In an article on church architecture, Fr. Dwight Longenecker laments the shift of beauty from churches to banks and insurance buildings. Why do these latter structures feature the marble, the fountains, the silver and gold, the luxurious carpeting, and the fine furnishings that were once commonplace in most churches? Why have Christians de-emphasized beauty in houses of God but emphasized it in houses of finance and security?
Because we adorn what we love.
Today’s gods are money and safety. So it’s no surprise that our most decorated buildings are banks, which hold our money, and insurance companies, which intend our safety. These establishments are symbols–secular icons–of the gods our culture serves.
Consider the great Trinity of Parenthood, three things most Americans seek for their children: happiness, safety, and comfortability. “I just want my children to be happy” or “I just don’t want anything to happen to them” or “I want to make life as easy as possible for my children” are preferences echoed by millions of mothers and fathers.
These goals glow with enchantment, beckoning us to chase them, while commercials, movies, and friends offer their encouragement. These things aren’t bad, of course. They just aren’t ideal pursuits. They shouldn’t be sought at any cost. But most of us don’t see things this way.
When seen through the lens of God, many things are revealed to be different than they initially seem. The Beast is really a prince, the grandmother is really a wolf, and the beautiful young lady offering an apple is really a terrible old witch.
This Trinity of Parenthood is just as deceptive. At first glance, happiness, safety, and comfortability seem to be the highest ends of life. But even without appeal to religious maxims, what does our data say? Are the happy–those who absorb every sensual pleasure–truly the most joyous? Do people on their deathbeds wish they took less risks in life or more? And at funerals, do we celebrate the comfort of someone’s life or the valor and impact of their sacrifices?
Some of the most poignant scenes in the Gospels occur amidst darkness, danger, and discomfort. Of the people looking to Jesus for help, those most commended reached to him in their despair: the bleeding woman, the woman caught in adultery, the prostitute washing Jesus’s feet with her hair, the crucified criminal. It wasn’t happiness, safety, or comfort that brought them to the divine, but their opposites.
Great Christians like St. Peter and St. Paul dragged themselves through beatings and imprisonment to emerge with strong souls. Saints like Ignatius and Lawrence died brutal deaths–uncomfortable to say the least–to achieve fulfillment. And even Mother Teresa rarely experienced happiness, safety, or comfort, yet few question the success of her life.
So, while I naturally want happiness, safety, and comfortability for my children, I want much more. I want holiness, sacrifice, and moral courage. I want purity, peacemaking, and simplicity. And through all of that, I want them to find the joy, refuge, and ecstasy of Heaven–not just their temporal substitutes.
I believe in an alternate Trinity, a trinity for whom happiness, safety, and comfortability are mere tastes of a fuller meal. And that is what I want my kids to taste.
