But I digress. In terms of using a justice theorist to examine a contemporary issue, I chose to use Nozick and gene patents because I thought there was an interesting connection. The central question of justice in that kind of perspective is the ownership of genes. Assuming that genes were previously unowned, the question shifts to whether society is worse off as a result of this ownership. While it is possible to answer no, because the patent on the BRCA1 and 2 alleles allowed for tests to be develop to determine whether individuals had these particular variants, I would argue that ultimately the answer has to be that society is worse off through the ownership of genes. It may allow a company to pursue research, but it makes it much more difficult for others to pursue similar work. Anyone wanting to do anything in terms of the study of those sequences had to pay for the rights to do so, slowing research and increasing costs to consumers. In fact, a rival company has stated they can now offer BRCA 1 and 2 tests at a third of the cost.

The other argument that can be made is that genes were not previously unowned. It doesn’t really make sense to think of individual ownership of genes, but rather I’d argue that our species as a whole owns our genetic legacy and thus the acquisition of gene patents by biotech companies was never just in the first place.

Now ultimately, this ruling is a mixed bag. The patents specifically involved in the case were set to expire in 2016 anyway and the company’s stock shot up because the Supreme Court is still allowing for patents on cDNA (an issue that would take another post to really explore). It should help lower costs for people who want genetic tests, and make it easier for researchers to share work. The downside is that some believe it could present precedent regarding naturally occurring nonhuman products (derived from bacteria, plants, etc.). The actual ruling seems to speak directly to human genes, but I guess time will tell.

And it would also take a whole post (or more) to get into the added opinion of Justice Scalia at the end of the ruling where he writes “I join the judgment of the Court, and all of its opinion except Part I–A and some portions of the rest of the opinion going into fine details of molecular biology. I am unable to affirm those details on my own knowledge or even my own belief. It suffices for me to affirm, having studied the opinions below and the expert briefs presented here, that the portion of DNA isolated from its natural state sought to be patented is identical to that portion of the DNA in its natural state; and that complementary DNA (cDNA) is a synthetic creation not normally present in nature.” http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/12pdf/12-398_1b7d.pdf

Let’s just say that even though I am fairly happy with the ruling, that scientific literacy would have enabled an even better ruling.

Because 10-month-olds can’t yet express sympathy verbally, Kyoto University researcher Shoji Itakura and colleagues turned to a common tactic in baby-brain research: using simple animations to determine what infants prefer. They showed 40 babies an animation of a blue ball and a yellow cube.

Half of the infants watched a short clip in which the blue ball chased the yellow cube around the screen, hitting it seven times before finally squishing it against a wall. The other half of the group saw the same movements, including the squishing, but the two shapes moved independently without interacting.

In some cases, the “bully” and “victim” roles were swapped, so that the yellow cube was the bad guy. After watching the show, the babies were shown a real yellow cube and a real blue ball, and given the chance to reach for one of the objects.

In cases where the babies had seen one shape beating up on the other, they overwhelmingly reached for the victim, 16 out of 20 times.

The seeming-silliness of studying babies via videos of shapes and then letting them choose real shapes reflective of the video they just watched is really not silly at all – it is fantastic experimental design. And the data is terrific too. Yes, moral sense within 10 months of birth.

Baby brains develop incredibly quickly. And it is a longstanding truism of studies of babies that there is probably more there than what you can detect. Improved experiments will find more and more. We are the deficient ones; they know more than we can know that they know.

Anyway, I think this is a win not only for morality and its innateness (and a great follow up study would be to see if babies with older siblings have modified outcomes in any way), but also for babies themselves. For those like Peter Singer who would allow infanticide, I would hope that this gives some pause. Babies are not just lumps. They are thinking and moral beings. Even newborns and prenatals can do some pretty fantastic things. We should recognize that many of the limitations that we perceive in babies are not in the babies, but rather in us. (Not that I think that human value relies on our abilities/lack-of-limitations in any case.)

