Letter #78: Dark World, Bright Joy

The Weirdest Thing about Faith

We’ve been using a lot of big words — faith, hope, charity, joy — and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that, as long as we don’t use them so broadly we can’t tell what they mean. I’m always made suspicious by the sort of Christian “charity” that largely consists of declaring who among us shall be damned. As if any of us get a vote.

In the case of joy, I think it’s important to distinguish it from happiness, which comes and goes. It makes a great deal of difference to your happiness whether you drink a glass of wine on your wedding night or on the eve of your execution. But to savor the wine in either case — that’s joy, as I use the word.

That sort of joy requires an attitude of forgiveness, and that sort of forgiveness requires another big word: truth.

For me, the single weirdest aspect of the experience of deepening faith — possibly its defining quality — has been this: the closer I draw to Christ, the darker my vision of the world becomes and the more my joy increases.

That sounds like a paradox, but it really makes perfect sense. The more I know of Christ, the more I see what people are. That vision isn’t pretty, and it includes me. As a result, I’m forced to conclude it’s such people — real people — selfish, dishonest, cowardly and cruel — whom Christ loves and calls on us to love as well.

Once you see that, once you dispel the phantasm of your own virtue and of everyone else’s virtue, you’re free. Free to stop posing as a good guy, to live a little more honestly, a little more mercifully, a little more bravely, a little closer to the spark of holiness inside you, which is the source of love, which is the source of joy.

This is what makes the rituals of virtue so wearying. Declaring that you live on stolen ground, condemning the sins of others, destroying a work of art to show your commitment to the environment — whatever. You’re not fooling anyone. Not even yourself. You’re simply tying your body to the lie even as your soul struggles to break away. No wonder such people are so grim and angry all the time.

In Freiburg (did I mention it was featured in Werewolf Cop?), there’s a beautiful medieval cathedral. On the tympanum above the entrance, there are reliefs, including one scene of the enthroned Virgin being crowned by the Father and the Son.

I don’t suppose there are any real thrones or crowns in heaven. But I think these images of the eternal serve to show us what we’re supposed to be and mean to one another. The closer you draw to that vision, the darker the real world becomes — and the greater your joy.

Weird, as I say.

Love, Darth.