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| Alasdair MacIntyre talking about Aristotle (I assume) |
I thought I’d take a break from all these meditations and give you my treasured opinions on Donald Trump’s cabinet appointees. Pfft! I'm kidding. I’m not going to do that. There’s lots of folks writing about Trump’s appointees and only a handful of Ironic Advent Meditators (I’m looking at you Joe and Jennifer), of which I am the lowliest (like Jesus). Pilgrim Dude is Holy Ground. I won’t say it isn’t political; after all, kingdom of God stuff is always political, but it’s not that sort of political. That sort of political isn’t allowed in here.
Before I start, I owe you an explanation. I didn’t post a meditation last night. This happened for 2 reasons, 1) I was watching season 1 of Westworld and I couldn’t focus on writing until I was finished, and 2) when I laid down in my bed, on my stomach, to watch the last episode, my cat Pancake crawled onto my back and fell asleep and I wasn’t about to move. So, I hope you’ll forgive me for skipping out on the 16th day of Advent. I think I had good reason. Anyways (or anyway as Joe Martyn Ricke says), this is the 17th day of Advent and I’m back and I’m glad you’re here (Advent is always better with other people).
I’ve been on a cold streak as of late. I’ve been on 1 date in the past 4 months. I’ve also been ghosted more times than I care to say (for you old timers who don’t know what being ghosted is, here’s a link). This string of failures has got me feeling a little, oh, I dunno, desperate? Is that the word? That’s a very unflattering word but I’m going to roll with it and see where it takes us.
Why? Well, I’m 30 and single and I want a male heir to carry on my line (if you can’t achieve immortality, having kids is the next best thing). I also want a boy so that I can name him Henry Hearst Harnish (yes, Triple H). Then there’s the fact that when you live in meth country it’s slim pickins when it comes to finding a suitable partner and that’s enough to get me feeling a little claustrophobic.
I got to thinking about all this stuff because the old men at the breakfast table this morning were talking about retirement homes (there’s a case of total non-irony). Retirement homes are full of dependent people, folks who are sick or disabled or weak and need consistent help with routine tasks. In life, we move from dependency to dependency, from infancy to old age, and all manner of illness and injury in between. Many of us become sick or disabled and require constant help our entire lives. These facts, as Alasdair MacIntyre notes in his book Dependent Rational Animals, are so obvious that they almost go without saying. He continues (read this, it’s really good):
Yet the history of Western moral philosophy suggests otherwise. From Plato to Moore and since there are usually, with some rare exceptions, only passing references to human vulnerability and affliction and to the connections between them and our dependence on others. [...] And when the ill, the injured and the otherwise disabled are presented in the pages of moral philosophy books, it is almost always exclusively as possible subjects of benevolence by moral agents who themselves are presented as though they were continuously rational, health, and untroubled. So we are invited, when we do think of disability, to think of “the disabled” as “them,” as other than “us,” as a separate class, not as ourselves as we have been, sometimes are now, and may well be in the future.
As someone who has, himself, suffered from difficult ailments (yes, me), both physical and mental, MacIntyre’s critique speaks truly and deeply. It’s also Jesusy.
I wrote down a prayer a few months ago, something like, "God, help me with this vulnerability shit. Amen." I didn’t want to write that prayer because that’s opening a door that in a lot of ways I’d prefer stay the hell closed. But I wrote it and here I am spilling my guts out on a blog about Advent and wondering why I can’t buy a date. Fact is, I probably need to learn a little about how to be healthily and helpfully dependent on another person. Fact is, I don’t like being dependent. I don’t like needing other people. I’m not very good at it. It’s cleaner not to need.
I like to keep in mind the fact that the universe doesn’t owe us a long life; Thoreau died at age 44. Kierkegaard at 42. Nietzsche at 55. Jesus was in his 30s. The purpose of this time we're given isn’t to find a romantic partner. The search for truth, whatever that means for you, is why we’re here, and if along the way we come across a woman who lets us name our son Henry Hearst Harnish, all the better. That’s what I tell myself, anyways. But the pressure to be a simulacrum of everyone else is real. So real that it can leave you feeling a little desperate and lonely when you can’t make it happen. The feeling comes and goes, really. Maybe all this sitting and waiting and writing has worn me a little thin.
Advent doesn’t have anything to do with my dating life, but it has a lot to do with my resistance to vulnerability and dependency. Buried somewhere in all these meditations is a comment I made about a painful fall into co-dependency when I was 19. If we’re being vulnerable, I might as well admit that that little stumble is something I’ve carried around with me for a long time, and it’s probably why I resist dependency, even when it’s helpful and healthy. Sometimes I can’t even tell a difference. Shit.
So, I’m working it out. Hope is not lost and, consequently, I’m not really desperate. I’m waiting until it all comes together or until someone comes along and says, "Yeah, you’re a little weird but when you know better, you’ll do better, and that’s enough for me." I guess that’s alright.
Maybe Advent has a lot to teach us about vulnerability and dependency. Mary was a pregnant and vulnerable teenager. God came to the planet as a baby, helpless and in need, but we’re all waiting for that baby, because, ironically, we need that baby. That baby showed us communion. That baby taught us to love our enemies. That baby said things about the kingdom of God that sometimes make me tremble. That baby challenged the powers that be and that baby was nailed to a cross and left to die, vulnerable and dependent - just like his mom, just like all the rest of us. Could be that vulnerability is something God puts to good use.
Dependent Rational Advent Animals, that’s what we are (that’s definitely what I am because I’m stuck writing these meditations which basically force me to be vulnerable because if I wasn’t I wouldn’t have anything to write about). We need God, we need bread and wine, we need candles, we need crosses, we need prayer beads, we need papasan chairs, we need Christmas lights, we need friends in Kentucky, we need cats, we need poetry, we need walks and naps and Henry David Thoreau, we need sweet potatoes, we need coffee, we need Ben Camino and Ironic Advent Meditations, we need forgiveness, we need salvation, from what? I don’t know, but I know I need it. I need Advent, too, and other things which, in the spirit of Advent, remind me of my vulnerability. When I lose touch with that, I lose touch with that oh-so-human piece of me which reminds me that I am a dependent rational animal and not, as humans are wont to believe, a god.
So, all you Dependent Rational Advent Animals out there, if you’re able, spend a little time tonight thinking about what it means to be healthily and helpfully (I really like those words) dependent. Maybe think about how we all came from dependence and, if we live long enough, that’s right where we’re headed. Those old folks around town, the only difference between you and them is time.
Advent is the cold space between birth and death where we wait, in flesh and blood, in vulnerability and dependence, for a god who set aside his power and put on the very same weakness we all want to be saved from. wtf? That's ironic enough to get you pissed.
May the Schwartz be with you, pilgrim.
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