Joseph and his brethren, the iconic unhappy family.
A recent sermon at Tradistan was cause for some unfortunate Joseph-related debate. Speaking on the occasion of the feast of the Holy Family (instituted in 1893), the priest talked about Catholic family life from the perspective of the Household of Nazareth. The sermon was decent enough, and the lessons drawn for Catholic family life were not unreasonable, but the priest’s opinion of St. Joseph’s virginity and confirmation in grace after his marriage to the Virgin sparked some previously calm disagreement between friends into dissension.
My own opinions on St. Joseph are well known among my close friends, not only by His Traddiness and my bride. Recently it has become a point of contention in a larger group of friends, drawing a line between those with a devotion to Young St. Joseph and those who prefer Old St. Joseph. The Tradistani sermon further sparked a flurry of text messages, arguments in the parish hall, and emails to the priest, most of which I successfully avoided until later in the day. By the time I was able to catch up on this activity, the various parties had more or less sullenly retreated to their own corners, still certain of their own opinions and no longer willing to engage in debate.
Thankfully, my wife is on my side on this matter, as she is with so many things. I have no doubt we will be putting up an image of Young St. Joseph somewhere in the home, if only because it was a gift from a friend or family member. Such are the small compromises that one makes for the sake of a happy family and social life. She has suggested I compile and edit all of my original Josephology series into a book format and think about publishing it, although I cannot think of any Catholic publisher—traddy or neo-conservative—who would be interested in printing such a volume. Even the now-defunct Thomas A. Nelson publishing house would never print something so traditional. Nonetheless, while agreement on things like St. Joseph’s age and marital history might be objectively minor, such an harmony of thought can be a major step towards long-term familial happiness.
Among friends, disagreements on minor matters can be a cause for good-humored ribbing, intensely engaging debate, or miserable complaints. It’s a pity when the latter ends up being the case. Damage control is always tedious work, especially when most of the damage is self-inflicted. Those who are unwilling to put in the work to research a topic are too often the loudest at expressing their opinion, and do not know how to react to an intellectual argument except for a quick retreat paired with an unimpressive Parthian shot.
When the priest in question finally responded to my friend’s email, he admitted that he was unsure if Joseph had been married before the Annunciation, but doubted it. The casual misuse of words, like “virginity” when “chastity” is meant, can cause great problems, it would seem. Ideas have consequences, and so do intellectual mistakes. St. Jerome’s fabulation of a vowed-to-virginity St. Joseph certainly has had consequences some 1600 years later, including the occasional haze of stubbornness and hurt feelings. I remember a similar argument with a good friend that ended in him spitefully shutting it down when he thought it absurd that the perpetual virginity of Mary had anything whatsoever to do with physical integrity, in spite of the theology of the Church Fathers. The cause of his reaction was a simple-minded emotionalism about certain aspects of womanhood (especially not wishing women to feel bad about certain… incidents) and an assumption that the Patristic position was due to their sexual naïveté. That friendship survived, but in a noticeably altered form after I refused to back down.
Emotion sometimes gets the better of the intellectual life, and devotionalism often has an emotional spillage that goes to great lengths to protect the object of devotion. Such was Jerome’s zeal to protect the belief in Mary’s perpetual virginity that he created for her a celibate warrior-bodyguard from whom she need never fear any lusty rudeness. But truth can not allow its terms to be dictated by emotion, no matter how well-placed they may be. The heart must learn what is lovable from the head, or else the soul ends up like the old image of Phyllis riding on Aristotle’s back: reason subjected to desire, in a kind of inversion of the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife.
(The Conversion of Saint Mary Magdalene, Juan Correa)
I don’t see many films in theaters these days. The gluttonous sequel-making and overindulgence of digital effects makes mainstream films tiresome, and the arthouse film scene is so deeply in bed with worldly progressivism that one feels ashamed to even glance at its movie posters. However, I have been long enamored with the Pixar studio, believing them to be capable of some truly great all-ages artistry when their parent company Disney isn’t demanding another movie with talking automobiles.