The moral history of humanity has shown, I think, that it is better to draw the bounds of humanity too wide and include too many (not that this has ever happened), rather than too narrow and include too few (the human default morality).

As a last thought, and to explore the above too-narrow-boundaries-of-humanity problem with in-group and out-group, it might be interesting to condition the children to perceive the victim shape as out-group and the bully shape as in-group. Give them all toys and clothes marked with a blue ball. Give mom and dad the same markings. Then show them the video of the blue ball squashing the yellow cube.  See if the babies-prefer-victims theory still holds then. If not, then we’ll have begun to see the origins of “drawing the moral bounds too narrow” as well.

The Catholic tradition on conscience is very extensive, while being quite unified. One may wonder, if the teaching is so unified, why there would be so much to say. The reason is because the tradition is unified on a tension. The first pole of the tension is that under no circumstances should one violate one’s conscience – one must always follow even an erring conscience. The other pole of the tension is that, at the same time, a rightly formed conscience is expected to concur with Catholic teaching. These two moral requirements, that one should follow one’s conscience and that one should follow Church teachings, are potentially in conflict. The requirements may not align, and if so, then a point of tension has appeared between an individual’s conscience and the Church’s teachings.

Here I will endeavor to provide only a brief overview of the immense literature surrounding the Catholic understanding of conscience. In the first section I will provide some background to the subject of conscience, in the second some examples of perennial issues that arise in the discussion of conscience, and in the third some current examples of conscience in the news.

The site is a work in progress so if you have any feedback by all means leave it as a comment here (you can’t leave comments on the Center’s page). Particularly leave a comment if you know of any current news stories involving Catholicism and conscience rights (please provide a link), I will add it to the section at the end (“Current Flashpoints”) where we are compiling contemporary cases. Two prime cases being the HHS mandate on contraceptive insurance coverage, and the new tendency of some bishops to use of “affirmations of faith” with diocesan employees (in that particular case the requirement has been temporarily withdrawn).

For good and ill, the clockwork metaphor of Newton and Descartes is no longer familiar, so start with something you know:  video games.

Let us say that God is video game developer.  She codes for a massive multiplayer environment that we will call the World…

With that beginning, we can talk about the modes of interaction our developer has with the program.

A)     She wrote the program: Creation.  Pretty straightforward.

B)      She maintains the program, not only by keeping the server running, but by patching, allocating memory, and making upgrades.  Christians call this “sustaining” or continual creation.

C)      She might act as a player, taking on an avatar and playing by the rules everyone else plays by… Indeed, this is quite close to what most Christians believe of Jesus Christ…

I’m sympathetic towards this metaphor too, as are a whole bunch of atheists who call it “the simulation hypothesis” (which I’ve talked about here), and yet still call themselves atheist (can’t quite figure that one out). Read the rest at Lucas’s Weblog.

As for me, on the question of divine action, ever since I’ve been a Christian I’ve figured that accepting the creation of the world is a pretty big miracle right there. Everything else is minor by comparison. So, like Lucas, when it comes to miracles, I say “no big deal” for God, just a “big deal” for us.

 Closely following the tragedy caused by death is the tragedy caused by loneliness, which in a way seems like the foretaste of death. In fact, recently, a report on social isolation and its impacts on mortality in the TIME magazine makes it clear that social isolation, which is closely related to the feeling of loneliness, leads to early deaths. There are quite a few studies on loneliness and how the “progress” that we boast of has indeed led us to loneliness and isolation. Instead of having more time on our hands to spend with our near and dear ones, and to pursue the hobbies that we like, our lives have become cogs in the great money-making-machine. Some of us are in the illusion that we are connected more than ever through social media such as Facebook, Twitter, etc., but the fact of the matter is that we are so superficially connected that our deeper longing for love and communion are far from being met. The Atlantic has published a thought provoking article, entitled: “Is Facebook Making Us Lonely?”, which speaks to that fact. The article points out that “new research suggests that we have never been lonelier (or more narcissistic) – and that this loneliness is making us mentally and physically ill.”

