a lot of priors I had about How Things Ought To Be were incorrect, and that struggling to reframe them kept me further from God than I would’ve liked for longer than I would’ve liked.
A disclaimer: I don’t purport to give spiritual advice. I’m about to give some spiritual advice to explain why I’m not giving spiritual advice and I hope that explains why I am not qualified to give spiritual advice. The most important principle I apply here is that Aristotle defines virtue as a mean between the extremes of deficiency and excess, which he defines as vices. It’s hard to give generalized spiritual advice because people who are earnestly striving for virtue could be coming from either the deficiency or the excess side in approaching it, and the advice you’d give someone from either side is very different. That said:
Growing up I spent a lot of time trying to be perfect. This was for many reasons but a large one is that when you are perfect things are easier. You feel better about yourself. Other people bother you less. Sometimes you get treats. Things of that nature. I spent a lot of time and mental energy trying to not only be perfect (in school, relationships, the spiritual life, etc) but also to appear perfect. Saying and doing the right things, in the right places, in the right times. Having the correct opinions (thankfully this one comes easy to me). Underlying all this was a conception that my “best version of myself” (🤮), the me that God had made me to be, the one formed in His image and likeness—that was the perfect me, who had no faults. And in one sense this is true—we are called to be perfect “as your heavenly Father is perfect” (Matthew 5:48). We strive for perfection in this life, and we hope to be purified into perfection in the next.
What I realized about thinking this way, though, is that it really just gave me a complex. I was so focused on trying to be and appear perfect that I never wanted to acknowledge the reality of my situation or the state of my soul. I figured that if I could just keep up appearances for a little while, I could smooth things over with my emotional struggles and with God, and then it wouldn’t be keeping up appearances, would it?
We all know that’s not how it really works. I spent so much time detesting my every sin and fault that I ended up gatekeeping God’s love from myself. For a while I had convinced myself that until I had mostly stopped sinning, I couldn’t really talk to God. So clearly insane and contrary to the Gospels! But perfection (and specifically, thinking that *I* could make myself perfect) had a very strong grip on my soul.
At some point I did just have to admit to myself that you can, in fact, be a practicing and public Christian and—Lord have mercy—sin. It’s almost as if that’s what we do in a fallen world. As much as that felt like an abiding and personal failure, it was an honest assessment of where I was that allowed me to move forward. There’s a reason the prodigal son starts his homecoming by looking around and being straight with himself about where he is and how he feels.
I have never felt fully settled, theologically speaking, about the fact that God works in and through our sin to bring us nearer to Him. It does not make any sense to me logically. But I understand a little more of how that works now. In acknowledging and accepting not only that I am broken, but that despite my best efforts, I will continue to break, I can be receptive to more of the fullness of God’s mercy for me. I can also more readily admit that I am powerless to do anything without God, which makes it easier to give my heart to Him, which makes it easier to be receptive to His will. Also, great news. They don’t call Him the Divine Physician for nothing. The healing may take time, and it may never fully fix things, but it does happen. And it’s so good.
So on to virtue. I spent a lot of my life thinking that the way to virtue was repeatedly doing the right thing. I don’t think that’s wrong, but I think it was missing a crucial element that made it impossible to carry out. One does not develop virtue solely by doing good—one develops virtue by picking themselves up after they fall and returning to Christ with a renewed desire to try again.
There is often a desire to dwell on one’s sins2, with the sneaking suspicion that if I replay this event for the billionth time I will crack some weird mental code that will allow me to never do this again. I am here to confidently submit to you that your sins are not multi-layered puzzles and that if you can’t figure out where things are going wrong after about 15 minutes of thinking about it, it is not worth fixating on. If there are things you can do to help yourself avoid a certain sin or situation in the future, by all means, try those out. But know of God’s unending love and mercy for you and His strength to help you get up and try again, should you only ask.
So I submit that the Christian life is less about perfection, and more about being honest about where you are. Virtue is not about doing the right thing, it’s about picking yourself up one more time than you fall down. It’s about rejoicing in hope of trying again, and knowing that only God can help you become virtuous. If you struggle with being hard on yourself and setting the bar too high (here lies excess in relation to the mean of virtue), know that God would like to meet you where you are, and He loves you where you are, too. Rest in His love, and regardless of what happens, know that you can always come home.
In Christ,
Hunter
This type of guy (or gal) is often spotted in the replies to people expressing some frustration about dating, or asking someone on a date, or being single in general. One must note that replying “just ask her out bro” is not only expedient in getting the point across, but elicits the idea that the replier is standing on an ivory tower of Relationship dispensing sage wisdom to the single poster. The post is equally magnificent in its ego and its ability to make every party involved lose in the transaction.
I don’t mean to say this desire is always bad. It is good to acknowledge your sin and repent. But once you feel bad about doing it and wish you wouldn’t do it any more you do have to move on. Feeling bad about your own sins is not a virtue, especially once you’ve been forgiven. It’s okay to move on!
Yet another banger from the couch.
For real though, this is stuff I wished I learned waaaaay earlier.