After taking the little lady to a showing of their recent release Inside Out, I reflected upon their traditionally-minded yet inventive way of portraying the interior life of a child. Pulling equally from ancient mind palaces and modern psychology, there was an especially affecting sequence of ongoing mental and emotional disintegration within the young mind after a traumatic event. The colorful “islands of personality” that the child had developed and maintained over the years suddenly stop dead, and they begin to crumble into a memory dump as she loses the ability to cope with the changes in her everyday life.
Since this is not a film review, I won’t delve any further into it. Suffice it to say that it caused me to consider my own experience of conversion to the Faith, and its ensuing problems. I have written already about the high attrition rate of converts and the probable responsibility borne by our apologists to that effect. But what is it about conversion that drives so many of us to apostatize within a few years of reception into the Church?
Let me suggest that untreated psychological trauma (loosely diagnosed) is one major reason. The convert may suffer more or less emotional trauma depending on many factors: his starting religion or philosophy, the reaction of his friends and family, the wisdom of his catechists, the presence of a guide leading him into the Church, his education, his emotional stability, his proclivity to cynicism, his attitude towards authority figures, his romantic entanglements, and so on.
(There is a similarly themed article recently published on The Remnant’s website concerning the trauma suffered by traditionalists under their prelates, which I only mention here for the sake of thoroughness.)
One can imagine a scenario in which a conversion goes fairly smoothly: raised classically Anglican, which means many outward similarities to Catholicism, as well as a healthy dose of realism about church leaders; friends and family without any hatred of the Church, and indeed fairly curious about it themselves; a local priest who handles RCIA with all seriousness of duty; a beloved college professor acting as sponsor, and as a second person the catechumen can turn to for queries; a decent education that has taught him at least basic reasoning and an appreciation for the liberal arts; zealous in character, yet self-controlled for the most part; hopeful in spite of the evils of man; a healthy relationship with his parents, teachers, and bosses; and finally a girlfriend who is open-minded towards conversion, in spite of a strong emotional attachment to the Church of England. This is more or less a best-case scenario.
On the other hand, the groundwork for a weak and very temporary conversion might go as follows: raised liberally Anglican, which has outward similarities to Catholicism, but equivocates and uses good names for bad things; friends and family who shun him at the first mention of seriously considering conversion; an RCIA program run by an ignorant layman, the priest nowhere to be found; no one leading him into the Church except radio apologists and the books of long-dead theologians; a half-baked education that had more to do with personal fulfillment than learning; habitual selfishness, immaturity, and indulgence of all sorts; given to despair and frustration at every hardship; easily scandalized by political and religious leaders; and finally a wife who swears to leave him if he becomes a papist. This may not be the worst-case scenario, but it’s not a promising one.
The first convert will retain his existing social structure, his day-to-day experience of attending Mass will be outwardly similar to Anglican worship, and his arguments with those he left behind will likely be well-natured and perhaps thrilling. He even has a few new books of the Bible to read and learn! He will probably remain emotionally whole, and suffer no unhealthy dissolution of his sense of self.
The second convert will experience far more trauma as part of the conversion process, and he will require more care and assistance after finally receiving the sacraments. The outward forms of worship will be similar, but suddenly he is required to take their meaning as sincere and literal, except when Fr. Facile undermines that with his own unbelief. His social structure has entirely vanished, and if he is not good at making new friends he will be terribly alone. His wife may have left him, and the Church is meanwhile unable to grant an annulment to assuage that wound. He had gathered all of his previously unimpressive mental and emotional powers together into a surprisingly massive act of the will to convert to the Faith, only to collapse in exhaustion inside the door of the Church... and be unceremoniously swept out of the way by the janitor to make way for the parish soccer team. It is no surprise that this convert could become an apostate.
