OnWord

We tend to shower praise on people who “fit in,” but it’s more instructive to appreciate folks who are unique—which is everyone. Former President Jimmy Carter has blazed new trails, and The Washington Post on June 22 reminded us that he’s three months away from being unusual again—his 100^th birthday.

It’s timely to pay tribute to Carter now because it takes the whole book of one’s life, not the first or last chapter alone, to establish a unique legacy. In Carter’s case, he has become exceptional step-by-step, piecing together his special set of endeavors, values, and relationships in a changing world.

He has been a farm-owner, Navy submariner, governor, president, humanitarian, Nobel Peace Prize recipient, and now a hospice patient.

We learn much by cherishing people’s entire lives as they unfold, intertwine, and move forward, not merely judging one aspect or awaiting a definitive obituary.

Carter has sought to influence the whole world and to let the whole world influence him. We can illustrate this by remembering a unique friendship he formed. Twenty years ago, on June 28, 2004, he delivered the eulogy at a 13-year-old’s funeral service.

A shared passion for peacemaking placed Carter in contact with Mattie J.T. Stepanek a few years earlier. The Make-a-Wish Foundation inquired whether Carter could visit Mattie, who had asked to meet his hero. Doctors deemed Mattie’s death imminent.

Suffering from a particularly cruel form of muscular dystrophy (MD), he had known for a while that each day could be his last. His similarly afflicted siblings had died. But he had plunged into a vigorous existence filled with faith and purpose—to be a kid while building a legacy.

He wanted to be remembered as “a poet, a peacemaker, and a philosopher who played.”

Raised by a Catholic mother who is alive today facing a less corruptive form of mitochondrial disease, Mattie spent time in prayer and received insights he called “heartsongs.”

These thoughts affirmed for him every person’s distinctive worth and mission, and God’s unifying love, prompting Mattie to write poems. His simple eloquence yielded a 2002 book, Heartsongs, plus six other New York Times best-sellers during a four-year span. (Two were published posthumously.)

Mattie gained media attention, sharing hopes of peaceful human flourishing and personal striving—a beacon of both childlike wonder and understanding deepened by his painful disability.

Meanwhile, his local Maryland parish and the Archdiocese of Washington, DC, made it possible for him to receive the sacraments of First Communion and Confirmation by age 8. He became a parish catechist, teaching the faith to sixth-graders.

His growth in knowledge, reason, and faith was swift, as told by his mom, Dr. Jeni Stepanek, who was interviewed recently on EWTN. She quoted his motto: “Think gently, speak gently, live gently.”

His buoyant spirit lifted up countless adults, leading to TV appearances with super-influencer Oprah Winfrey and MD celebrity-fundraiser par excellence Jerry Lewis. (See Lewis and Mattie together in this video at about the 1-hour mark.)

President Carter did indeed visit Mattie. The boy had singled out Carter as a peacemaking paradigm. Jimmy and Mattie began to correspond, exchanging many thoughts, spiritual musings, and plans for the future.

Of course, this ended in 2004 when the doctors’ prognosis eventually proved correct. Carter contributed two sets of remarks to the final collection of Mattie’s poetry and prose, a book titled Just Peace: A Message of Hope, published two years later.

The former president wrote a foreword, plus closing notes whimsically called a “forthword.” Even the word was unconventional. It may have been a neologism sparked by Mattie’s creativity. Internet search engines still today do not recognize it. Such a clever term should have spawned more copycats!

Carter’s implication was that Mattie had put his finger on a starting point from which young and old alike could go forth on pilgrimages of peace.

He wrote that the boy “has been able to comprehend his own inner feelings, to extrapolate them with a unique resonance for the understanding of other people, and to embrace in his brilliant mind the challenges and opportunities of the entire world.”

But the most quotable part of the forthword was Carter’s observation that his friend was “the most remarkable person I have ever known.”

The former president made a video in 2014 repeating that assessment. He honored Mattie’s courageous exploration of humanity as an amalgam of wisdom he had not seen in any world leader.

A message about lifespans and legacies is worth considering in civil society and public affairs today. No specific level of experience or age, from teen to senior citizen, can guarantee leadership that resonates with reality. We need to stay alert for out-of-the-ordinary inspirations whose seeds are sown gradually, in partnership with others, in dialogue with God and the world.

The unscheduled synchronicity and synergy of lives—including our own—are hints that God is working at the intersections of one-of-a-kind gifts. As Scripture (1 Kings 19:12) suggests, He is present in the quiet breeze, not in a political windstorm or an individual’s bluff and bluster.

When the time comes for Jimmy Carter’s obituary to be published, we would be foolish to read his life only as random headlines. The best role models boldly surf a current of connectedness which flows where it will, in the right direction for the right duration.

Such paths will be roller coasters. Carter’s one-term presidency was marked by his promise of truthfulness amid a full measure of tumults and errors. Later, he served on crucial diplomatic missions and worked to monitor democracies’ free and fair elections, but he was also called antisemitic for his criticism of Israeli policies.

Pundits mocked this compassionate evangelical Christian for his 1979 “malaise speech,” in which he coached Americans to overcome their “crisis of confidence.” He spoke prophetically:

“We can see this crisis in the growing doubt about the meaning of our own lives and in the loss of a unity of purpose for our nation. The erosion of our confidence in the future is threatening to destroy the social and the political fabric of America.”

The June 27, 2024, debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump affirmed Carter’s prediction of disabled governance.

