So now I’m expected to have an opinion on Michael Voris, am I? Everybody on Patheos has an opinion on Michael Voris, and no matter what their opinion there’s an army of combox warriors with the opposite opinion. Opinions on Michael Voris are hot these days. Even the great Michael Voris is talking about them. I’m tired of missing out on clicks and shares; it’s time I had an opinion on Michael Voris.
Let me see if I can think of one.
First of all, I hate his hairdo. I don’t think anyone over the age of six should have a bowl cut, unless that person is a model from Paris with high cheekbones and an alabaster brow. Even then it’s a bit too twee. But this is just my personal opinion and no reflection on Voris’s character. I also have horrible hair. In fact, my haircut is identical in style and color to the one Thor wears in all the Marvel Comics movies in which he appears. The only thing I lack is a beard. I was proud of Thor’s and my haircut for the first five minutes of the first Thor film, and then Tom Hiddleston appeared as Loki and I never liked my hair again. But I’m allergic to hair dye so I haven’t changed it. So, anyway, Voris has terrible hair and so do I.
I also hate his sword. I don’t think a man should wield a weapon on video unless he’s competent in the use of that weapon and willing to take a man’s life with it if need be. One is not worthy to wave a weapon that he’s not willing to drive into the warm entrails of his opponent, the stipulations of Just War being met first of course. It’s a serious thing to take up a weapon unworthily. Never condemn a man you wouldn’t execute yourself, right there, in your white button-down shirt and bowl cut, with that very sword. And now I’m thinking about Thor again, and also Game of Thrones. I have plenty of opinions about these things that are far more interesting than anything I have to say about Voris, but I’m supposed to be forming an opinion about Voris.
Michael Voris recently made the bold confession that he used to have promiscuous sex with men, but now by the grace of God he does not. I wouldn’t blog about such things, but he deeply wanted this to be publicly known. According to a recent Facebook post by one of his employees, that old life is “dead to him” and he no longer identifies as “same-sex attracted.” Well, praise God. It must have taken a great deal of courage to confess something like that. Learning to control one’s passions is part of what makes a man a man, or a woman a woman. It reminds me of Rudyard Kipling’s “If,” a beautiful poem about what it takes to be a man. I like that poem, but I don’t like it half so well as I like The Just So Stories. “The Elephant’s Child” has always been my favorite of The Just So Stories, a wonderful story to read aloud to children. You have to do all the voices just right, you see. You have to speak with a stuffy nose when you say the elephant’s lines, and you have to get all oily and sanctimonious for the bicolored python rock snake. Sometime perhaps I’ll post a video of myself reading “The Elephant’s Child” aloud, except then you’ll find out that I’m secretly fat and have Thor hair. Perhaps I’d better just post an audio recording. I promise you, it will be much more interesting than any opinion I can muster about Michael Voris.
I was mistakenly told through a source, and that source is my Facebook, that Michael Voris says he believes that the a Cardinal is out to get him, and that he is wrong about this. I later found that it was an archdiocese and not a cardinal that is denying allegations that it was out to get Voris, but I like the cardinal one better. I have no idea if anyone is out to get Voris, but there’s such poetry in the image. It must be terrible to believe that the cardinals are out to get you and be wrong. All that fear and suffering, but no release because the fateful day never comes, and the cardinals never get you. The anticipation in such a case would be worse torment than the event. It would be terrible to believe it and have it be true, as well. Cardinals are fearsome things. Not as fearsome as bluejays, who will peck you to death, but still. It reminds me of The Birds, a film I laughed at when I was a child because the special effects looked so cheap. I don’t laugh at it now. Funny how your opinions can change as you get older. Things that seemed fearsome are silly– I’m not afraid of Willy Wonka anymore. And things that seemed silly are downright fearsome; The Birds is a powerful, frightening film, almost as good as Rope in its way though I like Rope better. The film analyst Rob Ager wrote a very interesting analysis of The Birds, claiming that the whole thing is really a myth about female sexual frustration and competition, and I like it very much. It doesn’t sound like a stretch at all when you hear him walk you through it, on his analysis video, with his soothing Liverpool accent. I promise you, even if you have no interest in the films of Alfred Hitchcock, you’re far better off watching that film analysis video than listening to me try to form an opinion about Michael Voris.
Well, perhaps that’s something I can say about Michael Voris, and about myself, and about you the reader, that actually needs to be said. Sinners, you and Michael Voris and I, all of us sinners fear most from others what we struggle with in ourselves. The violent man fears violence against himself most of all. The shallow one who sleeps around behind his partner’s back, is the one who always fears his partner’s infidelity. Those who use people assume they’re being used. I struggle with flippancy and always fear being laughed at. I struggle with anger and wonder why everyone is angry with me. When I gossip about another, I stay up all night wondering what people are saying against me. And in many cases, the effects of sin linger for years, coloring the world we see even after we’ve been healed of relapse into that sin. What we believe about ourselves is the filter for human interaction. One might grow to suspect that everyone is secretly in sexual sin, and that no one takes sexual sin seriously enough. One might believe any number of things. All of us miserable sinners need to have compassion on one another.
I’ve noticed that Michael Voris’s fans always say “I’ll pray for you” in the comboxes. Thank you in advance, and please do pray for me. I’ll pray for you. I pray that Michael Voris and I, and you the reader, will continue to be led to perfect charity through the mercy of God. I honestly do; I’ll get offline and offer my Vespers for all of us as soon as I hit “publish.” Yes, I’m praying Vespers at two in the morning because I’m an insomniac, and I forgot my breviary when I went to pray earlier. I pray for the gift of perfect contrition for all of us, and the healing of the effects of our sins. I pray for the gifts of trust and of honesty, and if anybody’s out to get anyone I pray that they aren’t gotten, and if they’re gotten I’ll pray for freedom and healing all around. I don’t need to know who’s right. And, thanks be to God, I don’t need to have an opinion on Michael Voris.
(Image courtesy of Pixabay.)
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