Different Values

Like many others, I watched the Inauguration yesterday. I thought it was pure pageantry, with press commentary more on the level of the description of Rose Bowl floats than news. Rick Warren’s prayer, for example, made the appallingly ignorant point that “Now today we rejoice not only in America's peaceful transfer of power for the 44th time.” I have so far found no-one in the media who pointed out that four of those transfers were at the point of a bullet: Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Kennedy. So many brains were checked at the door, Warren’s and those of the people whose job it is to frame these events for the nation. The adulation of Obama worries me.

So when our new president's speech moved into the familiar territory of national purpose and national greatness, even with its explicit call to buckle down to the work we need to do, it sounded to me like pretty much the same political rhetoric we have heard so many times before. I don’t really want to parse the speech, except to say that it repeated the litany of American self-help heard so often before. The closest it came to a national ethic of sharing was really a call to equal access to the tools of success: “The success of our economy has always depended not just on the size of our gross domestic product, but on the reach of our prosperity; on our ability to extend opportunity to every willing heart — not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good..”

Not out of charity. Faith, hope, charity (to use the traditional words). But the greatest of these is charity. Obama has invited comparisons to Lincoln, and the word charity has an important place in Lincoln’s vocabulary: “With Malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right.” Of course, what Obama means is giving money to people without corresponding expectations. But that has some theological issues as well. Agape being one of them. As a Christian I was disappointed.

What does a monk say to all this? Monks, of course, can have political opinions, some with passion. Fr. Huntington, the founder of OHC, certainly did. Fr. Huntington’s passion was for fairness and justice and prosperity for working people. He was on the side of ordinary people who worked hard and did not get a fair shake from the system. He joined the labor movement when it was small and unpopular and remained faithful to it to his life’s end. He was not afraid of political engagement when that seemed appropriate. He was a dedicated, lifelong supporter of his good friend Henry George and the Single Tax. That idea flourished briefly toward the end of the 19th Century, with its apogee in George’s campaign for Mayor of New York City in 1886. Huntington actively campaigned for George, and was criticized for it.

But there is another monastic tradition as well. It doesn’t seem political, but it is, because it raises the possibility of a different set of values, not based on having more but on having enough. The implicit promise of much American political rhetoric is, Vote for me and I will lead you into greater prosperity. More is what we want, and More is what we vote for. We don’t often ask for a life with Less so that we can pursue other values. We don’t often choose what is simpler except in retrospective nostalgia, making the point, as Obama did, that enduring hardship, having Less, was the price that our forebears paid so that we could have More now.

But for monks, More is the problem. It is a huge temptation. It is our default setting as human beings to want More. Humility is hard. Having Less is hard. Wanting Less is even harder.

So I was struck by a saying I read the other day which has stayed in my mind. I have begun a slow reading of The Book of Mystical Chapters: Meditations on the Soul’s Ascent from the Desert Fathers and Other Christian Contemplatives, by John Anthony McGuckin . It is a collection of three “centuries” of sayings from the desert monastic tradition.

The saying is from Abba Philemon, quoted from the Philokalia:

Set your mind on following the path of the saints.
Prefer a simple style of life.
Wear unremarkable clothes.
Eat simple food.
Behave in an unaffected manner.
Don’t strut around as if you were important.
Speak from your heart.

The monastic path is not the path for everyone. The pursuit of economic plenty is necessary for us all, monks included. Monasteries, ours included, need financial help (our gas bill for heating this month is $13,000! It’s a big place serving a lot of people! It’s been cold!) Part of the engine, the energy, that drives economic growth is the desire for More. So More is not wrong, not bad, in fact, it is necessary.

But More is not the only value. It needs to be in relation, sometimes a relation of tension, with the value of Less, the value of enough but not more. Human society needs people who live differently, whose values point to a path chosen less often but none the less important for that. It needs this difference in order to keep open the path of reflection, to re-open the question of generosity, of charity in precisely the sense of helping others who have little opportunity to give back.

The question ultimately is the heart. When you get More, does it open your heart, does it allow you to speak the Word that made you and everything you have? And when you choose the simpler path, does it make you humble and appreciative of the regard and generosity of others, on whom you now depend? Or does it bring pride and a sense of moral superiority? Which is one of the dangers for monks.

More and Less need each other. In the spiritual life and in the life of the nation.