In the Parable of the Sower, Christ describes three kinds of unspiritual people and only one kind of good Christian. The first of the faithless is the one from whom the Devil snatches away the truth before it can even take root. The second is apostate, being scandalized by troubles and tribulation. The third is fruitless, choked by avarice and worldly cares. The fourth alone remains both faithful and fruitful. The third (fruitlessly banal) and fourth (fruitful) are both present always in the Church, and are apparently the subject of the following Parable of the Cockle and Wheat. The first are like those who convert for shallow reasons and leave for equally shallow ones, or who never even seriously consider conversion. Of the second, we are told “they had no deepness of earth” and “hath not root in [themselves]” (Matt. 13), and thus they are easily scorched in the sun.
(From the Hortus Deliciarum)
A good deal of trauma is self-inflicted, and St. Thomas tells us that scandal is a two-way street of the scandalous and the scandalized. Scandal is given, but it need not be received. The weak receive and internalize scandal, however good willed they may otherwise be. For the rest of us, Christ commands “that you despise not one of these little ones” who are susceptible to scandal (Matt. 18), and Paul adjures us to “bear ye one another’s burdens” (Gal. 6). How easy it is for yes-men apologists to despise and dismiss the worries of the scandalized! How much does this dismissal add to their inner torment, a torment which they begin to think can only be ended by cutting themselves off from the Church?
I once visited a small village in the south of Ireland, where I stayed with a family in their cottage and discussed the problems of religion with the man of the house, an irate Irishman, into the wee hours of the night. He had left the Church a few years before, the final straw being a dismissive priest who waved off this man’s Bible-thumping with, “I’m not in the business of converting Protestants.” The logical errors of this apostate’s fall were not hard to perceive, but the true cause was a broken heart. He had been betrayed by the Church he once loved, and he finally tried to hurt her back by shaking the dust off his feet. If my visit to the village parish was any indication, the priest’s only response would have been to take another swig of whiskey.
While not every cradle Catholic is capable of empathizing with the emotional burden of conversion, it is still necessary to account for weakness and show the convert how to grow strong in the Faith. Much of it simply has to do with learning endurance and patience in the face of scandal and adversity. Understanding often comes in time with longsuffering. The mere admission of bad ecclesiastical leadership goes a long way, as well, since the convert may feel that he is having a break with reality when others pretend it is not happening. An accurate knowledge of the Church’s liturgical traditions is useful, although it can open other avenues of scandal if done flippantly. A true ordering of magisterial and doctoral teachings in their proper places could be essential. Even the passions might need to be properly ordered—for we live in a muck of disordered passions and psychological disturbance—in order for spiritual progress to continue.
If the Church is a hospital and not a museum (as the apologists keep telling us), let the Church act like it. We mustn’t keep ignoring the trauma patients sitting in the waiting room. If they don’t receive any medical assistance, they will wander out to look for help elsewhere.
"Mercy," Fr. Facile began his sermon, "is not simply the absence of just punishment. Mercy is not simply what happens when a person of esteem deigns to give us something of his world. Mercy, you see, is a very really and proactive part of God's plan for us. Mercy is part of who God is in His love for mankind."
Alright, I thought, this could be quite good or quite bad.
"Think of what we sang at the beginning of the liturgy. The polyeleos repeats 'For his mercy endures for ever,' but that is just an extract of a much larger psalm about mercy. He brought the Israelites out of freedom, and his mercy endures forever. He parted the Red Sea, and his mercy endures forever. He smashed Pharaoh's armies, and his mercy endures forever. God's mercy is part of Who He is and what He imparts of Himself to us. This is what culminated with the Cross!"
This is much better than what I expected! Fr. Facile never gave a bad sermon. Some were quite good and the rest tried very hard to impress, but often fell short by overemphasizing relevance to daily life, at times passing by opportunities to focus on Who God is.
"My friends—and I know this is a controversial topic, which we rarely discuss here at St. Saccharinios—my friends, we witnessed a great act of mercy this past week." Fr. Facile paused for a moment. "God brought the Israelites out of the darkness of slavery. A similar and monumental event in the history of our country happened this past week. A great many people were brought out of darkness when their civil rights were expanded.
