Hey guys, it’s Basil. My final report was on “The Human Disease.” For my final blog post, I feel like it’s appropriate to travel back to the very beginning of the semester and expound upon ‘who I was’ in light of, or rather, through the lens of, what came to be my final presentation. I’m also doing this in a single take, so that you can peer inside the essence of who I truly am, without modification and without editing (or as Burkeman would say, simply “winging it”).
At the beginning of the course, Dr. Oliver asked us each four questions, “Who are you? Why are you here? Are you happy? [and] What do you consider the conditions of your and others' happiness?” Burkeman, in his Chapter “The Human Disease,” presents us each with five new questions: “Where in your life or your work are you currently pursuing comfort, when what’s called for is a little discomfort? Are you holding yourself to, and judging yourself by, standards of productivity or performance that are impossible to meet? In what ways have you yet to accept the fact that you are who you are, not the person you think you ought to be? In which areas of life are you still holding back until you feel like you know what you're doing? How would you spend your days differently if you didn’t care so much about seeing your actions reach fruition?” I plan to address Dr. Oliver’s questions once again, this time through the lens of “The Human Disease,” as I believe meditating upon these nine questions encompasses the entire gamut of human experience.
Who am I?
I am Catholic, I was (and kind of still am) a Stoic, I am a student, and I am a person made in the likeness and image of my living Lord (cf. Gen 1:27). Okay, let me expand on these points so I don’t simply sound like a certain Oklahoma State Junior. In contrast to a fantasy of a future ideal self, prior to getting my life in “proper working order” (Burkeman, Ch. 14), as a Catholic, I see myself as a beloved son of the Father.
“And lo, a voice from heaven, saying, 'This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.’”
— At Christ’s Baptism, Matthew 3:17 RSV-C
Serving as a missionary in rural Honduras over the summer was quite the humbling experience, struggling with my own native language, struggling with my own spiritual life, and not being able to see a clear fruit to my labor, I tuned in to a daily devotional for men on a prayer app I subscribed to named “Hallow”. The devotional series appropriately called “Sons of the Father”, was produced by Fr. Boniface Hicks in collaboration with Exodus 90, in which he states, “These words spoken by the Heavenly Father to Jesus are a very rare example of a time when the Father's voice is heard.” He then goes on to question ‘Why?’ it’s not as though Jesus doesn’t know this. Still, Fr. Boniface reflects, “Even though we may know at some level that we are not orphans, we need to hear it,” calling to mind “The Father makes this declaration over Jesus before Jesus has done anything,” and further, “the Father's delight precedes everything that Jesus does in this world.”
My real take away from this short reflection that I heard sitting on a hammock by the beachside was, I can take a break, as a Catholic I can relax in recognizing the Father’s love of the Son is not a function of Him laying down his life, but rather in the mere identity of being a Son, and by virtue of merely existing we already have people who love us.
Why am I here?
In retrospect, I was here to join in the joy that we shared in our class throughout the course of this semester. Due to this class, I had the opportunity to share meals with Tyler this semester. We went to get burgers, Chewy’s, and eat at a Mexican restaurant that tried to serve me dollar-store pineapple juice and charge me six dollars for a glass. The service may have been terrible, but the time I got to share with my friend was good. I gained a friend in Airmark, where we got to share questionable experiences from our past relationships, and we made a personal connection on the fact that he’s Catracho, and I went to Honduras as a missionary over the summer. I had an amazing time with Rhys, where we got to discuss a clashing debate he had with a friend of his on a topic I’m sure he’d prefer I keep redacted. In the end, I was there because it was good for me to be there.
Are you happy?
How could I not be? It’s my time now to build my Cathedral (cf. Burkeman, Ch. 14), and the very materials have to be love itself, because nothing else endures (cf. 1 Cor 13). As a Catholic, I am the descendant of Cathedral builders; if my ancestors were medieval stonemasons who spent their entire lives seeking to complete their work, knowing they would never see it finished, who am I not to add a few more bricks to the universal Church we collectively share?
At the beginning of the semester, I had planned by the end of this semester to apply to graduate schools, and apply to a couple of missionary opportunities for when I graduate next May. In this, I contemplated my Stoic background. Marcus Aurelius, in his Meditations, writes, “If you seek tranquillity, do less.” Or (more accurately) do what’s essential—what the logos of a social being requires, and in the requisite way. Which brings a double satisfaction: to do less, better.”
This moved me towards narrowing my future pursuits down, rather than living an illusion of the perfect academic pathway (Burkeman, Ch. 13): undergraduate, graduate, doctoral, post-doc, and finally the beginning stages of becoming a professor, I opted to take the humane approach, I dropped my expectations and opted to only apply to a few missionary opportunities. The only thing holding me to my conviction being a line from the Gospels my roommate Emmet shared with me over our summer together in Honduras; Emmet shared what ended up leading him to return to Honduras as a permanent missionary, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62, RSV-C).
Although I haven’t heard back from any of the places I’ve applied to so far, I do believe (in my very narrow vision of the future) that this decision has purchased happiness for me.
What do you consider the conditions of your and others' happiness?
I’d still answer what I answered at the beginning of this course. I’m a Byzantine Catholic who believes in Theosis, a fundamental Eastern understanding of the Gospel that holds that the Christian becomes a partaker of the divine nature.
“His divine power has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, … through these you may escape from the corruption that is in the world because of the passion, and become partakers of the divine nature.”
— On Theosis, 2 Peter 1:3-4 RSV-C
This is why I spoke in class of the Evangelical formulation of Heaven not necessarily being wrong, but miserably incomplete. The traditional Christian message was never ‘hey, live forever’ but rather ‘join yourself to God [who fundamentally is Love (cf. 1 John 4)].’ We see this echoed in Clement of Alexandria and Anthansius’s (and even CS Lewis’) works: “[The Son of] God became man so that man might become God.”
I finished my introduction with “I would elaborate, but this is an introduction, and you get this entire semester to get to know me.” Now, let me elaborate: the Christian message is two-fold—You shall love God, and you shall love your neighbor (cf. Matt 22:37-40). I still fundamentally see my happiness constituted in what Aquinas defines as love, “Of course, for Aquinas to love means to consistently will and choose the good of the other. To love neighbor as self means seeing their sharing in the good as constitutive of your own sharing in the good. To love God, whose good we cannot will strictly speaking — as He is purely actualized good itself — is to love what God loves, which, of course, is the neighbor’s good. So we come full circle.'” (Dr. Tom Neal, Word on Fire).
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