Ambition vs Idolatry

I was tempted to write a lengthy comment responding to this post, which resonated with me. My pursuits tend to be all consuming, just as she describes her passion for running. My problem is that I don’t have one: I have many pursuits that I cling to. The difference between myself and other ambitious people, and why my idolatry might not be as easy to spot as someone living in a large house and driving a Porsche, is that I care very little about worldly acclaim and riches. I despise spending money and don’t have time to shop, don’t care for it. I’m a classic Scrooge, in other words. And Scrooge was ultimately idolatrous, even though he didn’t care about material things at all. That was part of his problem. That was his idolatry — caring only about his pursuit as a banker and caring nothing about material reality. He wasn’t lapping up the luxurious life while others starved. The man wouldn’t even heat his house. He was starving himself and still managed to be idolatrous. That is why when he gives up his idols, he doesn’t disappear inside his cell and eat bread and water; he emerges from it and buys the biggest goose in the market and puts more coal on the fire.

Hard work is valued in our culture. People see someone who can put the effort in, and they admire that. My son is in cross-country; his team recently made it to state. Because one of the moms had my cellphone number, I was suddenly added to the text group, in which they discussed what special gifts they could give the runners, how they would help decorate the school, and I ignored the noise of endless, endless texts. I was thinking to myself, either they win or they don’t. Either they get a medal or they don’t. All of this nonsense is just teaching them that they will be lavished with attention just for working hard, and it makes an idol of hard work. I was critical of these rather nice moms, and the double irony is that I did not want to waste my time or money because I was too busy making idols of my own pursuits. These moms were encouraging idolatry in their children, perhaps, but they were also being generous and giving of their hearts; I was not.

On Thursday evening, the class at my parish was studying St. Augustine. Something he wrote struck a serious chord with me, too, just like the post I linked to: he came across a man who was stumbling drunk, and instead of criticizing the drunkard for his obvious dissipation, he realized that the man would wake up sober, and that he (Augustine) would still wake up drunk on ambition. Ouch. This kind of drunkenness can’t be slept off, and unlike alcoholic drunkenness, it appears to be a moral good. Dedication, hard work — these are moral goods, especially if the hard work involves studying and writing rather than commerce, as mine does. Or exercise, of course, as that is one of my idols, too, and one that is vaunted by my culture. Augustine’s culture was not any different than ours. They, too, valued the lofty goals of philosophy and the physical specimens people could become through athletics. If you look around and see that there are entire industries trying to make you poor off selling high-priced educations and exercise equipment, routines, and supplements, you know that these “moral goods” are truly our society’s idols.

This may be only peripherally related, but a week or so ago, Vox Day answered a “mailvox” question, in which a woman asked how she was supposed to stay intellectually stimulated as a housewife raising children. Some people are gluttons for punishment — maybe that is an idol? — because Vox is only going to give an abusive answer. It was mildly abusive, something akin to read a damn book, and then when you finish it, read another one. In today’s world, unlike Augustine’s, these idols actually come cheaply. Nobody needs to pay a high price or come from a wealthy household in order to be intellectually stimulated. This makes it very difficult for true idolators to give up this pursuit. They can remain Scrooges and cling to them — they don’t even have to leave their homes! This, of course, made the woman’s question seem utterly ridiculous to me, a person in the thrall of my addiction. I buy books on Amazon in a matter of seconds and read them on my smart phone every day. Perhaps his answer should have been, “You aren’t an idolator. Good job. Now teach your children math. That will intellectually stimulate you and keep you a decent, generous person at the same time.” But Mailvox the Advice Column was probably a doomed proposition from the get-go.

I have written before about being at the parish twelve hours in a day. Thursday was one of those days. I had promised to unlock and then lock the church up for the Sanctity of Life group that had planned a prayer and worship time in front of the Tabernacle (for non Catholics, the Tabernacle is where the blessed hosts are kept). Still pondering St. Augustine’s story, I went to the prayer time. But as usual, I couldn’t focus because I was thinking about how I would have the time and energy to complete my daily pursuits. I exercise at 6 AM before work, study Spanish at lunch time; there is an hour in between my clock-off time and the class, in which I can write 1000 words towards my books. However, I still had 50 minutes of accordion playing and my last exercise, an evening walk, before me. And don’t be mistaken: I always go to bed with a book. What if my son had math homework? What if my husband wanted to speak more than five words to me?

As the prayers proceeded, I lost myself to those instead. There is something about the rosary that stills my thoughts and puts me in a meditative mindset. Don’t follow your pursuits tonight, I heard the Holy Spirit speak. By the time the last prayers had been spoken, I was overwhelmed by grief. I don’t know how not to follow my pursuits. That’s what I do. Even my relationships are all bound up in doing things, like helping my son with his math homework. It turned out to be simple. I went home and ate the dinner my husband had cooked, and then he shared a podcast with me that he wanted me to listen to. And then we talked. I didn’t eschew this as I so often do; I didn’t try to talk while doing things. If I keep this up, I’ll be buying a fat goose soon or going Christmas shopping. I don’t want to get ahead of myself, though…