 In addition to the two tragedies that I have mentioned, another grave tragedy of life, in my opinion, is the loss of the ability to feel – be it with someone, or for someone. Being able to feel with someone is nothing but having compassion. Marcus Borg in his Meeting Jesus Again for the First Time, talking about the importance of compassion in the life and work of Jesus, parses the word and maintains that compassion “means feeling the feelings of somebody in a visceral way, at a level somewhere below the level of the head.” He adds that compassion is commonly associated with feeling the suffering of somebody else and being moved by that suffering to do something. That means this ability of being able to feel the joys or sorrows of others is what enables us to move beyond ourselves and consider the good of others. Further, Borg drives home the point that “to be compassionate” is what is meant by the New Testament command “to love.” Love and compassion, therefore, seem to serve as antidote to the narcissistic drives that we are forced to foster by the media and the great money-making-machine. Dalai Lama said it well: “Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. Without them humanity cannot survive.” Drawing on the words of the Dalai Lama, it seems to me that the day we cease to be compassionate and to love, we cease to exist as humanity, and that, is indeed a great tragedy. 

Taking Dzhokhar Tsarnaev alive is a very good thing. I don’t know if he was wearing a suicide bomb, but given his and his brother’s blatant disregard for human life (and reports that his brother was wearing one) I wouldn’t be surprised. And in that case the BPD did a huge job – they not only saved the lives of any other innocent victims Tsarnaev might have killed, they saved his life too.

The best possible outcome is still, then, possible – Tsarnaev might say he is sorry. It might not happen, but if it does we should rejoice because that would deflate the terrorist cause; he would be acknowledging that he and his cause were wrong. And that is a powerful witness to keep others away from it. And it would help restore Tsarnaev’s own humanity – he needs to have his sense of right and wrong corrected. It will also show that moral behavior on our part pays off.

When Osama bin Laden was killed in Pakistan it was only a half-victory for the USA, as I noted at the time. We not only acted outside the law, but we denied him the ability to apologize. That would have been the ultimate victory – the apology of our foremost enemy – and we lost it by killing him. We denied ourselves the opportunity for a moral victory. And as we continue our “War on Terror” we continue to deny ourselves the opportunity for this highest victory.

No matter how unlikely the apology is, we still need to give our enemy that chance. It is not only better for them, it is better for us. Even though distorted towards vice, they are human too. Because in a deep way treating one’s enemy as a human denies the dichotomy of “us” and “them.” It makes us all “us.”

If we deny the humanity of our enemy, we reinforce their denial of ours.  The only way to end this war is by mutual respect or total annihilation, and as I said before, we aren’t going to choose the second path. So we better get started on the path to the first.

In this act of good law enforcement, the BPD respected the humanity of someone who attacked us as an enemy. We need more of this behavior towards those who call themselves our enemies. So once again, good job Boston PD. When BPD officers (and I hesitate to bring it up, but it is the truth and we should never shy away from it) brutalized the peaceful Occupy Boston protesters that was a low-point, but today you have show us the better way.

Let this be a formative moment for our nation, to direct us to defend justice with compassion and respect even for those who deny it to us. We need the moral high ground, not only for the sake of our enemies, not only for the sake of those watching, but for our sake, for us, to keep us human.

And on that note I will end with a link to a story from World War Two. It is a must-read, about a German pilot sparing an American B-17, but I’ll just excerpt one quote.

“People think of the rules of war primarily as a way to protect innocent civilians from being victims of atrocities,” she says. “In a much more profound sense, the rules are there to protect the people doing the actual fighting.”

The code is designed to prevent soldiers from becoming monsters.”

Today we did not become monsters. That might sound like a hollow hurrah, but it is not just a negative, it is much more than that.

Instead we became humans.

