At the start of summer, I like to pick up a book that feels humorous and hopeful but has some thoughts to chew on. This year, I reread Myles Connolly’s perennial classic “Mr. Blue” with delight.
J. Blue is a modern mystic, sometimes described outside of the fictional book as a modern St. Francis or the literary antidote to Jay Gatsby. We meet him through the lens of a secular and cynical journalist who is profoundly intrigued by Blue. He describes Blue as “crazy” many times but privately admits, “I didn’t mean it. He had many of the marks of insanity, but somehow he gave you the impression that we were all crazy and he alone was sane.”
One of my favorite juxtapositions of their characters happens on the roof of a skyscraper in New York where Blue happened to be living at the time. Blue enthusiastically paints a green kite and immediately decides to fly it over the city. When the wind nearly fails to carry the kite, Blue jumps up on the protective wall around the roof to give it a boost.
He remains dancing there on the precipice while the kite soars out of sight but still connected to the string he clutches.
The narrator is terrified by his antics. He relates, “I couldn’t stand it. The sight of him made me dizzy. I sat down on the roof to consolidate myself, to convince myself that I, at least, was safe.” When he asks why Blue would fly a kite beyond where he could enjoy seeing it, Blue responds, “But think of all the people uptown who are looking at it. Think of them.”
Taking risks on the edge
Risk assessment is a particularly controversial topic in our society today. Humans know that if you risk nothing, you rarely gain anything worth having. But our methods of doing so can make others uncomfortable. I see this nowhere more clearly than in our faith, where a cross is the sign of our victory. I have been both Mr. Blue on the edge and the self-protective journalist.
Once as a teenager at a huge retreat, I encountered a religious order with a unique expression of devotion. The brothers and sisters would fully prostrate themselves and kiss the floor every time they entered or left the Eucharistic Presence of Our Lord. In my pettiness, I thought of the filth of the floor, the possibility of tripping on the way down or up from prostration, and the way it made me feel uncomfortably challenged regarding my own belief in the level of reverence due to the King of the Universe. But through the weekend, I got to know the religious better and realized that they had a light and interior freedom and joy that I craved.
Mr. Blue is described like them as having a “light he sees,” and in that light, “all the scales of pettiness fall off the soul.” Then, he is able to assert that one can and must live life with courage. “It is the humble man who risks his dignity to speak up for what he loves. … Genuine love cannot endure silence.”
Daring to love deeply
This is the steady work of evangelization. It is taking the risk to love deeply and to hazard sharing that love with others, even when you kiss a dirty floor to love Christ or send a kite pulling joy into the horizon.
In our world today, an authentic Catholic life is not a hidden thing; it is a risk. Of course, this is expressed differently in every person. But I feel like a man on a roof edge when people remark on the many children jumping out of my huge van, when a woman asks about my Miraculous Medal at a dance competition, when my hairdresser and I discuss the Latin chant at the Rorate Mass I attended at sunrise that morning, when we skip a sporting event to attend Sunday Mass, when my children tell neighbors and teachers about our beliefs, and when my students at a mostly Protestant school ask me to explain the concept of a monastery mentioned in their book. And now when I enter the church for Eucharistic Adoration, I kneel and kiss the floor before the source of my joy, hope and very life.
Mr. Blue knew that courage and joy are inseparable, and both are the antithesis of the spirit of the modern age, which saps our attention, faith, hope and authentic experience of love, which necessitates risk. He saw differently and aligned his life to that ever-ancient, ever-new scale of value.
‘In our world today,
an authentic Catholic life
is not a hidden thing;
it is a risk.’
When his journalist friend asserts that Blue is perfectly happy, however, Blue looks troubled. There is one supernatural joy he knows he has yet to fully experience. He hands his friend a card with a quotation from St. John Vianney: “The cross is the gift God gives His friends.” The highest value is found in union with the Person of Christ, and true union with Him requires a crucifixion to get to the resurrection. We must give all.
Bringing others to the source of joy
As we celebrate the Feast of Corpus Christi, we remember that the Eucharist is the “source and summit of the Christian life” (“Lumen Gentium,” 11). We attend Mass, and some of us process in public Adoration to show our love.
Sometimes I have been asked why we do this. Why the monstrance and the incense and the servers and the baldacchino and the singing in an ancient language and the blocking of city streets?
I would answer with Blue, “Think of all the people uptown who are looking at it. Think of them.”
Christ is the God who can heal the hopeless through one glance, one word, one touch of His garment. And we can bring Him to the world and bring the individuals in our lives to Him. That is the ultimate risk and the ultimate source of joy.
Kelly Henson is a Catholic writer and speaker who explores the art of integrating faith into daily life. She and her family are parishioners of Our Lady of Grace Parish in Greensboro. She blogs at www.kellyjhenson.com.