"Now, I know we have people with very passionate opinions on both sides, but let us remain calm in discussing this matter. This Supreme Court decision ends the conversation about this subject for our country and it has no influence on the Church."
Alright, I concluded, I know where this is going. The parish was priestless and run by church-ladies, including the notorious Helen Hawkins, prior to Fr. Facile's arrival. It is a divided parish and he is trying to placate both ends.
"The conversation in the Church is on-going...."
Damn.
"....and we need to show more mercy to each other in having that conversation here and everywhere in the Church. We have bishops and even a pope that are receptive to greater mercy. We are obligated to show that same receptivity to mercy. I look on Facebook and see some of the nasty things people write about each other when having this debate. In this debate I find opponents of this new right calling those in favor of it all sorts of mean names and the proponents of the new right in return are quick to call their opponents bigots, although they often are."
Hitting a priest is a reserved sin, I recalled from a catechism class. Still, that would mean a trip to Rome and Fr. Facile could use some fraternal correction.
"We need more mercy, like the mercy of the Cross and the mercy of delivery Egypt from bondage. For His mercy endureth for ever! Oh God, save Thy people and bless Thy inheritance!"
* * *
"We can never go to St. Saccharinios again, even 4 holy week," I texted to John Grump. "Meet at Cafe Preténse for breakfast?"
"Cya in 10", indicated the reply.
The clientele of Cafe Preténse
Cafe Preténse appealed to a young crowd of late teen and twenty-somethings still living off their fathers' new money. Patrons frequented the establishment to write their perpetually unpublished novels on MacBooks gifted for Christmas, to have inexpensive morning "dates," and to been seen wearing the latest boat shoes and sun dresses. An improbable assortment of National Geographics, Michael Crichton novels, and an old copy of Debrett sat on the shelves on the bookcase either as decoration or conversation pieces. No two walls were painted the same color. On a red wall sat two dozen examples of abstract bosh priced from $75 to $400 each. A pair of hipsters manned the bar.
"A pot of Earl Grey and a spice scone, please," I asked.
A sign on the counter displayed the words "Authentic European Coffee Shop." I wondered if the proprietor had ever been to Angelina's of Paris or Florian's of Venice.
I found Mr. Grump seated outside off the patio and joined him.
"How was Tradistan today?" I queried.
"Quite a standard low Mass. The sermon raised the question as to whether or not one can become demonically possessed by listening to rock music. One fellow had to be exorcised after hearing the Goodbye Yellow Brick Road album once through. Father did not wholly endorse the theory, but warned us that listening to rock was a risk we ought not take. Apparently a recent beata, Blessed Theodora Obscuria of the Hands of Joseph the Worker, had a vision of pagans dancing around a resounding noise kept in rhythm by percussive bangs while a woolly man sang mockingly of heaven. He insisted she had a premonition of a Led Zeppelin concert. "
"That last item makes the rest of it believable. Anything else?'
"There was also the weekly reminder that we aren't allowed to go sedevacantist or Greek Orthodox just because the pope is a bit loose. Other than that, nothing new. How was St. Saccharinios?"
I proceeded to discharge my memory of that horrific sermon and the unambiguous ambiguities contained therein. John barely sipped his cappuccino, listening with intent concern.
"How sad," he commented, finally taking a sip from his cup. "If he was willing to talk like this, he probably gave up inside a long time ago."
After breakfast I produced a Partagás from my jacket and peeled off the upper-most cap. "You know," I began, "I had a friend who went down this road in a rather dreary way. My best friend at university, you know." I struck a match and toasted the cigar. "I met a fellow during my first term at school after a gathering of the College Rabble Rousers. This man, name of Christopher—never Chris, noticed I was wearing a tee shirt advertising a defunct American car maker called Packard.
"'Does your family have one?'
"'No,' I replied. 'But my father had one forty odd years ago.'
"We grabbed dinner and became quite close thereafter. We were both Economics students. He told me his parents were from Armenia, but now lived in San Francisco, having escaped the Red Russians by the width of his father's ever vanishing hairs.