I am now 7 months into working the farmers’ markets. My duties on the farm have expanded to included running some of the education programs which means I am now tending 5 gardens and numerous children who come to learn on the farm. That work combined with doing 3 markets a week these days has made me even more sensitive to a phrase that is kicked around the farm quite a bit: the real cost of food.

Rather than expounding on the phrase, allow me to rant, I mean contextualize it:

I worked a particularly long and difficult market today. I spent part of my shift, between restocking vegetables and explaining the concept of a CSA to people, pondering why some of the customers were getting on my nerves a bit. (Before you get concerned–I am pretty good at what Hoschild called “emotional labor.” That is, selling not just the product but the sunny disposition that creates the appropriate atmosphere–even and especially when there is a mis-match between said atmosphere and how you actually feel. I strive to make sure all customers have a great farmers’ market experience.)

Here is what I concluded: I was particularly irked because they were displaying the behavior and attitude that most of us are guilty of at one point or another. They wanted deals on the vegetables or were upset, in whatever way they chose to express it, because they thought the produce was “too expensive.”

I get tight budgets. I can even extrapolate and understand plentiful budgets but wanting to make your money stretch. I recognize that, for some people, getting a bargain is a sport.

What I would venture to guess we all forget (some with more or less frequency) is that bargains come at a price.

So, if I was teaching a class on food justice and talking about the real cost of food and one of my students brought up how they failed to get the farmer to cut them a deal on their carrots, this is what I would tell them:

I hear that you wanted the farmer to sell you the carrots for $2 instead of the $2.50 that was listed. Here is why I find it kind of insulting, albeit unintentionally so, when people feel like they shouldn’t have to pay that 50 cents:

Today was a market day. When my alarm went off at 4:45 am (that is right, that is a 4 in the hour slot) I woke up and removed my wrist braces. Wrist braces I now wear every night to minimize the injury caused by months of heavy lifting of boxes and vegetables, tents, and tables and repetitive motion. Wrist braces I wear because of the hard work I do to make sure you get your carrots.

I left the house well before the sun came up even before the rooster crowed–literally.

In order to get the produce to you, my colleague and I moved and loaded over 100 boxes and crates of vegetable. Your carrots were in one of those boxes.

We spent well over an hour setting up our stall so you had access to your carrots.

I was on my feet in perpetual motion for the entirety of the market. For the two hours before you got up when the market was open. For the 5 hours and 45 minutes after you left the market when you went to brunch, watched the game, took a nap or a hike.

I spent another hour or more packing up the carrots that weren’t quite the right ones for you and all of the other vegetables no one wanted. Along with those same tables and tents, I lifted those boxes of vegetables back into the truck. Lifting them from ground level to shoulder height, and repeating.

Back at the farm I reversed the process from the morning. Realizing only when I sat down to do paperwork (a necessary evil) that I had been working so hard to make sure you got your carrots that I didn’t have time to fill my water bottle or eat during the market.

When I got home after my 10 hour shift, I massaged my aching wrists, stretched my aching legs, and tried to refuel with some of the leftover vegetables that were not good enough to sell. All this knowing I would be getting up the next morning to do it all again.

Is all of that worth 50 cents?

The real kicker for me is that I am just the last person to put the work in for you to get your carrots. The work began around two to three months ago (longer when you talk about field prep and planning) when a farmer carefully planted each of the seeds that would grow to become your carrots. It continued during those months as multiple people tended the seedlings, put them in the ground, weeded by hand to make sure they got the sunlight and nutrients they needed to grow, harvested by hand, washed by hand, and packed up those carrots by hand.

With the amount of labor alone that went into that bundle of carrots $2.50 is a steal! A steal, I tell you!

So, no, I don’t blame farmers who price their produce in such a way as to make sure they cover the full cost of their produce. I don’t blame them for not wanting to drop the price because we feel like we deserve a deal.

