T. S. Eliot’s verse drama about the martyrdom of St. Thomas Becket, “Murder in the Cathedral,” was first performed in 1935. Sword-wielding knights sent by King Henry II are bursting down the doors of the cathedral in order to assassinate him. Yet Archbishop Becket seems to suggest that even this violent, sacrilegious atrocity will fade in memory simply because “humankind cannot bear very much reality.”
What a telling phrase that T. S. Eliot put into the mouth of Becket. Perhaps it describes our modern world even more than that of the 12th-century archbishop. “Humankind cannot bear very much reality.”
We do have an unacknowledged way of turning away from those parts of our lives that seem too difficult to bear. We just refuse to ponder them. We look for distractions to remove them from our consciousness.
Each and every sin in its own unique way is a denial of what is real.
We live in a fallen, imperfect world, one that often frightens us, even wounds us. It is understandable that we “cannot bear much reality.” Yet we know from personal experience that ignoring the real is never a path of growth.
Still worse, in the weakness and fear of our personal lives, we sometimes give ourselves over to self-made illusions rather than bear the real. And that is not a bad way to describe sin. Each and every sin in its own unique way is a denial of what is real. Again, to quote Eliot’s archbishop:
All things become less real, man passes
From unreality to unreality.
This man is obstinate, blind, intent
On self-destruction.
Passing from deception to deception,
From grandeur to grandeur to final illusion.
Lost in the wonder of his own greatness.
The enemy of society, enemy of himself.
Worse yet, bearing reality is becoming harder, not easier. We live with more reality than any previous generation, even Eliot’s own, and certainly more than that of the medieval archbishop. We are so seldom disconnected from the larger world around us, though we have learned to shield ourselves from that reality by selecting sources of information that already conform to our understanding of the world. Ironically, what we can know about reality has never been greater, but what we choose to know seems ever to diminish. To refuse the real is to embrace illusion.
When grace enters the world, when it touches our lives, fear and illusion are replaced with acceptance and hope.
Let’s brace ourselves and try to look the real in the face. What is to be said of reality? First, if the real world had no dark, dread parts, it would be heaven. Second, if this world were only unrelenting, hopeless pain it would be hell. Everyone’s reality lies somewhere between the two. This is the world in which we find ourselves, the world where we stand before God, its creator and sustainer.
If we have called sin the choice for the self-fashioned unreal, then let us call God’s grace the strength needed to embrace the real. When grace enters the world, when it touches our lives, fear and illusion are replaced with acceptance and hope. Whenever we intend to bear fruit, whatever the soil in which we find ourselves, we have been touched by grace.
True enough, sadly enough, reality may indeed be hard and unrelenting. But if our resolve is to seek out whatever good, whatever love, whatever truth and beauty that we can find in this moment, in this place, then we have, with God’s grace, embraced the real. This will bear fruit—and not only in the life to come. Even today, to live in the real, to reject illusion is to set our face toward growth and toward God.
To live in the real, to reject illusion is to set our face toward growth and toward God.
Most of us were baptized as bawling infants, forced into the reality of this life. Baptism begins to bear fruit when in the silence of adulthood we embrace, accept and make fruitful the real world that we confront. In baptism, we chose to reject Satan, his works and his empty promises. Instead, we elected to live and to bear fruit in God’s real world.
All that follows after baptism is the everyday struggle to prepare ourselves for what must come. Some stop bearing fruit with the first chilly breeze. Some do not. One way to recognize a saint is to find fruit where none should be expected.
“Humankind cannot bear very much reality.” Yet life does lead to death, and baptism beckons us into the beyond. We should spend our lives grappling with these two realities. “Death has a hundred hands and walks by a thousand ways.” As the archbishop puts it,
All my life they have been coming, these feet. All my life
I have waited. Death will come only when I am worthy,
And if I am worthy, there is no danger.
I agree with Steve M that this is a beautiful and incisive reflection! Being humble and accepting our sinfulness and our need for the Savior is an extremely difficult reality to recognize. That's why I'm so fond of the story about Christ appearing to St. Teresa of Avila and asking her to give him her faults. I'm also reminded of Oliver Cromwell telling his portrait artist that he was to be painted "warts and all"! Cosmetics has its place, but it certainly can be a way of avoiding reality.
This is so beautiful. Thank you.
This has to be the best article I have read on America - Thank God and thank You.
Sometimes the search for the acceptance and embrace of grace requires more than just the searcher - it requires a communal effort of encouragement. Those who suffer from depression and alienation may not even have the emotional and mental strength to seek grace but will wait in a dread and darkness that fears both fantasy and reality alike. If we feel that we have the grace of God streaming in like light in our lives, we must project that light as much as possible outwardly - a HELLO How are you or You look GREAT today or any other form of outward gesture to others may help to bring a ray of light and comfort - even though temporary - to those stuck within the confines of the self-made prison of dread.