>Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth -- Blaise Paschal
The great IOZ has a piece discussing the problem of Mother Teresa. Despite the somewhat arch "How do you solve a problem like Teresa?" (anyone who grew up in a home with a gay kid brother who fell in love with the Trapp Family and lived and breathed Sound of Music, or is married to a woman who did the same, will understand the archness), IOZ does a good job of discussing the problem of the soul and the relationship to the divine from a sort of theistic point of view. I chose to wade in with my own views, in brief. Here are my thoughts...with elaboration in black.
"In a past incarnation, I was briefly Emperor of a large, faith-based
non-profit serving the poor of the Greater Seattle area. I came to
believe that one thing Christ said is definitely true --"The poor are
always with us." I also came to believe that St Vincent de Paul was
absolutely correct in saying, "The poor are difficult masters." Poor people are absolutely awful. They smell, they are irrational, they don't respond the way you expect them to, and they really aren't all that grateful for your spare change and your old shoes. Trust me...if they were wonderful, it would be a lot easier. They're not -- they have problems, pscyho-socio-sexual-metaphysical-physical and for all I know, other dimensional as well. Sick and dying poor people are worse.
In
the mega-sense, Teresa's care for the poor was useless, of course.
However, that is the geopolitical thinking that gets you into messes.
Not worrying about individuals get masses killed. I know a parish priest in Texas who used to spend his summer vacations working in Calcutta with Mother Teresa. He told a story of a journalist he heard ask her, "What's the point? You can't win?" She smiled, and responded, "It's not about winning." And, it wasn't about her...
John of the
Cross entitled his greatest work, "The Long Dark Night of the Soul" and
William James discusses this loss in "The Varieties of Religious
Experience"; and there is a tradition in Catholic theology and
philosophy that makes Teresa very main stream. Thomas the Apostle,
after all, doubted until Christ revealed himself...and, tradition has
it, went to India where he was martyred. Worrying about outcomes, including your own rewards, is actually the opposite of what Ignatius de Loyola described for the ideal Jesuit. You do what you are doing, what you are given to do, as well as you can and focus on that. What happens is out of your control. Joan of Arc despaired; I suspect that lots of missionaries of all faiths have despaired. Very few of us, regardless of faith, go to death with the complete serenity of a Thomas More. Hell, Christ despaired.
I would rank her as a
Christian stoic -- abiding by the principles and ultimately not
expecting any reward. As such, I see her doing what Marcus Aurelius
advised, loosely translated..."Things are incredibly fucked up.
Anything you do, no matter how minor, is a good thing." To argue that her actions were meaningless because they were so small in comparison to the extent of the horror is similar to saying, don't waste your time voting. It is because they are so small in the face of the problem that you need to step up and do something...anything.
Of
course, I write this as a practicing anti-theist, who advocates the
cult of Tiffany the Singularity where God is antropromorphized as a
hormonal, not so smart, vacuous teenage girl who's into dildoes and
Justin Timberlake, if that is not redundant. So, what the hell do I
know... I wish I still believed at times. For a guy who spent 16 years in Catholic confinement as Jimmy Buffet calls it, I miss the reassurance. I wish I could want anything as much as Mother Teresa wanted Jesus. She kept looking.
In Hoc Signo, Vince!" ( It's pronounced VIn-KAY, not Vince, and means "conquer"...I know our folks reading this looking for a discussion of Britney's Vulva would want to know how to pronounce the Latin...)Christopher Hitchens has his take on Mother Teresa, and he has said that he liked her, he just thought she was a hypocrite and wasn't sure she believed in God. Well, ok. I enjoy Hitchens although the apologist role for the Iraq thing is kind of sad...Still, I think that hypocrisy is something different. If you profess something and do something else, well, you're a hypocrite. If you profess something, and do the same thing, you are consistent. If you profess something, do it and question yourself constantly and question the meaninglessness of what you're doing, well, you are fully human. Only those with the blissful ignorance of a Dubya, the fanaticism of a Cheney or the sheer hubris of a Pat Robertson can do large things and not question themselves.
Nope. In the best of all possible worlds, there would be more Mother Teresa's. Not unlike Orestes in Sarte's The Flies, she's a true existential hero. Not all that different than the Luther created by John Osborne, she could do nothing else. We used to think a lot about making our own meaning, anchoring ourselves in history and doing what we could to make the world better. A Phillip Berrigan could hug his brother and Abbie Hoffman at the same time. Now, we demand sincerity. Consistency is a hell of a lot better; consistency in the face of adversity.
I commend to the Jansenist heretic, Blaise Paschal. He summed it up in his Pensees...
"Atheism shows strength of mind, but only to a certain degree.
>Belief is a wise wager. Granted that faith cannot be proved, what harm will come to you if you gamble on its truth and it proves false? If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation, that He exists.
>"Between us and heaven or hell there is only life, which is the frailest thing in the world.
<"Can anything be stupider than that a man has the right to kill me because he lives on the other side of a river and his ruler has a quarrel with mine, though I have not quarrelled with him?
"Chance gives rise to thoughts, and chance removes them; no art can keep or acquire them.
"Continuous eloquence wearies. Grandeur must be abandoned to be appreciated. Continuity in everything is unpleasant. Cold is agreeable, that we may get warm.
"
A beautiful essay.
I am sorta where you are at, except I have become much angrier with the Right Wing Christian/Hebrew version of God. I've kinda fallen into a feeble Gnosticism, 'cause I can't see Jehovah as very worthy of worship. I feel horrible even while typing this, of course.
Posted by: Brian | 07 September 2007 at 09:12 AM
Ah, religious guilt...a beautiful thing. Thank you, Jesus.
Posted by: Crusader AXE of the Lost Causes | 07 September 2007 at 11:19 AM
I just can't get aeound the fact that Mother Teresa's opposition to birth control helped perpetuate the situations she worked to alleviate. WTF??
Posted by: Marmoset | 09 September 2007 at 08:24 PM
Yup. Tiffany is really the goddess of irony, isn't she?
Posted by: Crusader AXE | 09 September 2007 at 09:44 PM
I'm also bothered by the reported refusal to provide any pallitive care with the money donated to her. She seemed to derive strength FROM the suffering of the poor.
Still...who am I to criticize her? I'm certainly no Hitchens (thank whomever)
Posted by: Brian | 10 September 2007 at 08:11 AM