+JMJ+
Dear Friends,
It’s been a minute1 since I published anything other than a Churchyard post here. I began a series on the virtues, and promptly flopped face-first in my own ambition. When writers block strikes, usually honesty with myself is the remedy, and after a couple months avoiding it, this letter from the editor is my exorcism.
In brief: while, yes, I could pull from a deck of excuses about how life do be life-ing, the truth is I am the least qualified to write about the virtues and it wasn’t speaking to the root of what the Peasant Times-Dispatch was for. It’s not an accident that the essay on “diligence” is the one I failed to write. If you are looking for a golden exemplar of virtues, you should look anywhere but here.
The fact is, there is an evergreen temptation to present myself as an expert2. I wish I had some authoritas I could swing around, but I deliberately choose the perspective of the peasant. I have thought many times about opening a draft and firing off some missive about current events, but then I ask— “Why do you care, Scoot?”
The fact is that I don’t, really. Not if we’re being honest, which is the goal of this letter. My quotidian yoke is quite heavy enough without adding to it the problems of the world. I am not a theologian. The fact is, everyone wants to be a theologian. Everyone wants to read everything and know everything and dunk on the guy who doesn’t read and doesn’t know.
I am that guy! And I’m not saying this with false bravado or false humility. I have struggled to read anything more sophisticated than a tweet3. All you people powering through multiple books a month, my hats off to you. I can’t do it. People need what you have and I hope you use it for the good of the Kingdom: go with God, and all that. When I talk to my friends in real life about theological matters, I’m routinely the one who brings very little domain expertise to the table4. I have my pet projects, my hobby-horses, of course. But that they are my hobby-horses doesn’t make them valuable, and anyway that still tends to the temptation of expertise. I need the constraining yoke of the Peasant Times-Dispatch. I need to put my feet and hands in the dirt and look up and ask what about that headline changes whether or not I have my feet and hands in the dirt.
Here’s an image5 that has been striking to me and I don’t know how to convey it. There were Saints wandering around the city and the empire of Rome as the city was sacked by vandals and goths, as the empire fell. They lived through those days, as the world heaved it’s weight to rest on it’s other foot. To imagine a world actively falling apart—Rome had endured for a millennia if not more, by this point, so it’s destruction was truly apocalyptic—and to yet find sanctity, how inspiring! To find the roots of the modern Church in these men and women who endured the end of the world as they knew it, and didn’t even live long enough to see the fruit of their labor. That’s what I want. That’s what I want to meditate on6, that’s what I want to encourage in the world. I’ve said, facetiously, that ‘if the nuclear blast wave comes, may it find you serving God’. I mean it sincerely, but it’s also intended to land with a little shock value. You and I can’t stop the Next Bad Thing. This world is, always has been, and will continue to “pass away” and new worlds will continue to be born out of it. The Church will endure for all time, why should we fret about any one particular principality of this brief candle of earthly life? God’s Kingdom is forever. Her enemies are eternally at the gates, eternally threatening the last and final end of God’s Church on Earth, and eternally failing to deliver (thanks to the intervention of the Holy Spirit).
And for every Saint wandering around the ruins there were a hundred peasants trying to make ends meet, trying to avoid getting trod upon by this world’s many Giants and trying their best to do their best in such a way that God would agree with their assessment. That’s what I want, that’s my yoke. I am trying to get through every day. I can barely plan a week in advance, much less a month. All my plans are suggestions in the hands of God and so that’s the project of being a peasant. How to learn to love the uncertainty, how to trust God, and how to write about it in a way that helps you, dear reader, do the same.
I’m not a theologian, I have no advanced learning on this subject. The only thing I know is if it starts to rain I’m going to be on whatever boat the successor of Peter is on, and lay down some miles on my rosary.
Lets bring it down to earth: what does all this mean?
Season Four, the essays on virtue—I’m scrapping them. I reserve the right to resurrect an essay when the time feels right but the time does not feel right.
We’re getting back on track with monthly essays, beginning this month, June 15th. The Churchyard returns at its new monthly schedule on June 5th. We’re aiming back at the roots of ‘peasantness’, and that means it’ll be whatever I want to write about in whatever manner happens to suit the topic.
I’ve been on Substack for four years this April, and I failed to make a post about it. You’ve all stuck with me through thick and thin at this newsletter and I love you for it. I love this project, and I love writing for you. Thank you for being here, and for your support. Be assured of my prayers.
God love you all,
- Scoot
month, actually. Two months.
I recognize in myself that this is something of my spiritual nemesis. The second I start believing my own hype I am in grave spiritual danger and you have my permission to resurrect the ice bucket challenge without warning if you happen to see me in real life.
Taming my writing life and taming my reading life feel connected but it’s hard to draw any serious conclusions from this observation. Everything is connected.
I have mastered the art of having smart friends and making them explain things to me. I can be a good sounding board and occasionally have been known to make a helpful observation or synthesis. But I don’t have the capacity for sustaining the raw material.
No, not that image. That image speaks to the image that follows. Stop reading footnotes keep reading.
Starting to realize why Canticle for Leibowitz speaks to my soul
"I have mastered the art of having smart friends and making them explain things to me."
Well, I'd tell anyone who wants to be smarter: first work on humility, as most people with the talent to be intelligent defeat it by attachment to their own cleverness; and then find people with expertise you don't already have and go learn from them (which is what I do, and people usually think I'm pretty smart – myself I mostly think I can hardly help it, I have an appetite for understanding and hover it up like a pink marshmallow, but I am always looking for people I can learn from).
Then again I'd also tell them most people don't need to be as smart as they think; that sense is more necessary and wisdom is more valuable. But wisdom's another story for another time, howsoever much I'm sure humility is a plot point somewhere in there too.
I love your honesty! We all feel like that at times; I promised to do a series on monastic history but really underestimated how much time it would take. I am slammed with my real life work at present and finding the time to do all I promised is a challenge! But keep at it, it's always good to have you around on here!