On Pride (or, Round And Round And Round She Goes)

I was homeless for a lot of years. In January of 2011 I was living on the street in Wheeling, West Virginia. That was a bitter winter. A labor pool across the river in Steubenville had gotten me a temp job at a factory in Wheeling: one week on the 4pm to 2am shift, feeding huge metal sheets into huge metal sheet-folding machines. That week, my only desire in this world was to save up enough for a bus ticket to someplace warm.

So one morning I was in the nearest Catholic church, I forget the name of the place, using their bathroom because it was warm and low-traffic. I brushed my teeth and washed my armpits in the sink, and I was just changing into some fresh socks when this old man walked in. Not a priest or a janitor, just some random parishioner in a ball cap. And he saw me sitting on the floor tying my shoes—saw my duffel bag and my three coats and my two weeks worth of stubble—and he said, "Where you workin'?" And because I was taken off-guard and I felt like I'd somehow done something wrong, I said, "Factory up the street." And that was the whole conversation. He stood there looking down at me and I got up and walked past him and left. I don't know why he said that. I don't know what was in his heart. But my heart heard him saying, "Lazy no-good bum oughtta get hisself a job like the rest of us decent God-fearin' folk." What I can say for sure is that he did not turn as I left and say, "Hey, kid—you need any help?"

It's sorrowful to think of my mom lying awake scathed with worry for me. It's terrifying to think of my child walking a path like mine. But I guess at the end of the day I'd rather see her a derelict with charity in her heart than a safe and successful woman who looks down on those around her.

Humility isn't only a virtue, it's also a recognition of facts. We're none of us self-created or self-sustaining. We didn't earn our conception or oversee our births, we don't weave the oxygen or stoke the sunfire. A man who rises in his profession has no doubt worked hard and seized his opportunities, and that's cause to hold his head up; but he's also been so fortunate as not to suffer from cerebral palsy, not to have been hit by a truck or knifed by a mugger, not to have grown up in a country where his only professional options are begging or eking in the mud. Nothing engenders the absurd illusion of superiority like the absurd illusion of security.

But here's the thing. In denouncing pride in others, note what I'm indulging in myself. In looking up from the floor at someone whom I judge to be prideful, I'm looking down my nose at a man whose inner mortifications are hidden from me. In the very moment of taking gratification in my own humility, I destroy it.

While we stand on a spinning orb, there's no respite from the tendency to bend back in on ourselves. After Purgatory, a straight line upwards; for now, at best, rising spirals. Prayer and mental habit and constant vigilance can keep us turning towards humility, but every turn will mean a fresh impetus towards pride. The good news is, He knows we're trying. And who can say?—maybe we're doing better than we think.

On Sacrifice (or, Goldengrove Unleaving)

The kid in the womb: Father whom I love so dearly?
Me: What is it, kid.
The kid: ...You don't sound glad to hear from me today.
Me: Yeah, sorry. It's just—your mother's been very sick lately.
Kid: Because of me?
Me: Well, yes. But it's not your fault.
Kid: Do you ever wish you weren't having me?
Me: No, we always wanted you. We spent a year and a half praying for you. You were not easy to conceive. But hyperemesis gravidarum is no fun for anyone involved. Probably not even for you.
Kid: I am often reminded of the tempests upon the Sea of Galilee.
Me: Quit showing off, that's my job.
Kid: Heh.
Me: Heh.
Kid: Really, though—won't you miss your independence? All the fun you had when it was just you and Mom and Felix?

Me: Sure I will. I miss my twenties too. But you know, I had my twenties. I'm glad for the experience and the memories, but that time is past. That's how it works, kid, you'll see. Choosing anything means rejecting everything else, and one phase of your life has to die for the next one to be born.
Kid: It is Margaret you mourn for.
Me: Seriously, quit it. Although—nice one.
Kid: Thanks, Dad.
Me: Good talk.
Kid: ...Dad?
Me: What's up, kid?
Kid: Am I killing a happy phase in your life?
Me: Nope. It's been a very happy phase, but we spent a lot of it missing you. You know how the idiot—I mean, you know, Felix—tends to yowl at the door and then dither about actually going outside once it's open? People are the same way. We were often upset about not having a kid, and now we're sometimes upset about having one. But in the end, we wouldn't not have you for anything in the world.
Kid: Everything's gonna change when I come.
Me: Believe me, I know. Luckily, the good Lord gives us nine months to get ready for that. Everything changed when we got married, too, after all. Everything's always changing. But also, the important things don't. We love you. That won't change. It's not a bad bedrock to stand on.
Kid: I know you meant, "on which to stand."
Me: Oh, put a sock in it.

On Vocation (or, You Are The Chosen One)

They stand at the crossroads, and one hates all the roads and the other likes all the roads. The result is—well, some things are not hard to calculate. They stand at the crossroads.

