On Being Superman

(Originally written 12/27/06)

Well I know what I've been told
You gotta work to feed the soul,
But I can't do this all on my own,
No, I'm no Superman.
- Lazlo Bane

I went out for a walk today to clear my head and rekindle whatever it is God and I have. It wasn't a very long walk, as it was getting dark, but I did spend it in conversation with God. I've been so far from him for a while, the distance of sin, the blindness of clouded eyes, and prayer hasn't come easily to my lips for weeks; I've missed those days when I would fall to my knees sometimes in the awe of the mere hint of the divine presence. I've been trying to remind myself that I can't depend on that sort of thing, that Mother Theresa herself felt abandoned by God for years, because that feeling doesn't mean a damn thing other than that God has chosen to withdraw the experience of his presence for a time; it does not mean he is absent, or that he has abandoned you.

It certainly is no excuse to abandon your mission and vocation. With that in mind, mission and vocation are what have dominated my prayer life. It's so easy to be completely overcome with sin, to let it envelope your very communication with God, so that in prayer, you are asking again and again for what has been granted you from the beginning -- mercy and forgiveness. It consumes you, and you become convinced God has not and will not forgive you until you perform some penance, as though God demanded proof, as though our God is a faithless god. So instead, I have focused on praying for Emma, my candidate in RCIA, as I believe my responsibility as her sponsor is paramount over my other concerns, and about my vocation, my purpose in the world.

I visited a Capuchin retreat house in Delaware in October, and will be visiting their novitiate house in March, and in the meantime, I've been praying. I've asked Br. Miguel to send me an application -- not so that I can apply, but so that I can look it over, and ask Hashem for guidance and mercy, to lead me through the desert of my discernment, and pray over something concrete.

Because, even now, back in school, I can't shake the sense that I'm not doing what I'm supposed to be doing. I get the sense that I'm floating along, unwilling to commit to anything, unwilling to allow my life to find direction, unwilling to live a human life. Instead, on some level I still feel like a kid. Sure, sure, my concerns are different -- I'm a lot more responsible, I work, I try to commit serious time to spiritual development -- but day in and day out, it's as though my life is as utterly bereft of drive as it was back then. And I'm not at all certain the commercial world, the world world, is what I need.

Thomas Merton, a Trappist monk and mystic, wrote that, before we are anything else, Christians are part of the Kingdom of God, which should be our first concern, our first loyalty, our first identity. And to me, it seems, living in the world of professors and paychecks and managers, of candidates and conventions, of deadlines and bylines seems...so much less than what I'm meant to do.

I guess that's consistent across the board...everyone feels like that when they aren't doing what they know they're supposed to do. I'm sure that every day my father spent in that truck, painting his path across the continent, he felt immense regret that he wasn't making music. Not because it was his first love, though it was, but because it's written on the very core of his being, and always has been. My dad has always represented for me the profound recognition of one's purpose and vocation. And the truth is that, for every day of sacrifice in that truck, he was living his vocation, because it wasn't simply bound up in music. Human beings are far more complex than that; indeed, his vocation was myself and my sister, to provide for us and let us grow. He was singlemindedly devoted to his family -- but that was only one element of his role. My father, you see, is a psalmist.

If he is a psalmist, I am a prophet. God has given me the gift to write, and I have every intention of using it to advance what God has taught me, and write of these very things about which I now speak-- vocation and identity, memory and purpose, the profundity of coincidence and convergence, and the signature of God upon the world. Even now, I'm writing a comic book planted firmly in those ideas, and developing another -- you see, comics are now and have always been my great love, and God has taught me well how to use this medium to preach in a way of the meaning of human life, which is centered in and oriented toward service, moral greatness, and indeed, heroism but it is just one component of my vocation. More and more, I am becoming aware that it needs to be grounded in the community life of the vowed religious.

A number of weeks ago, I was walking to my apartment from my parish RCIA program, where I am a sponsor, and I got to thinking -- why do I hurt so much?

Why do I hurt so much when so many others get to go about their lives, blissfully ignoring the very God who made them while I -- baptized into his family, into his covenant, one of his people -- suffer so at the very thought of my slothful and broken service to him? And why me? Why did YHWH our God pull me, prod me, speak to me? Why have I seen his face, heard his voice?

Because I look around, and I see these people on the street. I see so many people who simply don't care about any of this, and I wonder why I do. I wonder what sets me apart, what led God to choose me and lead me into a faith which is nothing but heartache once you begin to take it all in, how much love God has for you and how little you try to change, how dramatic is the Gospel call to be remade and how strenuously we've all resisted it. Baptized into the Gospel life, we immediately begin rationalizing our sins, and more to the point, ignoring the voice that calls us to serve. And once you can see that, the ache is unbearable.

Allow me to digress for a moment and speak about someone near and dear to my heart: Superman. For seventy years, he's captivated audiences with his adventures, and really, that's kind of odd -- the man is basically invincible. What sort of drama is there in a man who cannot possibly lose? What sort of courage does such a man really have? I believe the answer lies, not so much in what Superman can do, but in who Superman is.

Superman, you see, is a saint.

Hear me out. Superman's greatest power, his most valuable asset, is not the ability to fly so fast that time itself moves backwards, but rather his incredible moral sense. Superman, no matter what, always knows and does the right thing, regardless of the personal cost; his innate moral responsibility has ruined more relationships, more dates, more charity banquets than one can count. His powers are simply the means, the gift, which allows Superman to do the amazing and wonderful things he does. You see, Superman doesn't have to save that bus full of orphans that's about to go tumbling over that cliff. He doesn't have to save Metropolis from Brainiac. He doesn't have to disable Lex Luthor's nuclear-powered orbital death ray. Superman represents complete self-giving, because he knows how to be the person everyone ought to be. And unlike Batman, whose mission is warped by the fact that it is ultimately revenge, the acting out of a personal vendetta, Superman has nothing compelling him to act.

Superman, thus, understands his life vocationally.

And his influence is hardly limited to the self-contained world he inhabits. No, not at all -- even in this world, we talk about someone who lives a live of dedication and self-sacrifice by calling him, appropriately, Superman. He's become an archetype of radical giving and effort for a greater good. It's no accident that the song lyrics quote above, an homage to that understanding, is the theme song to Scrubs, a show about young doctors trying to do good in the world, while at the same time trying to understand themselves vocationally, in the same way Superman understands his life.

I think that's what we're here for. We're the superheroes. It's our job, our function, our purpose, mission, and vocation to live lives of moral greatness so that others can find the courage to do the same. Before we are pastors, nurses, teachers, or friends, we are icons of Christ, and in a very real sense, we have Superman's big red "S" plastered across our chests. Not because we have power, but because we've embraced our lives in the same way.

If Superman represents the greatness contained in all men and women, written upon our hearts by the very God we seek to serve, then we represent that that very greatness can be attained by anyone, that it is a fundamentally human goal, and indeed, is the very reason each and every one of us is here. John Paul II, another superhero, once wrote to our generation "Never settle for less than the moral and spiritual greatness of which you all are capable." Let's take those words to heart, and live our lives, in Christ, the very source and inspiration for us, who is indeed the greatest hero of all.