“But that’s just what they want you to think….” – a common phrase that many people hear or use on a regular basis. In our age, it seems that nothing is ever as it seems, and earnest sincerity must always give way to a joke, for nothing can be truly serious. Sincerity and earnestness are commonly held in low esteem in our Post-Enlightenment world, especially in comparison to cynicism and sarcasm. A great case study for all four of these terms is Flannery O’Connor’s The River.
O’Connor weaves the tale of a boy, Harry, from a troubled home who attends a religious revival in the woods with his babysitter. He is baptized in the river and returns home to his alcoholic and uncaring parents. The next day, Harry returns to the river alone and, in an effort to find the Kingdom of Christ, is tragically drowned.
The boy in O’Connor’s story is only “four or five” years old, and still fully possesses childhood innocence. His innocence is under threat, however, by the neglect of his parents. For example, when Harry hears from his sitter that he is a child of God, and that Jesus Christ made him, he thinks “Before he had thought [his maker] had been a doctor named Sladewall…but this must have been a joke. They joked a lot where he lived.” His sitter goes on to read him a story from her great grandmother’s children’s Bible, which Harry hides in his coat so that he can look at the pictures later.
At the revival, Harry meets the preacher, and he is brought forward for Baptism. He goes along with the process, thinking the whole thing to be a joke. Right before the Baptism, however, Harry sees that the preacher is dead serious. He thinks in contrast that “Where he lived, everything was a joke.” Harry goes under the water and comes back up sputtering and wiping his eyes.
Harry returns home and is greeted by his parents who are hosting friends for drinks. His mother, removing his coat, finds the antique children’s Bible and smirks, taking an “exaggerated comical expression.” One of the friends remarks that the book is worth a lot of money, and his father comments on how valuable it is, before sending Harry to bed.
Children are sponges. They absorb whatever attitude is in their environment, and Harry’s parents create a dangerous environment for his innocence. When met with the earnest faith of his babysitter, they respond with cynicism. Upon finding her family Bible, they respond with an avaricious smirk. Harry, still too young to be fully cynical in his own right, nevertheless suffers from a confusion about sincerity. He regards the sincere faith of the preacher as sarcasm, a joke, until he is about to go under the water. Worst of all, Harry is confused about his identity as a child of God due to the joking nature of his household.
This is not to say that all jest is bad, for there is “a time for every matter under Heaven.” A young child can laugh when Winnie the Pooh gets stuck in Rabbit’s house, but he must not laugh when Jack sneaks through the giant’s castle. An older child can laugh at Tom Sawyer trading white-washing duty for an apple and some toys, but not when Bilbo converses with Smaug. Life is full of times to laugh, yes. But life is also full of times to be serious. It is important that children do not confuse the two.
The danger of constant cynicism towards others is not just a problem in parenting. How many people struggle to fully trust their friends and loved one’s words? I, for one, sometimes find myself wondering what a loved one really meant or what a friend had to gain from what they said. This cynicism has the same source as Harry’s parents’: human sin.
In the Garden, Adam and Eve dwelt in a state of innocence. Both fully trusted God, and it wasn’t until the serpent entered that our first parents began to doubt. The serpent introduced cynicism to Eve,first questioning God’s decrees, and then answering “You will not die. For God knows that when you eat of it…you will be like God.” What did God really mean? He must have had something to gain by prohibiting the tasting of the forbidden fruit.
This cynicism brought on by the fall of our first parents can be undone, however. Like Harry in O’Connor’s story, we can be washed in the “river of suffering.” We can be made new. Christ has already crushed the serpent’s skull by his coming and his work. By living lives of earnest faith, the enemy’s lies will hold no sway over us. By trusting God, the doubts placed by the evil one will have no sway.
This earnest faith is the same that upheld Abraham as he walked up Moriah. It is the same faith that sustained Jeremiah in the cistern. This faith led Saint Paul through all of his missionary journeys, and this faith continues to lead faithful Christians closer to God. By living lives of earnest faith, we too “can take him at His word.” By conforming ourselves to Our Blessed Lord, we can dispel the doubt caused by human sin, and live lives of virtue.
