Columns

THE PERFECT LIFE

by Gerry McCarthy

When it comes to magazines I'm extremely ecumenical. Print or online. It doesn't matter. I cover the waterfront. Unfortunately, that means I can't pass a magazine rack without making a purchase.

     This will explain how I came across a recent article in Vogue magazine. The piece was about the actress Jennifer Aniston. It was entitled "A Profile in Courage."

     In the article, the writer Jonathan Van Meter talks about what Aniston went through after her high-profile break-up with actor Brad Pitt. Van Meter explains that: "One of the things that have troubled Aniston most about this whole episode is that it has robbed her of her ability to just be herself. The quality she projects on the screen and in real life that has always mitigated the envy that her previous, seemingly perfect life --complete with wealth, fame, great hair, and the sexiest husband alive-- inspired is her ability to remain, relatively speaking, just a regular gal."

     What interested me here was the articulation of the perfect life. Sometimes it's difficult to condense what we mean by the dominant North American culture. But Van Meter summarizes it in a spectacularly honest way: Wealth, fame, great hair, and the sexiest spouse alive.

     I don't have anything against great hair, but if we're putting children first, caring for the vulnerable, and making social justice a priority --we're probably not going to achieve the Vogue package.

      But it's worth reflecting just how much this culture impacts us these days. The pressure to accumulate more wealth and prestige is becoming increasingly worse. Some say it's even shutting us down emotionally.

     I remember a Methodist minister in Sojourners magazine once saying that he knew this culture was intersecting too closely with his life when he was perpetually irritable, frustrated, unhappy, anxious, and intolerant.

     But when that culture starts to define our reality we know we're in trouble. Even for those adept at dissecting the underlying assumptions of this culture, it's becoming harder to resist. In some insidious way this culture is making us even more competitive, but in a crude and purposeless way.

     Critiquing the culture of wealth and fame may sound self-righteous to some. It may even be perceived as anti-materialist or elitist. But it isn't. We may intersect with this culture of wealth and fame, but that's not the journey we're on.

     What is our journey? Paulist priest Thomas Ryan describes it as "refining our inner and outer senses to the prescence of the Holy, daily in our midst."

     Lately I've been thinking a lot about this Holy way. I know this is our path to freedom, but in an interview I once asked Jean Vanier how we find this path in the midst of the gotta-keep-up North American culture. "I feel the freedom comes not through the values of society. But it can come through the values of community," Vanier said. "This means that we will have to make some heavy choices. Do we want to be human? Or do we want to make a lot of money? It means that we will have to accept that we will never be promoted, because we are putting family and community and commitment to the weak above money and promotion."

     We're not speaking enough about those "heavy choices" in our families and churches. That's because we're frequently operating under the assumption that we're defined by our cars, clothes, houses, and leisure activities.

     Many people feel uneasy tackling these choices. That's understandable to a point. They may ask: What's wrong with success? Or: Don't we need to build up a material legacy for our children? The difficulty is that the culture is defining that legacy for us. In short: We're allowing the culture to rob us of being fully alive in our faith.

     The Holy way means we're building up the Body of Christ. That means loving our enemies and befriending the outcast. It also means standing up for the poor.

     Following this Holy way involves costs. No one can deny that. But those costs are not necessarily the dramatic kind. They may mean compromising a career for the sake of an elderly parent or children. But in the deepest part of ourselves we find meaning, hope, and courage.

Gerry McCarthy is Editor of The Social Edge.