Waking up early on this Vigil of the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, I caught a rerun of a Tavis Smiley interview with Anna Quindlen.<\/div>\n
I\u2019ve never shared the enthusiasm for Quindlen that many women my age profess. Much less would I join Smiley in referring to her as one of America\u2019s greatest living writers. I find her prose pedestrian at times, and shrill often\u2013and I had those reactions even during the great span of my life in which I agreed with her opinions. But there was nothing else on (I don\u2019t have cable, and even if I did, there would still have been nothing else on), and I was interested to see if Quindlen would address the part of her memoir Lots of Candles, Plenty of Cake<\/i> in which she describes her decision to leave the Catholic Church in which she was raised. In keeping with her role as one of the chief spokespersons for the war on women, she\u2019s been getting a lot of airtime and a number of column inches lately over that chapter in her life.<\/p>\n
We did get there eventually, but not until after Quindlen had talked about how wonderful aging is now that she\u2019s admitted she\u2019s doing it. Quindlen noted that members of the boomer generation can expect to live an average of 12 years longer than their parents did, and and should think about how much fun they can be having with that extra time. \u201cWe\u2019re all so much more fit, and have fewer responsibilities,\u201d she announced cheerily, apparently using \u201cwe\u2019re all\u201d to mean \u201cI am.\u201d She refused to be sidetracked by Smiley\u2019s questions about the reduced quality of life many older people experience in the current economic climate, and shrugged off concerns about sandwich generation issues by reminding the host that her mother died when she was 19\u2013a seminal event in her writing\u2013so it\u2019s not something she has to worry about.\u00a0When pressed, Quindlen admitted that a good bit of what makes aging wonderful for her is that she comes to it \u201cas a prosperous woman.\u201d<\/p>\n
Well, yeah. And without catching her breath, she switched to chastising Americans for being too materialistic, another seminal theme. \u201cWe went on those shopping sprees in the 90s,\u201d she said, \u201cand now we look at all those storage facilities full of stuff and wonder, Why did I think I needed that?<\/i>\u201d (Maybe as a hedge against aging unprosperously?) I do love it when the wealthy counsel asceticism.<\/p>\n
The Faith Thing finally came up near the end of the interview, when Quindlen explained, with long-suffering directness, why she left the Catholic Church\u2013and why everyone else should, too. It Just Doesn\u2019t Work Anymore, she sighed. Raised a Catholic, she married a Catholic, and baptized their three children Catholic. (\u201cOf course, like every woman in America, I used contraception,\u201d she laughed, \u201cor I\u2019d have had fourteen<\/i> children instead of three!\u201d) But swallowing the Church\u2019s hatred of women every week at Mass finally became too much, especially as the abuse scandals came to light, so she said Enough<\/i>. Yes, it caused hurt to her family, but there comes a time when you say, This far and no further<\/i>. It\u2019s only reasonable. When the Church tries to shut down \u201cour fabulous Planned Parenthood,\u201d who in her right mind would stay?<\/p>\n
And for one early-morning minute, Anna Quindlen got me wondering.<\/p>\n
What if she\u2019s right? What if a Church that appears to kick so hard against what everybody else knows<\/i> is the goad of human progress\u2013the liberation of women from the shackles of sexual repression and traditional marriage and childbearing, equal rights (including\u2013and does this smack just a tad bit of irony?\u2013rights to traditional marriage and childbearing) for people of all sexual orientations, population control by any means necessary for the purposes of preserving a threatened ecosystem, moral choices based on personal autonomy and economic expediency and \u201cwhat I know in my heart is right\u201d rather than outdated codes that don\u2019t account for scientific development\u2013is an unreasonable anachronism at best, and a tyrannical oppressor to be overthrown at worst? It wasn\u2019t all that long ago that I\u2019d have been not just agreeing with Quindlen, but standing with her in calling for Catholics to throw off the yoke of Rome.<\/p>\n
Instead, I asked to take up the yoke again. I walked back in. And I have all but committed those extra 12 years I may have\u2013though God knows I am neither fit nor prosperous\u2013to being as Catholic as I can, out loud.<\/p>\n
I can\u2019t explain it, this thing that changed inside me two years ago in Assisi, when there came a time when I said, This is not far enough! Further!<\/i> I am not in my right mind. I am unreasonable. And on this Vigil of the Solemnity of the Most Holy Trinity, all I can say is that I am, most undeservedly, in good company. Because the Trinity\u2013the central truth at the heart of Christianity, the engine of Love that drives the universe\u2013is not a thing of right minds or reason. It is the opposite of autonomy and expediency. It makes no sense.\u00a0The Trinity is Mystery, and given my \u2018druthers I will always choose mystery over what\u2019s only reasonable.<\/p>\n
But of course it\u2019s not my decision at all. I am not (none of us is) the chooser but the chosen, called by God from before time to live in the Trinity\u2019s timeless bliss when my time here\u201312 years longer than my mom\u2019s or not\u2013is done. The Church is the mystery of that Mystery embodied here, aged indeed and, in the world\u2019s and Anna Quindlen\u2019s eyes, both not fit enough and too prosperous. Quindlen may unfriend the Church for that, but the Mystery that is the Trinity will never stop choosing Anna, never stop calling her back, never say Enough<\/i>. And that same Mystery will never stop choosing the Church, never stop calling her to account for falling short of the witness to love, never stop sending prophets (even self-appointed ones like Quindlen) to goad her into doing a better job of calling the world to true human progress.<\/p>\n
So call me crazy. But when our days are ended, Anna\u2019s and mine and yours, let\u2019s not be caught looking back at lives like crammed storage facilities full of things the world sold us and asking, Why did I think I needed that?\u00a0<\/i>when all we ever needed was summed up by Patrick of Ireland in his great hymn:<\/p>\n
I bind unto myself the Name,<\/span>
\nThe strong Name of the Trinity,<\/span>
\nBy invocation of the same,<\/span>
\nThe Three in One and One in Three.<\/span>
\nBy Whom all nature hath creation,<\/span>
\nEternal Father, Spirit, Word:<\/span>
\nPraise to the Lord of my salvation,<\/span>
\nSalvation is of Christ the Lord.<\/span>
\n
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