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Remaining rooted in reality
By Dorothy Cummings McLean
April 8, 2010
Dorothy Cummings McLean
Home in Canada for a long visit, I have been shepherding a young American friend around town. She has been accepted by a graduate studies program at the University of Toronto, and I invited her to stay with me while she examined the implications of its generous scholarship offer.
My friend arrived at Pearson International on Holy Thursday and we spent a busy five days running attending Triduum liturgies and meeting people. Having been a graduate student in a foreign country myself, I have some good ideas as to what would help a young Catholic stranger flourish: a parish whose liturgies directed the senses to the glory of God; a safe, economical place for a modest young woman to live; acquaintance with friendly young women who could introduce her to others; transit survival tips; a tour of the campus.
My friend arrived at Pearson International on Holy Thursday and we spent a busy five days running attending Triduum liturgies and meeting people. Having been a graduate student in a foreign country myself, I have some good ideas as to what would help a young Catholic stranger flourish: a parish whose liturgies directed the senses to the glory of God; a safe, economical place for a modest young woman to live; acquaintance with friendly young women who could introduce her to others; transit survival tips; a tour of the campus.
Thus, we set up appointments with potential housemates, potential professors, potential classmates. We had lunch with a lay minister at the Newman Centre. By the end of four days, my feet were so sore, one of my toenails went AWOL.
Amid all this, someone threw a complication into my young friend’s plans.
“Oxford accepted me,” she said.
“Congratulations,” I said. “Any scholarship money?”
“No,” she replied. “They haven’t mentioned any money. They were very presumptuous, too: Your supervisor will be… Anyway, I want to go to Toronto.”
Now, it is not every day that someone gets accepted by Oxford University, so understandably my young friend e-mailed people back home about this flattering triumph. To her chagrin, they responded, in effect, “Forget Toronto! Go to Oxford.”
“They don’t understand,” she said. “Now I don’t know what to do. Oxford may have accepted me just to get the foreign student fees.”
“How much is the Toronto scholarship?”
“Fifteen-thousand dollars.”
“That’s a lot of money,” I said.
But I wasn’t entirely thinking about money. I was thinking of myself as an undergraduate student at the University of St. Michael’s College in love with the idea of Oxford University. My ideas about university had come from Brideshead Revisited and five years at prosaic U of T hadn’t shaken them. The turkey shape of Robarts Library was no match for the dreaming spires of Oxford, and I spent five dissatisfied years thinking that real university life was going on at Oxford. And then, years later, on one sad and rainy day away from a very boring and tedious office job, I walked through St. Michael’s College campus and realized I had been in a paradise and hadn’t known it. I had been blinded to goodness by unattainable glamour.
But sometimes life offers us a choice between good and glamour. I am reminded once again of the four transcendental precepts of Canadian Jesuit philosopher Bernard Lonergan: Be Attentive, Be Intelligent, Be Reasonable, Be Responsible.
Lonergan did not believe in hasty decisions. One cannot authentically make a decision until one has satisfied all the questions of an honest intelligence. Is a $1,000 pair of shoes seen in Vogue really better than a $100 pair seen in a local shop? Is a PhD from a private university in the United States really more honourable than a PhD from a public university in Canada? Is one expensive year at Oxford University really better than one fully funded year at the University of Toronto? The only way to find out is to get all the data, to marshal the facts and to examine them for what they really are.
Being rooted in reality is difficult in a world of easy credit, celebrity worship and a scale of values based on brand names. It is even more difficult in a world where mainstream media plays fast and lose with the facts, as we’ve seen in its frenzied attempts these past weeks to bring down Benedict XVI for the past sins of bad bishops and worse priests.
But those of us who are devoted to reason — for reason is one of the qualities that shows that humanity is in the image and likeness of God — cannot live a half-life of prejudices and wishful thinking. We have to remain rooted in reality. Only by adverting to what really is, and not according to what may not be, can we live authentic lives.
Amid all this, someone threw a complication into my young friend’s plans.
“Oxford accepted me,” she said.
“Congratulations,” I said. “Any scholarship money?”
“No,” she replied. “They haven’t mentioned any money. They were very presumptuous, too: Your supervisor will be… Anyway, I want to go to Toronto.”
Now, it is not every day that someone gets accepted by Oxford University, so understandably my young friend e-mailed people back home about this flattering triumph. To her chagrin, they responded, in effect, “Forget Toronto! Go to Oxford.”
“They don’t understand,” she said. “Now I don’t know what to do. Oxford may have accepted me just to get the foreign student fees.”
“How much is the Toronto scholarship?”
“Fifteen-thousand dollars.”
“That’s a lot of money,” I said.
But I wasn’t entirely thinking about money. I was thinking of myself as an undergraduate student at the University of St. Michael’s College in love with the idea of Oxford University. My ideas about university had come from Brideshead Revisited and five years at prosaic U of T hadn’t shaken them. The turkey shape of Robarts Library was no match for the dreaming spires of Oxford, and I spent five dissatisfied years thinking that real university life was going on at Oxford. And then, years later, on one sad and rainy day away from a very boring and tedious office job, I walked through St. Michael’s College campus and realized I had been in a paradise and hadn’t known it. I had been blinded to goodness by unattainable glamour.
But sometimes life offers us a choice between good and glamour. I am reminded once again of the four transcendental precepts of Canadian Jesuit philosopher Bernard Lonergan: Be Attentive, Be Intelligent, Be Reasonable, Be Responsible.
Lonergan did not believe in hasty decisions. One cannot authentically make a decision until one has satisfied all the questions of an honest intelligence. Is a $1,000 pair of shoes seen in Vogue really better than a $100 pair seen in a local shop? Is a PhD from a private university in the United States really more honourable than a PhD from a public university in Canada? Is one expensive year at Oxford University really better than one fully funded year at the University of Toronto? The only way to find out is to get all the data, to marshal the facts and to examine them for what they really are.
Being rooted in reality is difficult in a world of easy credit, celebrity worship and a scale of values based on brand names. It is even more difficult in a world where mainstream media plays fast and lose with the facts, as we’ve seen in its frenzied attempts these past weeks to bring down Benedict XVI for the past sins of bad bishops and worse priests.
But those of us who are devoted to reason — for reason is one of the qualities that shows that humanity is in the image and likeness of God — cannot live a half-life of prejudices and wishful thinking. We have to remain rooted in reality. Only by adverting to what really is, and not according to what may not be, can we live authentic lives.
Dorothy Cummings McLean