"Every free night I tore him away from those damn computer games he played so we could have dinner. We immersed ourselves in prolix discussions over matters of the day, but never personal matters, at least not for Christopher. He asked why I was a Catholic. I told him for the frightening reason that I really believed it all, which stupefied him."
I held up my burning cigar for John to see. "At some point during the second term Christopher bought a box of these things, imported from Cuba via some shady fellow in Canada we only knew as Matt. One night, after insulting a preacher's daughter at a university dinner, we lit our Habanos and strolled the Arts Quad, the lake, and the plaza.
"He asked me why God should matter in our lives. From a rational perspective, God must exist, but why care. 'Because,' I told him, 'because He cares about us. Whether or not we understand why God cares about us is quite unrelated to the fact He does. He intervenes in our lives personally and has since the time of Abraham. I remember once in high school having a breakdown over the troubles of a friend. No, I won't tell you how, not now, but God very literally intervened in my life. It was because I cared for this person. I learned that God's love isn't a nicety or a Santa Claus doting. It is the emptying of one's self for another entirely. It's what we Catholics believe Christ did for us and what people we called the Saints continued to do since.' His reply was 'I don't understand why people should matter. Their existence is somewhat annoying. Isn't the point just to reproduce and pass on wealth?'"
"Perhaps," John interjected, "you and your catechism could instruct these waiters on the finer points of fear of the Lord, or at least of a bad tip. I am sitting here surrounded by no coffee."
"Right! Well, I went off to study in England the next year and left him in the hands of a mutual friend of our's, Craig Lex. When I next heard from Christopher he told me he was tired of Craig ranting about some Frenchman named 'Lefeber' and the Pius X society, so he bought some cheap Porto and got the runt drunk out of his mind. It was Good Friday, too, he said. He accompanied Craig to the Novus Ordo Good Friday and was feeling better than other people for having gone to Church, so much better that he had no qualms about fibbing to the campus security concerning his under-aged possession of the Porto. Christopher was a good friend and an even better fibber.
"I suggested that the three of us meet in Rome for the break between Hilary and Trinity terms, which coincided with their vacations. Something was different in Christopher at that point. When we went into the Blessed Sacrament chapel in St. Peter's Basilica he asked us how to reverence the exposed Sacrament. I told him that he did not have to as a non-believer, but he insisted. He stared in amazement at the Latin Novus Ordo sung Mass at the throne that evening and gawked through the Lateran cathedral. At dinner he passingly mentioned that his father was out of America on holiday, visiting establishments where the women are 'cheap and clean.' I almost lost my Italian excuse for a steak.
"Later that evening we returned to the Vatican square and shared in some of Christopher's Cubanos. He kept staring at the full moon and repeating that God is good. A couple got engaged, which made him smile. Before boarding the plane back to JFK he hugged me and, perplexingly, thanked me for being a 'good influence'. I started to pray daily for his conversion.
"The next year he went to Oxford and I was back in America. He was received into the Church by a priest on St. Giles Street and soon thereafter adopted an not entirely healthy religious attitude. He could never take a joke at face value, always accosting any humor when the salvation of souls was at stake. At mere mention of the Mass, especially in Latin, his eyes faded into ecstasy. Immediately he wanted to become a monk!"
"I take it," groaned Mr. Grump, "that this story has a point, or, even better, an end?"
"Yes, yes, yes," I said. "We parted after graduation and spoke infrequently. In the Fall he had dropped the 'salvation of souls' angle and returned to the evolutionary produce-and-inherit line. By the Spring of the following year we had fallen out of contact. Then one afternoon, working from my home, he calls me at tells me, 'I've just been released from a hospital. I've gone cold on that whole God thing. You see, I'm a woman.'"
"Damn!" exclaimed John. "You've made me spill my remaining coffee."
"It's a favor, friend. Wool in the Texan summer? Really?
