Charlie and I discuss the value of exercise naturally oriented to our ultimate end. This is sparked off by his organizing another SF Bay 50-mile march. I am dubbing this a March for Eternal Life (aka The Bay-Area Pilgrimage for Pentecost). It follows a route around three bridges (Bay Bridge, Richmond Bridge and Golden Gate Bridge) starting early in the morning and completing it in a single day. This is a march in which we meditate upon the spiritual meaning of marching itself. I see the 50 miles as a symbol of Pentecost, the 50th-day after Easter on which the Holy Spirit descended upon the world.
The March takes place on Friday, May 29th at Treasure Island on the Bay Bridge. You can join him for all or part (I am doing just a part!) of that march by connecting with Charlie through his website anaturalmethod.com/march. The book he mentions in the interview is called Fit for Eternal Life and is by Dr. Kevin Vost.
Charlie, who is a Bay Area native and a relatively recent convert, has made it his mission to focus on two secular cults, exercise, and nutrition, and his goal is to Christianize them. I think he really is onto something here. If there are two aspects of Californian life that symbolize the misdirected desire for the good (along with sexual immorality) it is these.
It occurs to me that what Charlie is seeking to introduce is the harmonizing factor, which is the person of Christ. Once we start with a Christian anthropology in our consideration of man and understand that it is our relationship with Him that governs, ideally, all human activity, then the dichotomies and conflicts which arise from worshipping lesser gods disappear.
So eating is both a physical and spiritual activity and considerations of nutrition and the spiritual disciplines of feasting and fasting are harmonized in the daily, weekly, seasonal and annual cycles of time in the liturgical year and our patterns of prayer and worship. And walking or marching done for purposes of meditation upon things eternal becomes what used to be called…a pilgrimage! So this is The Pilgrimage for Pentecost!
We can conform our patterns of all exercise to this sacred ideal and this will give us both physical and spiritual benefits. As we argue in the podcast, natural exercise will promote in people the old ideals of chivalry, virtue and self-control.
This is the Natural Method that Charlie is advocating through his site anaturalmethod.com. Similarly, work and recreation are both activities that bolster the dignity of human life when understood in this way.
The misdirected searches for the Good that characterize and fracture society have never been more apparent in the enforced pattern of activity that the response to the coronavirus here in California is mandating. It arises, it seems to me, from public policy that does recognize that while there are positive effects that arise from the enforced separation of people from each other, there are also detrimental effects - work and economic activity, social, spiritual and religious, physical, recreational, and so on.
There is in public policy at the best of times, but especially in our current responses to the coronavirus, a general lack of recognition that human dignity requires us to participate in all these activities, and if they are denied to us, it will impact detrimentally the whole person.
I do not expect those who govern us to be able to implement the perfect policy that gives us the right balance, this is a difficult situation and it would be hard to know what to do precisely. However, once we accept that the human person is not a compartmentalized being, but rather a profound unity of body and soul in which every activity impacts every aspect of the human person, then we at least have a chance of knowing what that balance is. Neglect of these principles, on the other hand will almost certainly result in a policy that makes things worse. I feel that we are starting to realize this now.
There is another point here in that I believe that each of us knows best how to balance these factors in our own lives. We are all unique and a centrally governed policy tries to dictate the detail of our daily living to the degree that we are seeing, will create more difficulties on balance for all those who’s needs do not correspond precisely to the imposed balance of human activity - ie every single one of us.
This is saying the personal freedom has a part to play. The role of the state is to regulate to protect human freedom, even in a crisis, in accordance with the principles of justice. This is why it is legitimate for the state to ensure the secure national boundaries and enforce the, aptly named, justice system. Now more than ever, we must trust that maximizing human freedom will allow the Common Good to manifest itself and that this will produce the best response of our nation to the pandemic.
This principle does allow for the possibility of different forms of regulation under changing conditions and threats. Nevertheless, according to this logic the only justification for state intervention of the sort that we have seen is that it is protecting the personal freedom of its citizens in accordance with justice. One might consider that the pandemic itself represents a threat to human freedom that justifies extraordinary measures by arguing that most of us are not as free as we otherwise would be if we are confined to a hospital bed and a ventilator. My friend Michel Accad, who is a medical doctor in general practice as well as a practising cardiologist argues in this article that there is no role such for the state, saying:
It is the true economy and the integrity of society that the government should protect or promote. Lockdowns do the exact opposite. They fracture us, harm us, and weaken us all. If maintained long enough, they will disintegrate us. In the meantime, they undoubtedly obstruct our efforts to find the best way to respond to pandemics. They should be opposed—not because of tradeoffs—but because they are antithetical to the economy, that is, to the good of society.
Before you accuse him (or me) of being driven by money alone, I should point out that he using the word ‘economy’ in its fullest meaning, which incorporates a Christian vision of man and society. He says the following:
The economy is not simply a sum total of exchanges of material goods and services among consumers, businesses, and governments, to be measured as a “GDP.” That is the concept that the utilitarians are accustomed to, and it’s how mainstream political philosophy conceives of the economy. Originally, however, the Greek term Oîkonomia meant “household affairs” and came to refer, by extension, to the entire life of the community as such.
The reason to consider the life of the community as such is that the human being is, by nature, a social animal who depends essentially on the division of labor that takes place within an integrated and wholly interconnected society. We depend on the division of labor from the moment we are born: we need parents who can feed us, and our parents themselves need the specialized work of others to survive—specialized work that invariably crosses different generations. The division of labor forms a more or less tight-knit “political” community that promotes and defends the interests of its own members. That community may be a small primitive tribe or a huge nation-state, it is nevertheless one community engaged in the division of labor in its own unique way.
But, even if we accept the argument that the drastic measures protect health perceived as human freedom, they still become self defeating, I suggest, because of the huge restrictions on our freedom in other aspects of our lives that these measures entail.
As I pointed out, it is an extremely difficult task for our politicians to manage such a situation well. However, each of them told us they were qualified for such a task when they stood for office. Now we have a chance to see if they are as good as their promises.
In light of this, I suggest now is a time particularly, that we hope that those who govern us are inspired by the Holy Spirit as they execute their duties. And so for me, the 50-mile ‘March for Eternal Life’ evoking the Spirit of Pentecost is a symbol for us. We must all pray for our leaders and ask God to send his Holy Spirit to guide them, and that they might listen to Him.
Here is a painting of mine - hoping to inspire chivalry today.
