{"id":2458,"date":"2015-08-18T07:55:31","date_gmt":"2015-08-18T11:55:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/?p=2458"},"modified":"2015-08-18T15:34:18","modified_gmt":"2015-08-18T19:34:18","slug":"colbert-reveals-how-faith-has-kept-him-grateful-in-new-gq-profile","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/billykangas\/2015\/08\/colbert-reveals-how-faith-has-kept-him-grateful-in-new-gq-profile.html","title":{"rendered":"Colbert reveals how faith has kept him grateful in new GQ profile"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Photo<\/a>
Photo by Stemoc<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

I have been a longtime fan of Stephen\u00a0<\/span>Colbert. He\u2019s helped me to laugh through many of the most difficult and frustrating times of our nation\u2019s history over the past 15 years or so (first on the Daily Show, and later in his own political comedy satire). Now Colbert is about to take the reins of the\u00a0Late Show<\/em>. I think he\u2019ll do a great job.<\/p>\n

As the new show\u2019s launch approaches Colbert was profiled this week by GQ. The profile touches on a lot of Colbert own journey to where he is today. It\u2019s a candid and personal portrait and one that revealed Colbert\u2019s intelligence, sensitivity, and values. Part of the interview talks about his faith. Colbert is a Catholic and has been open about his faith in the past. He\u2019s given John McCain a bible lesson.<\/a>\u00a0He\u2019s welcomed the Pope<\/a>. He\u2019s defended Catholic theology on hell against it\u2019s detractors<\/a>, as well as the real presence in the Eucharist <\/a>, and the divinity of Christ.<\/a>\u00a0He has stood before congress and challenged them to take protection of our immigrants seriously on the basis of the scriptures (and basic human decency).<\/a>\u00a0He\u2019s talked about the challenges of raising his children with faith on NPR.<\/a> He\u2019s shown that he believes his faith is a source of life and heroism.<\/a><\/p>\n

In this latest GQ profile Colbert takes up his faith again, as he recounts how he has managed to stave off bitterness in spite of tragic loss in his own life (his father and 2 of his brothers\u00a0died in a plane cras<\/a>h when he was 10). Colbert credit\u2019s the example of his mother, the beauty of the world itself, and his faith:<\/p>\n

[My gratitude for this world], that impulse to be grateful, wants an object. That object I call God. Now, that could be many things. I was raised in a Catholic tradition. I\u2019ll start there. That\u2019s my context for my existence, is that I am here to know God, love God, serve God, that we might be happy with each other in this world and with Him in the next\u2014the catechism. That makes a lot of sense to me. I got that from my mom. And my dad. And my siblings\u2026\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

I was left alone a lot after Dad and the boys died\u2026. And it was just me and Mom for a long time, and by her example am I not bitter. By\u00a0her<\/em>\u00a0example. She was not. Broken, yes. Bitter, no\u2026<\/p>\n

it was a very healthy reciprocal acceptance of suffering, which does not mean being defeated by suffering. Acceptance is not defeat. Acceptance is just awareness. \u2018You gotta learn to love the bomb,\u2019 Boy, did I have a bomb when I was 10. That was quite an explosion. And I learned to love it. So that\u2019s why. Maybe, I don\u2019t know. That might be why you don\u2019t see me as someone angry and working out my demons onstage. It\u2019s that I love the thing that I most wish had not happened.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

When the author of the GQ piece struggle to make sense of it all Colbert turns to Tolkein:<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cTolkien says, in a letter back: \u2018What punishments of God are not gifts?\u2019 \u201d Colbert knocked his knuckles on the table. \u201c \u2018What punishments of God are not gifts?\u2019 \u201d he said again. His eyes were filled with tears. \u201cSo it would be ungrateful not to take\u00a0everything<\/em>\u00a0with gratitude. It doesn\u2019t mean you want it. I can hold both of those ideas in my head.\u201d<\/p>\n

He was 35, he said, before he could really feel the truth of that. He was walking down the street, and it \u201cstopped me dead. I went, \u2018Oh, I\u2019m grateful. Oh, I feel terrible.\u2019 I felt so guilty to be grateful. But I knew it was true.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not the same thing as wanting it to have happened,\u201d he said. \u201cBut you can\u2019t change everything about the world. You certainly can\u2019t change things that have already happened.\u201d<\/p>\n

Consider that this is coming from a man who millions of people will soon watch on their televisions every night\u2014if only there were a way to measure the virality of this, which he\u2019ll never say on TV, I imagine, but which, as far as I can tell, he practices every waking minute of his life.<\/p>\n

The next thing he said I wrote on a slip of paper in his office and have carried it around with me since. It\u2019s our choice, whether to hate something in our lives or to love every moment of them, even the parts that bring us pain. \u201cAt every moment, we are volunteers.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

I couldn\u2019t have said it better myself.<\/p>\n

Read the full profile here.<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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