In fact, if the prices are truly fair and reflective of the true cost of the food, then I find it dismissive and insulting to ask for a deal. It is as if we are saying, “I don’t really care how much work, time, and energy it took for you to produce this and get it to me. I don’t really care that you bear the physical scars and injuries inherent in the demanding work you do. None of that is worth the extra 50 cents I want to save.”

That is the tale I would tell my students.

That is the tale I remind myself of every time I want a bargain on something local, organic, and sustainable. Or a bargain on a hotel room. Or a bargain anywhere, really, that means that bargain comes at the cost of devaluing someone’s labor.

Chen Guangcheng, from Wikipedia.

Last night I had the opportunity to attend the awards ceremony for the 2013 Katharine and George Alexander Law Prize at Santa Clara University. The recipient was the Chinese human rights lawyer Chen Guangcheng, a blind and (formerly) barefoot peasant from rural China turned international human rights advocate.

Chen escaped China with his wife and two children in 2012, after he fled house arrest (thanks to some very incompetent guards – remember Chen is blind and fled alone!) and appeared at the US embassy in Beijing. After causing quite an international incident, Chen has now settled down into life in New York City, where he studies law at New York University.

I want to share a few of the things Chen said as well as a few of my impressions.

First, Chen was extremely blunt in his criticism of China’s leaders. He said that he was reluctant to call them a “government” because they ignore the rule of law. He referred to them as the Chinese Communist Party, not a government.

When questioned about the likelihood of future dissent he said this: “In the past the government was pulling up small plants. But now they are becoming trees.” Chen continued by saying that he actually found the possibility of a future revolution “likely,” which I  found quite surprising, and which his translator did not initially translate – the moderator added that he said that.

Chen also commented, when asked what factors shaped who he is as a person, that his response has been very much a “natural reaction,” like shying away when you are being beaten. But in this case, of course, he did not shy away, he turned towards the beating and became hugely important because of it.

Chen voiced his appreciation of US law and the role of lawyers in human rights work to improve America over its history. It made me proud of my country that we could give refuge to such a courageous seeker of justice. It was also bittersweet to remember that the United States does have a very checkered human rights history, but that through the rule of law we have done much to overcome some of the worst abuses of the past.

Interestingly, while Chen’s story took center stage, what was not spoken of in much detail were some of the grotesque injustices that Chen had actually been fighting against. Chen has fought for the rights of the disabled, against government corruption, and for environmental protections. But what really got him in trouble is that Chen is a crusader against the Chinese one-child policy. Chen himself has two children, in violation of the policy. He was working to protect his fellow villagers from family planning officials who committed forced abortions and forced sterilizations on local women. For this he was imprisoned and then held under house arrest.

When I opened the paper this morning I was pleased to see that Chen was in the newspaper – a reporter must have been at the event last night (I had considered that there might be spies, but not that there might be reporters!). But I was shocked to see that the one-child policy was practically apologized for, the San Jose Mercury News coverage today seemingly undermining Chen’s work by noting the popularity of the policy in China, and how much bigger (and implicitly worse) China’s population would be without it.

Let’s get one thing clear. It does not matter if you are “pro-life” or “pro-choice,” because there is no choice involved in a forced abortion or sterilization, and such actions are extremely misogynistic and anti-feminist. Taking a pregnant woman, capturing her, often via coercion against her family or threats of torture or murder, tying her down, and performing a medical operation on her against her will, sterilizing her or cutting apart her child inside her womb, is barbarous inhuman evil. It is indefensible, no matter how popular it is or what consequences it has avoided.

Some facts can be reported without judgment. But the fact of forced abortion – a direct effect of the one-child policy and the most prominent target of Chen’s human rights work – is not one of them.

All right, enough of that.

For some final happy notes, Chen was appreciative of California and this “life giving season.” He said he liked California’s flowers and fruit. When he expressed his interest in California, someone in the crowd shouted “come here!” and “stay here!” It is obvious that Chen is beloved by many in the Bay Area Chinese community.