"Regardless, I asked if I had missed something like ambiguous genitalia, XX DNA, or something of the like. He said that I hadn't, that he was simply born with a female brain and that an operation to 'clean out of the basement' would make him a normal and accepted member of society, that 'I won't have to hate myself everyday now.'
"We talked and he confessed that his parents fell out shortly after coming here from Armenia. 'That whole God thing,' he commented, 'made me deal with them a little more, but I cannot go on with a lie. If I don't do this I'll kill myself. I've finally found who I am.'
"I tried talking some gentle sense into him a few days when he was still on an emotional from his great discovery. I pointed out some basic things, like that being a woman entails a physical experience related to brain chemistry, that he could have an incompletely male brain but not an actual female brain. I brought up his family situation, his history of embracing one new lifestyle after another. He didn't care. He asked me if I could 'accept this' and I asked him what that meant. He was a friend and I loved him as a friend, but he didn't care. He wanted affirmation and I wasn't going to give it to him. 'Bugger off,' he told me, 'until you get over your bigot bull$h!+.' That was some time ago and I have no anticipation of hearing from him again. Last I heard he had frozen some sperm with the hope of fabricating a child one day.
"The liberals have taught us the lesson of acceptance and they've taught it well. We don't question anything anymore. Anything different is now just an alternative expression of the same thing. Shacking up, divorce, single parent households, and now gay families are really just as good as straight families, if one ignores the impact on the kids. We can't ask why people are as they are. One theory behind homosexuality blames pre-natal secretions; another claims it's a recessive gene; and yet another, less accepted, says it's the result of nurturing. Even if it were a combination of the three, we still can't do anything about it. I knew a therapist who told me that in twenty years of practicing psychology he had never met a gay man who had a normal relationship with his father. It's only anecdotal, but still pretty significant. The people behind the gay rights movement are not looking for equal treatment. They're looking for personal affirmation that many of them don't get as individuals and they'll remake society to do it. It fools people. It destroys friendships. It destroys love. And it has destroyed a very good friend. Christopher, or 'Eleanor'—as he now likes to be called, was an extreme case. Still, how much of it is really normal?"
My cigar was down to the nub.
"Fr. Facile bought the movement hook, line, and sinker. No use crying about the decline of Western society. I could read Russell Kirk or John Senior for that. Both of them enjoyed anti-technocratic existences. I rather wish I could be a hermit. I wouldn't have to worry about anything other than prayers and maintaining a few books."
"Amazing," John said. "Amazing how indifferent people can be."
"To God?"
"Yes, and to patrons with empty cups. Next week we should meet somewhere else, like Grandoise Grounds. Sad about your friend. People are more and more indifferent to God, too. Trads need to stop talking about abstract ideas of 'truth' and first get people to understand that there is a necessary good in the world beyond their own immediate gratification. Friendships fail for the same reason nowadays. It's not even a conscious selfishness anymore. Broken families are replaced by shiny toys from Silicon Valley or, a baby from a test tube. Whatever fills my emotional vacuum now will do. Your friend's perspective is likely the only one he can imagine."
"But it wasn't always like that," I continued. "Or maybe it was always like that. Perhaps he was sincere once. He once conspired with my girlfriend to have a surprise party for me. He bought me walking stick for my birthday once and a box of cigars just because he thought I might enjoy them. There was goodness there. Now he claims he has never had a good memory of another person, not until he found his true self. Lex orandi lex credendi. How long will he have to behave in his new religion until he is convinced he believes it?"
"I think he'll cave before I get another cup. No coffee here, but plenty of Glenfiddich at my place," John suggested with wry enthusiasm.
"It's not even noon!"
"It will be by the time we pay up and get back to my place."
"Alright, alright. The point stands. The people going down that road are not generally well off. All talk of acceptance and mercy, no care for their actual welfare."
We settled our bills with some wrangling. We picked up our jackets as I snuffed my cigar.
"How many more people," I pondered, "must go up in smoke, either in this world or the one to come, before Churchmen learn their lesson?"
