Rewilding the Word #21

2 Timothy 4 (NJB): ⁶As for me, my life is already being poured away as a libation, and the time has come for me to depart. ⁷I have fought the good fight to the end; I have run the race to the finish; I have kept the faith; ⁸all there is to come for me now is the crown of uprightness which the Lord, the upright judge, will give to me on that Day; and not only to me but to all those who have longed for his appearing.¹

Eric Hoffer² (1902-1983): “When people are free to do as they please, they usually imitate each other.”

1 Kings 3 (NJB): It pleased Yahweh that Solomon should have asked for this.¹¹ ‘Since you have asked for this,’ God said, ‘and not asked for long life for yourself or riches or the lives of your enemies but have asked for a discerning judgement for yourself, ¹² here and now I do what you ask. I give you a heart wise and shrewd as no one has had before and no one will have after you.³

St. John Henry Newman (1801-1890), Doctor of the Church, Parochial and Plain Sermons, Volume I, Sermon 4 “On Secret Faults”– “First of all, self-knowledge does not come as a matter of course; it implies an effort and a work. As well may we suppose that the knowledge of the languages comes by nature, as that acquaintance with our own heart is natural. Now the very effort of steadily reflecting, is itself painful to many men; not to speak of the difficulty of reflecting correctly. To ask ourselves why we do this or that, to take account of the principles which govern us, and see whether we act for conscience’ sake or from some lower inducement, is painful. We are busy in the world, and what leisure time we have we readily devote to a less severe and wearisome employment. ⁴

As Odyssey has made its way into theaters in the past few weeks, I recall how in my early twenties, I took a Course at Gonzaga University on Homeric⁵ Greek (an earlier form of Greek, sometimes called Archaic Greek, which was current from 800 to 500 BCE). We used a wonderful textbook designed and published by two Jesuits, Schoder, SJ and Horrigan, SJ.⁶ But I already knew the story and had my imagination populated with so many of the dramatic images from the adventures of Odysseus and his men, all of whom were trying to get back home. Only one of them did get home.⁷ The Odyssey (a kid’s version), the tales of King Arthur and his Knights of the Round Table, and Robin Hood were stories that I read over and over again in my youth.
There is a difference between, on the one hand, being regularly lost and frustrated and confused by one’s life and its circumstances and, on the other hand, being taught by one’s life and strengthened in it through all circumstances, and eventually through “the awful grace of God” becoming wise.


And this difference, I propose, is directly related to a person’s capacity to understand his or her ultimate destination, his or her ultimate whither if you will; that is, the where to. For Christians, this ultimate end is Heaven ... but not in the sense of place; that is, a place far removed from Earth, from this “vale of tears” as a prayer puts it, but in the sense of a depth of relationship with God that nothing can shake, that even here opens for us a new world (the “other world”) of meaning and purpose. This is our goal and our single-hearted attachment in which we can find an analogy in Odysseus’ relationship with Penelope and hers with him.


Or to use other language, knowing one’s ultimate destination gives meaning to what we have had to endure for the sake of getting to our End. That End is the WHY.

Even the most relentlessly difficult circumstances in a person’s life are given meaning when one can know that this is how I get to where I most long to go. As Fr. Moreland, SJ once told my much younger self (who was still too young to understand what he meant), “Rick, the Cross was not in the way of God’s purposes in the world, it was the way.”

The very difficult obstacles that stood in the way of Odysseus’ homecoming are vividly painted with “winged words” by Homer, the master Storyteller. When I was younger, it was those “adventures”, each in turn, that I remembered and loved to re-read. But from Odysseus’ perspective, those heroic adventures included devastating personal losses and impossible choices. Think of all those boats with which he set out from Troy, filled with men, with his men, all longing for home – “As he struggled to safeguard his life and the homecoming of his companions.” – not one of whom made it home but he. If any person, mythical or actual, had such losses in his or her life, we could feel compassion for him or her if despair devoured them, leaving them feeling that their life had been evacuated of meaning, feeling that their life had been cursed.


A scholar once taught me – I think that it was a former Jesuit, Thomas Cahill –that Odyssey is not so much Odysseus’ story as it is Penelope’s story (notice how the story begins and ends with her, as if to make this clear). Without her (and their son) as the anchor of Odysseus’ life – she is his whither and why – those twenty years could only have been construed as “lost” years, years filled with inconsolable losses and with his memory filled with such awful images of human beings at their worst. Odysseus’ relationship with Penelope, and her faithfulness to him, is what gives Odyssey its greatness and enduring importance to the human community.

Normally I would here do a close reading of the text above (Cavafy’s poem in this case). But because of all that I have already articulated, I will let this magnificent poem stand unremarked.

1 For all the saints who from their labors rest,
who Thee by faith before the world confessed;
Thy name, O Jesus, be forever blest.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

2 Thou wast their Rock, their Fortress and their Might;
Thou, Lord, their Captain in the well-fought fight;
Thou, in the darkness drear, their one true Light.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

(1864, by William Walsham How)

¹ The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy - Isaiah Berlin (1909–97) was a naturalized British philosopher, historian of ideas, political theorist, educator, public intellectual and moralist, and essayist. He was renowned for his conversational brilliance, his defense of liberalism and pluralism, his opposition to political extremism and intellectual fanaticism, and his accessible, coruscating writings on people and ideas. His essay Two Concepts of Liberty (1958) contributed to a revival of interest in political theory in the English-speaking world and remains one of the most influential and widely discussed texts in that field: admirers and critics agree that Berlin’s distinction between positive and negative liberty remains, for better or worse, a basic starting point for discussions of the meaning and value of political freedom.

² “crucible”– used metaphorically. The Oxford English Dictionary at the noun “crucible”: 1.a. - a1475 – A vessel, usually of earthenware, made to endure great heat, used for fusing metals, etc.; a melting-pot.

³ The Oxford English Dictionary at the adjective “absurd” – 1.a. – 1531 – Of a thing: against or without reason or propriety; incongruous, unreasonable, illogical.

4 The New Jerusalem Bible (New York; London; Toronto; Sydney; Auckland: Doubleday, 1990), Mt 5:43–46.

⁵ Britannica: “Rūmī (born c. September 30, 1207, Balkh [now in Afghanistan]—died December 17, 1273, Konya [now in Turkey]) was the greatest Sufi mystic and poet in the Persian language, famous for his lyrics and for his didactic epic Mas̄navī-yi Maʿnavī  (“Spiritual Couplets”), which widely influenced mystical thought and literature throughout the Muslim world. After his death, his disciples were organized as the Mawlawiyyah order."

⁶ Emily Dickinson, The Poems of Emily Dickinson, edited by R.W. Franklin (Harvard University Press, paperback edition 2005).

⁷ “elegant” – The Oxford English Dictionary at the adjective “elegant” –2.a. - c1475 – Of language, literature, or literary style: characterized by harmonious simplicity in the choice and arrangement of words; free from awkwardness, coarseness, or clumsiness; graceful, refined.

⁸ The New Jerusalem Bible (New York; London; Toronto; Sydney; Auckland: Doubleday, 1990), Mt 10:26–28.

⁹ The New Jerusalem Bible (New York; London; Toronto; Sydney; Auckland: Doubleday, 1990), Is 55:2–3.

¹⁰ The New Jerusalem Bible (New York; London; Toronto; Sydney; Auckland: Doubleday, 1990), Ga 2:20.

¹¹ See here for an explanatory expansion of this famous prayer:
https://www.jesuitseastois.org/news-feed/an-expanded-version-of-st-ignatius-loyolas-suscipe-prayer.