The Passionate Center
I am surely an Anglican because I am hopelessly in love with the via media, the “middle way” for which we Anglican/Episcopalians are either famous or infamous. I know the pitfalls of taking the middle road—spinelessness and timidity. As Yeats put it, “the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity.” I know, in other words, that if you’re going to plant your flag in the Center, you must have “all conviction.”
That conviction was strengthened this week when I read a piece by David Brooks, in which he quotes the psychologist John Bowlby: “All of life is a series of daring explorations from a secure base.” Our problem, Brooks suggests, is that one camp wants daring explorations, and another insists on a secure base. One group wants to dare new discoveries and ways of being, and one group wants to secure a base that has been eroded. Unless you’re hyper partisan, you can see the truth, the value, the critical importance of both these commitments.
We are proud of the daring explorations in economic and technological advancements that have benefited millions, in social movements that have elevated the status of so many who were barred from full inclusion. But we have to acknowledge that those years of daring explorations also saw the erosion of our secure base. Global capitalism wiped out small communities. The awesome science that delivered so many gifts to humanity morphed into a scientism that refused to acknowledge any reality beyond the material world—and faith suffered, churches cratered. Left only with subjective individualism, people drifted into despair. Families disintegrated. Our young people received not only the blessings of technology but the curse of social media, which by many creditable accounts is crippling their lives.
I could go on, but that list certainly conjures in our minds many other losses that have eroded the deep foundations we once took for granted. It makes sense, in other words, to secure our base—even as we dare further and greater exploration.
That’s a middle way, and yet we all know that the most influential people in our world got that power by mocking the middle and staking out further and further points of extreme. So not everyone will walk this via media, but it’s the path that many of us are feeling called to take. Because what our country faces is essentially a spiritual crisis. It is caught between two choices that seem mutually exclusive, and we are being told that we have to choose one or the other. But we know better.
The hard truth of spiritual maturity is both/and: Secure your base, yes, that’s critical. But if you never take the leap from that base, you’ll atrophy into fearful seclusion. Likewise—daring explorations, yes, that’s your high calling. But if you never take the time to know your own soul, anchor your identity in something greater than yourself, do the work of nurturing strong relationships in community, you’ll have no base to leap from.
Thank you, David. I was hoping you would address the political malaise. And you did. With aplomb. I stand with you in the middle of The Middle Road, the via media, the still point of the turning world.
Thanks–I know you’re there on that same path, or trying to be, each day.
Is what we are trying to secure a firm foundation that can support growth for more than just an individual or small group of people? Is the daring exploration undertaken to offer others a glimpse of something magnificent and life giving? When it’s a yes to both, we have roots and wings.
That’s a good addition to my depiction of each phase of a spiritually sound life–that in both the securing of our base and the daring explorations, we are always about something larger than just self-help or the protection or blessing of our tribe. That’s a key marker for discernment.
I agree with you, David, except that I don’t think the via media requires us to be centrists. I think our only secure base is in God; all the rest is shaky, some of it downright illusory. If that’s so, then I don’t think that the via media rests in compromise. Rather, it seems to be more about striving for 10/10 on a 10-point line graph rather than settling for a 5/5 — the centrist compromise — which ultimately satisfies nobody. As you put it, it needs to be “both/and.”
Lots–maybe too much–to respond to here! But that means: a good comment.
I was going to title this “The Passionate Center,” but then went with “Centrist.” I think the Center is a sacred place of wholeness/holiness–and my reference to Yeats recalls the clarion line in that poem, “the center cannot hold.” Yeats’ center isn’t a spot of compromise (though we have to be careful not to trash ‘compromise’ since that is an essential social/governing tool, one that our whole checked-and-balanced form of government rests upon)–his ‘center’ is the heart of life where all human goods and blessings are held in a tension or balance. We could call the center the place where God dwells. Wen we feel scattered and disconnected from God, we talk about “centering down.” In spiritual terms, that’s the center I’m seeking to hold, but I recognize that in political terms it means something different.
I thinking striving for 10/10 is what’s needed–to avoid the pitfalls of the via media which I mentioned. What I’m arguing against is making that 10/10 a zero-sum effort–where we seek to achieve some kind of perfection or rightness that means other, different people get 0/10 in their quest. I think sparks of understanding and love fly when one 10/10 person meets another 10/10 person from a different camp.
“As you put it, it needs to be ‘both/and.'”
Yes, the kind of 10/10 we are talking about is the very opposite of a zero sum game. It’s a win-win. Like keeping both the best of Catholic liturgy and also the Protestant freedom of thought.
And yes, what’s confusing me here is the difference between “centrist,” in its political meaning, and “center,” in its spiritual meaning. Two very different things. We can see Jesus as “the still point of the turning world,” the very heart and core of creation. True and eternal “center.” But if Jesus were in the U.S. congress today, absolutely nobody would call him a “centrist.”
Totally agree with your example of Catholic and Protestant–I know you’re Baptist but your Anglican via media side is showing….
And I think you’ve put your finger on the semantic problem with “centrist” and “center.”
Love your sense of where Jesus would sit in the House or Senate–he wouldn’t be a “centrist” for sure. But do you think he’d be a Leftie or a Right Winger? I have this sense he’d be so fiercely righteous (in the unbesmirched sense of that word) that both sides of the aisle would be at once appalled and attracted.
I think you’re 100% right: Jesus would have to be a third party candidate. Both of our current parties would indeed be “appalled and attracted.” And somebody would probably try to figure out a way to crucify him.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think a key implication of “The Passionate Centrist” is that, as Christians, we need to love the people we disagree with (whichever side that is) and treat them with respect rather than scorn and derision. Amen to that, brother! If we want to address the most toxic parts of political divisiveness, we need to start there. I hope the warring parties can learn to learn from each other, or at least learn to understand one another. But I don’t think that loving the people we disagree with obliges us to take a political stance that’s somehow halfway in between ours and theirs. That could be halfway to nowhere.