Thursday, October 21, 2010

Micro Macro

I was recently informed that I tend to use my "moral compass" on grand issues. Being the character that I am, I will always look for the the big picture, the overarching shape, etc. But I spend a lot of time --moral or not-- on the small things, on personal realities or random incidents.  Back and forth.

I am sure I would do this kind of scanning regardless of my history, but I am reminded of the combination of Grand Scheme and Local Detail that is part of Catholicism. The Catechism from which I learned my religion --and the book was simply a marker for the whole social matrix in which I lived-- contained both great leaps of faith (duh!) on creation, the Triune God and Incarnation, the end of man and the universe, and also gave detailed attention to small matters, say, of ritual and moral law. It was definited not a religion of "don't sweat the small stuff."  As one intellectual priest once said of Catholicism, "sum total of the non-essentials is the essential."

So I wake up and surf the net and see the issues of the day in the news: global this and national that. And then I get a phone call from a friend about the complex situation of another friend. All very particular and local. Both of them affect me. Sometimes the incongruity of scale is disconcerting just by itself, though. One man's life, a man I have known for many years, and then the reports of the great waves of humanity's troubles. It can be dizzying.

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