"Best drink it away," assured John. "Come to my place. We'll drink 'til we've had enough, and then just a touch more."
"Isn't that a sin?"
"No, that's being drunk. I'm talking about the Point of Hilarity."
"What's that?"
"It's not yet sloshed and quite happy. It's a Chesterton idea. He might be a saint and he was lubricated all the time!"
My life is in something of a nadir, which elicits an unoriginality in my interests, owing to a horrific development in the life of a friend of mine. Real friendship is something quite rare and very special. Frs. Chadwick and Hunwicke have already put in their two cents, so I thought I would share mine.
The term "Romantic friendship" is largely forgotten today, or only recalled in a re-constructionist setting meant to justify modern homosexual relations. Historically it was not so much the opposite of that, but something entirely un-related. I have a few friendships that in past times, say a century or two centuries ago, would have been called "romantic." A romantic friend is someone who is a friend for the sake of the soul and not the setting. In our day, we often acquire friends because of common personalities, common activities, common workplaces, and the like. Once those circumstances tergiversate, the friendship fades to grey and blackens into a long lost memory. Romantic friendships are rare in history and even rarer today because they delve past the external shells of the person and enjoin people in a very personal way. Romantic friendships are not sexual precisely because they are experientially different from husband-wife love, which reflects the creative love of God and the practical need for friendship to maintain a family. These friendships are vital because they allow us to know other people and for them to know us at the same level of a spouse, but in a way which a spouse cannot. Indeed, the care for one another latent in deep friendship ought to prepare one for the greater, vocational love of marriage.
Romantic friendships usually develop during formative education years, or at least mine did, when people's souls are cracking the egg their parents laid over them. Friends who have little externally in common can become quite close and hew even closer as they share the same growth, ingraining one into another's essential memories of life. Even if that friend disappears, he will remain omnipresent in the survivor's mind, who still recalls the various parts of his life, his schooling, his trips, his triumphs, his defeats. Friendships like these do not require continuous presence, but can be resumed at differing stages of life. I rather think Orson Welles' friendship with Ernest Hemingway was like this, even if one would not call it "romantic" in my use of the term. In these friendships, I have often bought dinner or been given a cigar not because anyone owes the other anything, but rather because we view each other as extensions of parts of ourselves. One such friend furnished me with a very generous number of [real] Cohiba (Cuban, not the American) cigars!
These friendships are often mistaken for homosexual relations because modern society is thoroughly incapable of seeing the world through spiritual eyes instead of material eyes. American neo-puritans cringe at the sight of the human body. During the second Bush's administration the statue of the Spirit of Justice was curtained off because its exposed breast bothered Attorney General John Ashcroft. American liberals, like their European counterparts, cannot fathom friendships beyond in-the-moment encounters nor can they understand sex outside of a casual, existentialist expression. No wonder most modern readers think Charles and Sebastian from my favorite novel, Brideshead Revisited, were gay. Sebastian? Certainly. Charles? Certainly not! They were two people emerging from their molds and whose eyes were not yet stained with the dirt of worldly pursuits. Their friendship ended when Sebastian's mold threatened to re-encase him and Charles' artistic interests partitioned him from the Flytes (Lady Marchmain did not help). The sexual perceptions of this kind of friendship by modern[ist] eyes never fails to amaze me. It was not until I moved to Texas that I discovered that one man touching another (the sort of jovial arm-around-the-shoulder one used to see in photographs) was now perceived as lustful or queer. One wonders if this is because today one's friend from the office is primarily a friend because he works in the office? Or if one's friend from the golf course is primarily a friend because he plays the same eighteen? Is friendship in the more serious, penetrative expression of past times really so obliterated and buried?
My own experience with "romantic" friendships tells me otherwise. I am far from convinced that we live in any sort of renaissance of traditional relationships between persons—far from it. Yet, as the functional view of friendship and the hyper-sexual love relationships pervades, it will become a bore for a concentrate minority that includes myself and many of the people dearest to me, and perhaps even you!
