What follows is a rather new style of content here at The Broken Binnacle. Written meditation is challenging and maybe a contradiction, but worth the effort, nonetheless. As always, we appreciate your interest and happily accept your feedback in the comments as we navigate into deeper waters with this, the first installment of our new section, The Keel.
“I was afraid because I was naked, and I hid myself.” - Gen. 3:10
In his recent essay, “Thank God for Witnesses,” Matthew McShurley raised the point that in the first precept of the natural law, “good is to be done and pursued, and evil is to be avoided,” the word “avoid” conveys the sense that evil is not just “not to be done or pursued” but actively evaded (I am using Thomas Aquinas’ formulation of this precept from the Summa). This sense comes through even more clearly in the Latin “malum vitandum [est]” where vitandum not only means “to be avoided,” but also is used to describe how a guilty man averts his eyes from his accuser. Cicero uses this word in his speech against Catiline in this very sense. To avert, vitare, one’s eyes in this way is itself an admission of guilt. Thomas Aquinas uses this word intentionally and defends the position that it is self-evidently true (Prima Secundae Q. 94, A. 2), meaning it is self-evident that we are 1) unable to combat evil face-to-face, and 2) guilty.
In a blanket statement, catch-all sense of “guilt,” as well as the personal sense, we are guilty as charged. Our accuser, the evil one, will list our sins and shortcomings on the last day; he already rehearses them to us, and what are we to do? Avert our eyes as one who is knowingly guilty. We do not defend ourselves, for we are beyond defense. Our hearts are filled with the stench of our flaws, our faults, our corrupt desires. Even the sins of our forefathers seem to rot away the roots of the good seed we try to sow. “My own vineyard I have not kept.” (Song 1:6) We all have in us, in our blood, the same impulses which drove Cain to murder, David to adultery, and the Israelites to idol worship. We close off our hearts, pretend these impulses are not there, but our accuser will not allow us to forget them, and we continue to look away.
We look around desperately, trying to find a place to rest our gaze, but the accuser has us surrounded…
“Arise my love, my beautiful one, and come away,” (Song 2:10) we hear our God whisper, for he shouted his love for us, his Passion, but once and for all time. We continue to avert our eyes, “do not gaze at me… because the sun has scorched me.” (1:6) We close off our hearts all the more. We are unsightly, repulsive, unlovable. Our Lord laments, “A garden locked is my sister, my bride, a garden locked, a fountain sealed.” (4:12) The accuser reminds us that the stench of our faults we know all too well must not come out, that we must not let anyone in to see the unkept vineyard.
But our Savior is adamant. In the middle of the accuser’s assault and our hopeless efforts to evade his onslaught from every side, right in the middle of that, our Lover calls to us. “I sought him whom my soul loves; I sought him, but found him not” (3:1), but in the middle of that hopelessness, “behold, he comes, leaping upon the mountains, bounding over the hills.” (2:8) We are loved, and His love makes us beautiful, makes us fragrant. “Your shoots are an orchard of pomegranates with all choicest fruits… with all trees of frankincense, myrrh and aloes.” (4:13-14) Our gaze comes to rest on Him and we open to Him. “Awake, O north wind, and come, O south wind! Blow upon my garden, let its fragrance be wafted abroad. Let my beloved come to his garden, and eat its choicest fruits.” (4:16) At long last, we come to rest. “My beloved is mine and I am his.” (6:3)
I love the point about how we all have the same impulses "that drove Cain to murder" etc. It reminds me of "the shadow", which I discuss in my article about Jung. We can look at various figures in history and confidently claim that "I would never do this or that." I certainly hope we don't relate too closely to the various figures, but I believe understanding the innate impulse for evil in all of us opens a door to a certain humility and solidarity, which, one might hold, strengthens charity.