Chen was also very inspirational. He told us to ask ourselves how we might make society better. He told us that every person has the power to change the world. And he said to have faith and stick to it, don’t just talk, do it.

Chen Guangcheng has certainly done this with his own life, and endured much hardship while experiencing mixed results. But his story is nowhere near over. I do not think we have heard the last of Chen Guangcheng, and I wish him well in his future endeavors.

The Catholic social media universe was buzzing following yesterday’s news.  Since Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was largely an unknown quantity to us here in the United States, most people were trying to piece together an image of the new head of our Church.  First came the wave of obvious “firsts” – he’s the first Latin American Pope, the First Pope from outside Europe in over 1000 years, the first Jesuit Pope, and finally, the first Pope to choose the name Francis after Francis of Assisi.    Next came his first public address, which he opened by asking the faithful to pray for him rather than by offering his blessing on the faithful.  Then came the news that as Archbishop of Buenos Aires, he had made a point to live in a small apartment, take the bus to work, and to cook his own meals.

For most of my more liberal Catholic friends, this was a day to celebrate.  From a conclave that consisted entirely of cardinals named by the past two, highly conservative Popes, the expectation was that another highly conservative Pope would emerge.  So when this bus-riding, self-cooking, poor-loving, humble, non-European, non-Vatican-insider emerged, the liberal half of Catholicism rejoiced.

“Maybe,” said the Farmer.

Of course, there is plenty for my conservative Catholic friends to love as well.  As Archbishop, Pope Francis has been staunchly anti-abortion, anti-gay marriage, and anti-contraception often clashing with the Argentinean government over these issues.

“Maybe,” said the Farmer.

And anyone who is paying attention realizes that there are two big issues that will require the Pontiff’s immediate attention if the Church is to retain even a modicum of moral authority.  First, the hierarchy needs to publicly address and systematically deal with the Clergy sex abuse scandal.  Secondly, he will need to reform the Roman Curia.  It needs to be noted that some have said Francis is the wrong man for these jobs because he was involved in corruption and worse when the military regime ran Argentina in the 80s.  That only needs to be said because it has been declared patently false by none other than Amnesty International.

Still, others are suggesting instead that Pope Francis doesn’t have the backbone for either of these tasks.   Of course, if I recall correctly, similar things were said about Pope John XXIII before he called for the Second Vatican Council.

“Maybe,” said the farmer.   

In 2005, when Benedict XVI was elected, the Catholic world was similarly abuzz.  That time, however, the buzz was about what we did know rather than what we did not know.  We knew that Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger had spent the previous 24 years serving as Pope John Paul II’s “watchdog,” charged with promoting and safeguarding Catholic doctrine and morals, and so those same liberal Catholic friends that are cheering for Francis, bemoaned the selection of Benedict XIV.

“Maybe,” said the farmer.

I was cautiously optimistic in 2005.  In my eyes, Benedict XVI made a logical choice for the task at hand.  Pope John Paul II had left such big shoes to fill, that it would have been far too much for any one individual to both fill John Paul’s shoes and be the first African or Latin American Pope as well.  No, what was needed to close the long story of John Paul II’s papacy was an epilogue.  And who better to write the epilogue to John Paul than the man who was most closely associated with him?  Ratzinger was the yin to John Paul’s Yang, the bad cop to JPII’s good cop.   And he was already seventy-six years old when he took office.  Benedict’s papacy was going to be marked in terms of years, not decades.  And once the epilogue was written, then we could start our next book with the next Pope.

The other thing that I was hoping for in 2005 was that we would come to discover that Ratzinger was not so much of a hard liner as a good lieutenant.  He took the heat so that John Paul could be so well-loved.  There was evidence, from before his time in the Vatican, that the good Cardinal had a liberal academic streak, and many were hoping that side of him would resurface once he emerged from John Paul’s shadow.

“Maybe,” said the farmer.