- Orthodoxy, G.K. Chesterton

When our little micro-Toner emerges from the long and restless slumber of the womb, he will find both a cosmos and a chaos awaiting him. As a middle-class(ish) 21st-century American, he'll be free to do damn near anything in the world. He could be a teacher, a doctor, a soldier, a priest—he could dive for pearls in the South Sea or ride with the tribesmen of Mongolia, live on the streets or join strange cults, create more efficient explosives or more insightful literary genres—even move to the suburbs and have a nice clean wife and lawn. Many things will weigh his choices, from physical health and economic circumstance to the grace of God and the depredations of the Tempter, to say nothing of whatever success or failure Ellie and I have in raising him to be more or less psychologically sound; but ultimately he'll find himself at crossroads after crossroads, and he will choose one road or another. (The paradox of freedom being, of course, that even the refusal to choose is actually a choice.) If, God forbid, he should come to disbelieve in free will, he'll find himself standing in front of the closet for a long, long time each morning before genetic programming relieves him of deciding what shirt he should wear today.

No, he'll make some choice about what to do with his life. It may disappoint or traumatize his parents, or possibly make us radiant with joy; but in the end, it'll be his choice, and his alone. My job as his father will be shaping his mind and preparing his soul as best I can to make a wise and virtuous choice. And the thing I'm most concerned about imparting to him from the outset is that there's never going to be only one Right choice.

Let me qualify that: in deciding between whether to perform or not perform a wicked act, obviously there's only one right choice. Should I or shouldn't I steal this candy bar? I should not. But the point is, supposing that I have the twenty-five dollars I need to buy a candy bar (I'm adjusting for inflation here): shall I buy a Snickers or a Milky Way? Perhaps a Twix? What about a Payday? And supposing I have the hundred and fifty million dollars to afford a college education: shall I major in English or Math or Political Science or what? Supposing I want to move to a new city? There are several of them in the United States alone. It's easy to be paralyzed by the multiplicity of options—but it can be just as easy to be paralyzed by a single one, if you're terrified of missing what you think is the one and only path.

I don't want the kid standing at the doors of a seminary (or wherever), wracked with the certainty that this alone is the path that God has set forth for his life. I don't think God does that. I'm pretty sure God throws open the gates of the world and tells us to go nuts. If the kid truly wants to go to seminary, great! Fine! I've got six Toner nephews, the family line will continue. But no one should enter the seminary with the feeling that it's not what he wants, "but it's what God wants." My spiritual director Fr. LaValley (who I'm convinced will be St. LaValley before the coroner even gets the tag on his toe) once told me that there's always a few seminarians who feel that way, and that he always discourages them as strongly as he can from becoming priests. A true vocation should fill a man with joy and certitude and a sense of completion. Not just for the priesthood, mind you, but for every vocation. As scared as I was when I saw Ellie walking down the aisle toward me, I also knew I was finally coming home.

Whatever this kid decides to do, it'll be something that no one else can do. Just as Ellie and I have been chosen to bring a soul into the world that no other two people in all of time and space, in all of Eternity, could bring forth. He probably won't cure cancer or start a colony on Mars, although—you know—who knows? But he'll reflect the Power and the Glory in a way that absolutely no one else has ever done or ever will, and that will be his destiny. For that purpose he was chosen, and for that purpose he will soon be born. I'm excited to see what it will be.

On Language (or, Hope Is Boiling)

My brother Pat used to say that he wanted his kid's first word to be "epistemology." I don't remember what Ben's first word actually was, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't it. Being part Pat, he probably went with some obscure math term just to be exasperating.

Most of us begin our speaking careers with a word like "mama" or "dada." For one thing, it's physically easy to make those sounds, especially with our parents cooing them at us all the time. It's almost inevitable to associate a face you keep seeing with a sound you keep hearing. But for another thing, Mom and Dad are concrete things. You can touch them, smell them, burp up formula on their shirts. Nobody learns to talk and think by looking at pictures of Justice or Beauty or Freedom; first, we must fully comprehend The Nose and The Chin.

Now here's the interesting part. It turns out that even as we grow older and start learning about abstractions and spiritual realities, they can still only be expressed in terms of noses and chins. Every term describing a mental event, if you look closely, is a purely physical metaphor. When you experience an impulse, you're not literally being pushed. When you see someone's point, you're not literally looking at a pointed object. When you feel despair, you're not actually descending from a location called hope, and when you feel hope, you're not actually boiling or emitting smoke. What we mean by "spirit" is something totally different from the act of respiration, but the word itself simply means "breath." Look up the etymology of any abstract word you can think of, and in just a couple of steps it'll trace back to a root word referring to some everyday physical activity. It's actually kinda fun if you're into that sort of thing.

And why is this? Better question: why was it the Son, rather than the Holy Spirit or even the Father, who took flesh in the Incarnation? Because the Son is the Word, and incarnating is what words do. You have an idea. It exists inside your mind, in the realm of pure spirit, and it creates the will to act. That idea represents the Father. Then you speak the idea, you enflesh it in words, and that represents the Son. And if the words are close enough to the idea, if the Son does the will of the Father, if the love between word and idea is true, then it radiates understanding like the Spirit. Every act of speaking is fundamentally Trinitarian. And if your idea was "I'd like a ham sandwich" and the waiter brings you a ham sandwich, then your idea has gone forth into the world and borne fruit. Rejoice!

Granted, all this might be a teeny bit advanced for a toddler. But it's good to have the end game in mind.

and