'Most modern freedom is at root fear. It is not so much that we are too bold to endure rules; it is rather that we are too timid to endure responsibilities.'
-G.K. Chesterton
'One of the signs of modernity is a craving for generality...'
-Ludwig Wittgenstein
I will try my best to speak in specifics and avoid generalities; I have a fetish for dwelling in generalities - or at least I tend to speak in them. It is so delightfully easy to speak in generalities.
In the particular cultural manifestation of America 'over here,' the ideal seems to have scrawled itself on everything available for scrawling: 'Freedom means not being hindered.' The unspoken (and generally unjustified) superstition reeks everywhere: 'God did not design us to be burdened ... at least,' comes the Christian response to American Christianity, 'at least not burdened unjustly.' Yet what 'unjustly' means is highly not debated. How does the song go? -'I am free to...'? Yes. The Christian 'freedom from sin' stands curiously related to the American 'freedom of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.'
This is a culture that has stood as witness to the 60's, 70's, 80's, and (yes, even the) 90's. We have a Constitution and inalienable rights. I have heard and felt the revolt blooming in the alleys, so to speak: 'what about responsibility?'
I've mumbled and fumbled over my reservations. I've turned my 'outsider' and 'oddball' societal status into something somewhat satisfying and profitable; being true to West Coast survival instincts, I've generally avoided tying myself too tightly to any one institution or group. As the Church eventually began crashing in on me, even still I held onto the infatuation with being a 'Catholic Nazarene' ... embracing Catholicism but not committing to the Church herself.
Yet I'm not alone, and it's not just 'West Coast mentality.' There are many reasons for resistance - expressed by family, friends, professors, acquaintances - concerning the idea of converting to Catholicism. It is not so much that we are all in the process of making that decision; it is that the idea of converting to Catholicism - of 'picking up all that baggage' - is highly controversial, apparently. I would say that we're all in the process of converting, but that is not the foremost issue in most of the minds of those I've encountered; most are concerned with why anyone else would convert. I don't pretend that these people are fools, nor fools to recognise that there is indeed something stark, intensely jarring, and holy in the Church of which it is natural to be afraid at first glance.
Not at all to be haughty or flippant, but (I merely speak from personal experience): don't have anything to do with this entry series if you are not interested in having your world turned upside-down. Furthermore: don't read any of the writings of the saints, don't read or listen to the whole Bible, don't touch Church history, don't study theology, don't discover anything about the history of music. I may utterly fail in proprely representing Catholicism here, but indulging in this sort of stuff will get your heart and mind in motion. And that is ultimately my hope: to use this silly little outlet to address different issues that have arisen in conversations, correspondence, and debates. Frankly, I'm not doing this to make an airtight case for conversion; but I hope to begin publicly mulling over what are (for many of us) the numerous 'reasons' for not converting so as to show how content we've been with insufficient and ironic objections. Converting is indeed something radical, but it is not nearly so illogical as I've heard it made out to be. Conversion - submitting to an actual authority - may in fact be found to be freedom.
-rick