In hindsight, Benedict’s papacy was something of a mixed bag.  Under his watch, the American nuns came under severe scrutiny, Fr. Roy Bourgeois was canonically dismissed, and the Latin Mass was resurrected.  Also, Benedict spoke sharply against both women and married priests but said very little about the sexual abuse scandal.  Maybe I am naïve, but I am not convinced that this was all Benedict’s doing – the Vatican is an unwieldy but conservative beast.  Much of what went on in the past 8 years may reflect more what Benedict couldn’t stop than what he actively did.   If so that gives us more reason to be cautious about Francis’s papacy…

“Maybe,” said the farmer.

Still,  the intellectual Ratzinger did resurface.  Benedict’s three encyclicals were all well received and are cited often by both liberal and conservative theologians.  And then there was the time he opened the door to artificial contraception (if only just a hair) by suggesting that male prostitutes could justifiably use condoms “in the intention of reducing the risk of infection.”  I still believe that he was trying to spark a new conversation within the confines of his role as head of an inherently conservative and slow-moving Church.

Sure, Benedict didn’t return to his liberal youth, but he was a thoughtful leader right down to his final act, which may well become his most lasting legacy.  The choice to step down from the papacy rather than continue to try to run a worldwide Church at the age of 85 was downright radical and a fitting exclamation mark at the end of the 8-year epilogue.

“Maybe,” said the farmer.

So now, we begin our new volume in the history of the Church.  It is important that we have the first non-European in the papacy.  It is exciting for those of us who run in Jesuit circles that we have the first Jesuit pontiff.  And it is heartening to know that the Spirit of St. Francis of Assisi is alive and well at the top of our Church.  These facts are notable to be sure (largely because they are firsts), but they are not defining.

I am, once again, cautiously optimistic.  I do not think this Pope and I would see eye to eye on every issue facing the Church, but I do hope that the act of closing one volume and opening another allows us, finally, to make peace with the sins of our past.  I also hope that under the shepherding of a decidedly pro-poor AND anti-abortion Pope, we can overcome our internal differences as liberal and conservative Catholics and embrace, as a unified Church, the entirety of a Consistent Ethic of Life.

God called St. Francis to do more than serve the poor.  God called him to “Rebuild my church.”  I am hoping and praying that his namesake can live up to that call.

But I also remember the words of that farmer…

“Maybe…”

[Matthew Gaudet is an adjunct professor of ethics at the University of San Francisco and a graduate student at the Graduate Theological Union.  For more of Matt's posts on this blog, please click here]

The second was the trailer for the movie “Cloud Atlas.” At minute 5:10 Frobisher speaks (via letter) to Sixsmith, saying that he believes there is a better place after death, and that he will be there waiting for him.

(Yes, I know I said I was going to review the movie “Cloud Atlas” and I never did. But the trailer was better than the movie and I couldn’t bring myself to say all that needed to be said about the movie; so the trailer and the book review will have to do.)

What is so interesting about waiting that two pieces of popular culture would both mention it in such lyrical terms? What deeper truth is being pursued when both mention the idea of waiting?

The quick answer (do wait for the longer one) is that we live in a society that hates to wait. We rush, rush, rush and never encourage restraint from immediate gratification and indulgence. Advertising is all about getting you to act NOW, before your judgment and virtue can act to keep you on track. We want it all now, now, now. Anything worth waiting for is lost. This habituates us towards vice, and it is ubiquitous – everywhere, all the time.

The messages of waiting provided by Mumford and Sons and “Cloud Atlas” are therefore very counter-cultural, and stand out all the more because of it. But there are even deeper ideas at play here too. And this leads to the longer answer.

First, waiting for something means it is worth waiting for. If it is a person, then by waiting you indicate that the person is worth it, that they have a dignity that you respect, and that you are willing to endure suffering on their account. Like a race, rather than getting somewhere first and thus being ranked higher, you instead finish together, thus declaring your equality. The Mumford and Sons song is fundamentally about respect. Waiting is worth it, the ultimate union too valuable, or even sacred, to risk  messing up.

