Spiritual Rise, Worldly Fall

            Even though we briefly brought the topic up a week ago or so, the idea that Stephen seems to revert, in a way, to childhood again after becoming a devout Catholic intrigues me. It seems mildly ironic in a sense, that Stephen makes a decision of his own (which was a sign of him growing and becoming independent) to become the most devout Catholic the world has ever seen. In every sense, the decision Stephen made was one of spiritual growth. However, as he became more of a spiritual man, he seemed to lose his grip on the world around him, almost as if he forgets some of his worldly wisdom. He doesn’t care about his surroundings and what sort of beauty he can find in it as much as he used to. In addition, his language becomes simpler and he doesn’t go off on the trademark tangents that Stephen was so fond of making. In fact, it is very reminiscent of Stephen’s mind as a child at Clongowes.

            At Clongowes, Stephen was an innocent, simpler minded version of himself. He was very focused on doing whatever the “right thing” was, even though he might not know exactly why it was the right thing. A sort of faith in his decisions that they were the correct thing to do. It is almost exactly the same sort of behavior that Stephen exhibits when he decides to embrace Catholicism. A core aspect of Christianity in general is faith, the ability to trust in something you can’t see and don’t necessarily understand. Normally, this is trusting that God will get you out of a situation or put you in one, all you need to do is the “right thing”. Rarely is that even close to obvious, and oddly enough, Stephen’s younger self had just about as much knowledge on what the “right thing” or “right answer” was as any sort of faith decision: little to no clue. Also, possibly a coincidence, but the few times Stephen mentions that he knows the “right answer” as a child, he said he knew that because of his father and quite often God is referred to as Father and humans as the children. Aside from a faith in actions comparison, Stephen as a devout Catholic makes the conscious effort to be as pure and correct a person as he can be, which younger Stephen can easily be seen as a very innocent and mostly pure child. In the end, it’s almost as if Stephen has not only reverted to his younger self, but also fully embraced some of the aspects of his life that he intentionally threw away, like his innocence. Progress spiritually actually appeared to set back Stephen from maturing more in a worldly sense.