Life Goes On

So, originally I had planned on waiting until Monday to offer my closing comments for the blog, but I am on the choo-choo train heading from the CLT to the 919. Long story short, I thought now would be as good a time as any to reflect and go ahead and write something down.

First of all, I’m in shock that my assignment is over, that the summer is almost over, and that a new academic year is about to begin. I had not been thinking, for whatever reason, that there would be life after Hyaets. With that said, I would like to thank (in order of appearance) Jason, Holly, Kelia, Joanie, Greg, Faith, Helms, Jacob, Anna, Joe, Judith, and Molly, as well as all of our kids, for putting up with me this summer. I probably said “I’m Gucci,” more times than allowable for a white boy from North Raleigh and cracked far too many bad jokes. Hopefully I will be seeing some of these people at the fall youth retreat in September.

On a mystical note, I am beginning to consider it a MIRACLE that I ended up at Hyaets this summer. Only after my plans for the summer fell through did I turn to BCM summer missions, two months late, to find a position at a place called Hyeats amongst the picked over mission sites. And even before that, my first choices were to go to Kiana, Alaska or Washington, D.C. Not to disparage my friends who served at these sites, I’m pretty sure that I fit in much better at Hyaets than I would have at either one of the other sites. I remember my campus minister suggesting Hyaets as a possibility and me not being interested. It wasn’t until later, after I had already interviewed for the position that I realized Hyeats could possibly have something to do with philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre’s call for a new monasticism at the end of his book After Virtue.

Though I’ve outgrown MacIntyre’s sledgehammer method of philosophy since I first read After Virtue over a year ago, I remain convinced that its arguments have singlehandedly shaped my worldview more than any other written work, except maybe the Bible. The central tenets of After Virtue; that the Enlightenment project failed, that social science lacks predictive quality, that liberal society is acquisitive and individualistic, and that a theory of the human telos and the virtues is necessary to reclaim moral philosophy; these claims still enthrall me. Hyaets provides a humbly Christian yet intentional antidote to all that MacIntyre describes as wrong with the world. Though as reflected in this blog’s commentary on the 12 Marks, Hyaets and other communities like it sometimes get it wrong, they are often on target and often seem to be guided by the Holy Spirit. I am heading back to Raleigh filled with hope for what the late Pope John Paul II described as a “new springtime of the Church,” reflected in a “global civilization of love.” We live in times that are often dark, but we must not let worldly darkness extinguish the light that God has infused in each and every one of us.

I don’t like to talk about religious experiences as such a lot, so I’m going to close with a “secular” note about the practice of philosophy, the sector of my own life that I feel has been most affected by my experiences of the past nine weeks. (I apologize that I can’t speak as to whether my experiences have “saved” me.) Hyeats has opened the door of my mind to a practical and in-and-of-the-world method of “doing” moral philosophy. I’ve realized, as Alasdair MacIntyre once did, that the armchair has its limits. Philosophers, especially ones whose subject is ethics and morality, need to engage the world and other people’s lives if their work is to have any relevance. I owe this idea Martha Nussbaum, who often suggests that philosophers need to spend significant amounts of time reading novels, learning about/experiencing less-developed countries, and attending to fellow humans in order to round out and enrich their contributions to the field. To realize Epicurus’ description of philosophy as an “activity that makes use of reasoning and rigorous argument to promote human flourishing,” one must be active. This summer, being active meant relocating to the hood, sharing resources with my friends and neighbors, and welcoming the stranger. If anything, this summer has been a time to begin cultivating habits of activity in the world, with maybe a little bit of Jesus thrown in there too.

Pax et bonum.