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Friday 4 March 2016

"Disordered Affections" and the Politics of Victimhood and What's Wrong With Me?

So far as I have been able to determine, no nearby church, (we are a one-car household in an area with minimal public transportation, so "nearby" is not a commendation to be dismissed lightly,) is offering special Adoration for the "23 Hours of Mercy," or even confession at any other than the regular times.
So during Mass this morning, I was considering engaging in that... thing? I don't want to dignify it by calling it a "practice" ...... where I don't focus on anything much intellectually, but let the Liturgy kinda wash over me. (This can be very spiritually rewarding, don't knock it till you've tried it.)
Sometimes a word or a phrase will suddenly be illuminated so that it is thrown into relief, and observed from a slightly different angle, there may be some insight to be gained.
But strangely, especially for Lent, it wasn't penitence and mercy that called out to me, per se - it was solidarity with other sinners, [good, so far!] and yes, a great, big helping of, "oh, for the love of pete, stop whining, you particular bunch of sinners, everyone else has to deal with that too, me and everyone else, YOU'RE NOT SO SPECIAL, [bad.]

It's odd, because such an attitude as I have is, the exact opposite of what we call "compassion," right?
The ability to willingly suffer with someone else?
And yet my actual thoughts are, don't you get it, you idiots? we all experience the exact same thing, so if you really believe that's somehow "suffering," we're all already suffering with you!

What in the liturgy prompted such unChristian thought?
It started early.
Opening collect....
We pray, O Lord, that we may be constantly drawn away from unruly desires...

"Unruly"? As in "boisterous"? Who're you callin'..... Oh, wait, no, as in requiring some effort to get them in line, subdue them, be their master rather than lave. Oh, good. I'll use that at Sunday school - we all have temptations to tame. Lions, animal analogies appeal to this bunch, I'll -
And my thought are off to the races and instead of contemplating and being in the moment and letting, or at least hoping for something holy to "wash" over me, I am elsewhere. Get your head back in the game, Scelata, at least TRY to listen to -
Preface....
You have given Your children a sacred time for the renewing and purifying of their hearts, that, freed from disordered affections...
Yes.
YES. 
We all have affections, attractions, desires, temptations - not "needs" but "wants" that are "disordered."
And some of them are objectively so.
But I know it's the D word, not the O word that's giving the Professionally Aggrieved and the Highly Ranked Amateur Umbrage Takers a hissy, so that's what I'm dealing with.
Nobody's looking for a special way to insult you, LGBTQDW activist, I promise....

And by the time my thoughts get this far, I am dropping to my knees, having barely regained mindful consciousness in time to join in the sanctus....

I just wish.... I just wish before people began wearing their offendedness like a backstage pass, especially as it regards language, they would actually examine that which has them miffed, what its context is, how else and how fairly it is applied, and what its usage is in the realm where they find it.

One advantage a "dead" language has for official utterance is that something precise and completely lacking in opprobrium is not easily going to suddenly drift into "you can't say that anymore!" territory.
(I'm looking at you, "thug," "handicapped," and "whore.")

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