Second, waiting means you have faith that what you are waiting for will occur, or that the person you are waiting for will be able to make it. This is trust, and it reveals your faith in the other. If you have crossed an obstacle and then wait for the next person to make it (as in death, as in the “Cloud Atlas” trailer), you are indicating your trust that then next person will be able to make it too. They are strong enough, good enough, trustworthy enough, they can make it. Furthermore you have confidence in them, and thus you strengthen them with your confidence.

Third, patience (enduring waiting) is a form of courage. St. Thomas Aquinas in his Summa Theologiae II-II, Question 123, Article 6, discusses endurance as a kind of courage. St. Thomas sets everything in terms of battle, but he allows that life itself is a kind of battle to achieve the good, thus making the idea of courage more inclusive.

I answer that, As stated above (Article 3), and according to the Philosopher (Ethic. iii, 9), “fortitude is more concerned to allay fear, than to moderate daring.” … The principal act of fortitude is endurance, that is to stand immovable in the midst of dangers rather than to attack them.

Waiting can be a form of suffering and enduring suffering is difficult.  In waiting, we are enduring a fear that we might not actually make it – we have trust that we will, ultimately, when the other joins us and we achieve the good together. But waiting is not easy. St. Thomas provides three reasons for his assertion that endurance is more difficult that aggression:

First, because endurance seemingly implies that one is being attacked by a stronger person, whereas aggression denotes that one is attacking as though one were the stronger party; and it is more difficult to contend with a stronger than with a weaker.

Secondly, because he that endures already feels the presence of danger, whereas the aggressor looks upon danger as something to come; and it is more difficult to be unmoved by the present than by the future.

Thirdly, because endurance implies length of time, whereas aggression is consistent with sudden movements; and it is more difficult to remain unmoved for a long time, than to be moved suddenly to something arduous.

While the battle analogies may distract somewhat, the point is that enduring suffering for the sake of the good is a virtuous act, it is the act of a courageous person, the kind of person who is strong enough to endure that sort of pain and suffering. By waiting, we endure suffering and become stronger because of it.

This strengthening of the self, combined with respect for the dignity of the other and faith that the other will be with you results in a potent trio: dignity, trust, and courage. Anything marked by those traits has got to be pretty good – and pretty worth waiting for.

Lastly, why is this something that people care about? Let’s start with children.  Children can be terribly afraid of being left behind, of not being waited for.  They know (even if they don’t want to admit it) that they are often slow, not as skilled, and very dependent on others. They need us to wait for them because if we do not, they will be left behind, metaphorically or even literally. For a child that is a genuine, terrible fear, not just the humiliating lack of capability found in slowness or lack of skill, but most especially the fear of being left utterly alone and helpless.

As adults we grow out of some of this fear because we grow in speed and skill, and we usually learn to trust certain people, or at least ourselves, so that aloneness is no longer so fearful.  But the childhood fears still resonate. We still know there are things to fear, things which we need others to help us with. Love requires trusting another. So we fear that our trust is misplaced. Knowing that someone will wait for us strengthens our dignity (that we are worth being waited for), strengthens our faith that we too can make it, and strengthens our courage to face the obstacles that oppose us.

Speaking theologically, we have all these things and more with God: dignity, faithful trust, and courage. God respects us, that we are worth all of this trouble.  God has faith in us, that we can do our best. God has courage (and encourages us) that we can make it. At the ends of our lives God will be waiting there for us.

Everything we humans do is just a weak imitation of these deeper theological ideals that are built into the fabric of the universe. A movie or song that contains these ideas taps far into the well of reality. And so when we experience them, we feel refreshed, invigorated, alive.

So, these ideas have a lot going for them.  I am glad to see the idea of waiting being presented in popular culture, even if the full depth is only implicit. The ideas tap into the depths of our souls – they make terrifically meaningful art and deliver a moral message as well.