By William B. Refvem

Staff Writer

The other week I heard in a sermon what I hear in sermons quite often, that I'm a selfish wretch and need to start loving my neighbor more than I love myself. I have heard things to this effect my whole life but am now starting to doubt their relevance.

It is true that a human being's - that is, a child's - natural tendency is to be oblivious of anything but the Self and to seek the gratification of its whims. I doubt there are many people who disagree with this, at least in practice. The Chinese these days tend to say that children are born good and are corrupted by society, but their education system belies this; it makes the strictest Calvinist education look warm and fuzzy. Kids enter it have been indulged quite a bit by their parents, and in the first few years the teachers transform them from loud and wild to quiet, respectful, disciplined. They learn manners, in other words, just like children in every civilized society. They learn to live in something approaching harmony with other human beings by learning to mortify their own desires for the good of the community.

Every society, every congregation of individuals, has a method for training its members to see the Whole and to conduct themselves based on it. It nearly always involves myth in some form, and America is no exception. Postmoderns hate to admit their mythopoeic nature, especially American postmoderns, and even more especially Christian American postmoderns. But myths are stories, and stories are how we explain the world to ourselves. ``Thinking is governed by narrative,'' says Marilynne Robinson.

The most common myth heard in America is the myth of American individualism. We are told, nonsensically, that America is an individualistic society. Is this not an oxymoron? How can there be a society made up of people who care nothing for society? No, Americans are not individualistic. The specter normally monikered ``individualism'' is really the ghost of Western Christianity. Yes, we are more individualistic than the Chinese, but so is everyone, and in the grander picture - i.e., compared to where we once were - the difference is negligible. And the Church is saying nothing original or particularly insightful when it repeats for us mere cultural wisdom. There are many organs of communication that have performed this necessary function much better than the Church.

Time was, the contemplative life was the glorified life for the Christian. Hermits were the epitome of piety, eschewing the company of humankind entirely and doing naught but contemplating and praying. This is the subjective life, the individualistic life, where the Self mortifies all desire save that for the Divine. The Other is excised entirely. Now, I'm not sure what to call this, as it occurs to me that individualistic is probably a bad word, but it is certainly un-American. Certainly un-Protestant. America tends, as most societies do, toward defining the Self in relation to the other. That which has consequence is that which effects the world, which consists of persons and materials. Ideas are consequential only insofar as they effect actions. An anecdotal evidence of this is the person who told me that the relation of Self to Divine requires the Other as intermediary; or, as she put it, you love God by loving people. Balderdash, I say. This suggests to me that, as I am commanded to surrender all to God, I must be prepared to surrender all to humankind.

This is humanism run completely amok. Humanism started out as a celebration of humanity as God's crowning glory and has become a worship of humanity. I submit to you, gentle reader, that the grand, widespread error of the age is not that we allow the Self to usurp the importance of the Other, but that we let the Other usurp the importance of the Divine.

To love the Other as the Self, this is the second commandment. We normally think of this as giving an imperative to not stomp on the rights of others, but I think this is not something we need to hear right now. Indeed, this commandment, of all things in the Bible, is perhaps the most amenable to our current way of thinking of things, but it assumes there is a Self that is properly to be valued and loved. We are commanded to be charitable, not unselfish. We must love the Other, not hate the Self; they are not the same thing.

The Self is that part in us which we surrender to no one except God. Just as lovers save their bodies for each other, so must we save our essence for God, and I do not mean that we shouldn't give of our essence to others, but that there is a realm of the Self which is for God's and our eyes only. Only He can swim the depths of our innermost being. Only He can demand complete spiritual surrender from us. It is a heresy, and one oft-celebrated by Hollywood, for lovers to surrender their souls to each other the way they surrender their bodies - that is, completely. Their physical union mimics the spiritual union of the Self and the Divine. The naked spirit of the Self before the Divine, presenting itself for union with the Divine - this is the glory of God.