Seduction of the Intellect

Today, Father Gary spoke about original sin as "the seduction of the intellect" - that arrogant part of us that thinks we are so smart, so clever, and so above-it-all. It was a challenging homily for me, and probably for all of us since we are in the student phase of our lives where knowledge often seems like the height of existence.

Strangely, Father Gary's homily reminded me of an incident in third grade when that original sin flared up and made an absolute and obvious fool of me. I'm embarrassed even now to remember it, but I suppose we can all recall a time when we rationalized ourselves into feeling exempt from any sort of rule that wasn't established by the egotistic self.

I was generally a pretty well-behaved elementary student, but I had a tendency to think up my own little plans and how I might pursue them. At Hawes Elementary, we were allowed to spend recesses indoors if we wanted, but we were supposed to stay outside for the lunch break. My best friend, a Pakistani girl named Maliah, and I loved staying in the library during the morning recess to read. It was wonderful; we'd look through travel books, gaze at pictures of far-off lands, and Maliah would tell me about life in Pakistan. But during lunch, we stayed outside and made daisy chains until class resumed.

One hot afternoon, I had the bright idea that Maliah and I should ask permission to go to the library - we were known as good girls, and it wasn't so much to ask to enrich our minds, was it? Besides, there weren't very many flowers on the field and we were bored that lunch period. So Maliah and I walked up to a Yard Duty Lady and asked if we could please go to the library. She kindly explained that we had better stay outside till lunch was over. Maliah and I nodded and slowly wandered away. But over across the field, there was another Yard Duty Lady, and so we approached her. Could we please go read books in the library? She also explained that we had better stay outside till lunch was over. Over by the swings, there was yet a third Yard Duty Lady. Maliah and I went to ask her, and the answer was the same: we should stay outside until the bell rang.

We turned back toward the field to resign ourselves to boredom, and suddenly found ourselves face-to-face with the first Yard Duty Lady. Her eyes were full of fire, and her massive shadow cast somberness over us.

"Do you know what I just saw?" she asked, her voice extremely cold.

I could only stare at her with shocked and shameful eyes.

"After I told you that you could not go inside, I watched you walk all the way around this yard," she jabbed her finger at the periphery of the field, "all the way around this yard, trying to get a different answer. That's what you were doing, wasn't it? You thought you'd just keep asking until you found somebody who would give you your way, didn't you?"

That was exactly what we had thought. Maliah and I stood there for a long dressing-down until we were finally excused, humbled and numb. I remember we spent the rest of the lunch-break sitting on the field in silence, decapitating old daisies and trying to hold back tears.

That memory is very clear because it was an experience of raw shame; there was no justifying what we had done, for our persistence had indeed been borne solely of ego. We had thought ourselves so bright and precocious that somehow we deserved to be exempt from lunch policy. We had thought ourselves somehow above the rules, and our library endeavors somehow above the more ordinary, run-of-the-mill playground activities. Needless to say, after that embarrassing day, Maliah and I were quite content to stay outside and do as we were told the first time.

I have no idea why I am sharing my shameful moments with you, except that I think Father Gary was right in equating original sin with a seduction of the intellect. It's so dangerously easy to give ourselves mental pats on the back for the things we think and the endeavors we undertake. The ego keeps us pushing the limits, making us imagine that we have the 'big picture' in mind... we know best, and we can figure it all out. But that's not true.

I recall a line from the Magnificat about God's reaction to the proud, which my old Anglican church translated as: "He hath cast down the proud in the imagination of their hearts." I still remember it because that turn of phrase is so poetic and so terrifying. It's not merely an overblown conceit, but a false "imagination" of our intellects that is our downfall. It's the cultivation of a totally undeserved, knowing pride that has no legitimate place anywhere within us and yet lodges itself in our inward hearts to be cultivated by our minds.

The "seduction of the intellect" seems persuasive and clever, but as I learned that day in third grade, it's extremely embarrassing and shameful thing when revealed to be the "imagination" that it really is.

~Stephanieeee