A polarized populace witnessed that societal structures and party machines which once generated unifying leaders are now producing shadows of statesmanship who merely “fit in” and hardly bring us solace. Imaginative, big-picture ideas have morphed into performative survival strategies. Malaise has decayed into malice.

Upon Carter’s death, presidents of the past and present will gather at ceremonies to remember him, prompting millions to review the paths we’ve taken together. Sadly, we may see we’re stuck in ruts of narcissism and relativism. Perhaps too few people have stepped forward to share fresh, authentic, virtuous messages, or to respond to them when recognized.

An extra dose of quotes from the former president will help us recall, and maybe recapture, his heartsongs. This founder of The Carter Center and long-time partner with Habitat for Humanity has said he wants to be known for “waging peace” and championing human dignity.

His “tough love” for our nation carries the power to stir and strengthen us: “America did not invent human rights,” he said. “In a very real sense, human rights invented America.”

He wants us to be instruments of those rights: “To be true to ourselves, we must be true to others.” But it all must start with our own initiative, enabled by higher truths.

Carter, like his young friend Mattie, explained he was driven by a relationship with God. He has said, “My faith demands that I do whatever I can, wherever I am, whenever I can, for as long as I can, with whatever I have, to try to make a difference.”

People inspired by Mattie’s similar determination have formed the Mattie J.T. Stepanek Foundation, which provides resources for the teaching of peace studies. A variety of activities named for him continue in various locales to spread the message, “just peace.”

There is also a Mattie J.T. Stepanek Guild, which is gathering information on how this young humanitarian lived and how he inspired others. As they are wont to do, some Catholics are thinking of sainthood as the ultimate legacy—not something to capture and categorize in an obituary, but a reality with which we can always interact.

The guild must compile documentation to present for archdiocesan review, leading to a “cause for canonization.” That would await Rome’s scrutiny and papal review.

Like all worthy pursuits, this will take time. It’s an opportunity for regenerating uniquely dynamic hearts and minds that can lead us beyond 2024. Fortunately, the influential lifespan we desire—for Mattie, for his friend Jimmy, and for all of us—is unlimited. Carter is here to tell us: Go forth.

You can find this commentary also in “Phronesis in Pieces” at billschmitt.substack.com. Please consider subscribing and sharing.

Also check out the Magis Center blog, which this week posted a previous, related commentary by Bill Schmitt: “We Seek Authenticity, But Be Careful Defining What’s Real.” The Magis Center is directed by Father Robert Spitzer, SJ.

Breathe in the magical realism that is all around us. Are you sniffing the literary genre we identify with 20^th century Latin American authors? Or the latest iterations of the style now morphing in multiple media? Or the phenomenon we witness in non-fiction, indeed in the way we think? Yes!

This perspective on life will gain attention in all three cultural currents this year and beyond. We would be wise to remember what we thought we knew about it so we’re prepared to catch its drift .

Lots of students have been taught that magical realism referred to a somewhat esoteric style which emerged around the 1930s, mainly in art and literature and notably (but not exclusively) in Latin American novels. Brittanica.com says it is “characterized by the matter-of-fact inclusion of fantastical or mythical elements into seemingly realistic fiction.”

The encyclopedia adds that this hybrid approach has cultural resonance. Scholars see its roots in “post-colonial writing” because it strives to “make sense of at least two separate realities—the reality of the conquerors as well as that of the conquered.”

Mysteries that Span Decades

Various writers worldwide have injected imaginative features—telepathic characters, even a moon that speaks—into otherwise realistic storytelling. Their goal: to emphasize and illuminate aspects of truth whose complex authenticity defies a merely prosaic presentation.

One esteemed exemplar, Gabriel Garcia Márquez, featured an otherworldly element in his 1967 novel, One Hundred Years of Solitude, as an article by Master Class points out: A Colombian family’s patriarch dreams about a city of mirrors, and that city takes shape physically, and mysteriously, across generations.

Here come our first connections to the present day. The Netflix streaming service has released a video preview of a 16-episode serialization of One Hundred Years of Solitude, coming soon to a screen near you.

Magical realism is not new to small or large screens. Observers have said TV series such as Stranger Things and Westworld utilized the style. They have spotted it in films like Woody Allen’s The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985) and Midnight in Paris (2011), as well as Disney’s Encanto (2021).

A headline in The New York Times calls the new movie Omen a “trippy” drama which “explores Congolese society through magical realism.” It “operates on another—frenzied, magical, gender-bending—wavelength,” the Times reviewer said on April 11.

Several months ago, the newspaper reviewed a noteworthy movie produced by Japanese anime master Hayao Miyazaki, now 82. The Boy and the Heron uses magical realism to tap into experiences from Miyazaki’s own life.

This animated film has been thriving in theaters and on platforms, but the Times reviewer advises audiences to watch it as an “exercise in contemplation” because it’s so enigmatic. “Magical fires rage, souls of the preborn and the dead mingle, and the fate of the universe is determined in ways unclear.”

It appears the enigmas of these latter films, and of other entertainment served up nowadays, aim to take us where no magical realist has gone before. We can choose to come away from the intense images and ideas either as disoriented wanderers or as mystery-lovers on pilgrimage.

We should assess our trippy 21^st century culture expecting this kind of realism to grow. Note that an essay in Writer’s Digest in 2016 advised authors to embrace the style broadly: “It’s as much a worldview as a category.”

Perhaps the worldview of magic, which is distinct from science fiction, surrealism, fable, and fantasy, has found a new home for its enigmas—in non-fiction and our daily search for truth.

When the American public must distinguish between authentic and “fake” news, information and disinformation, reasoning and conspiracy theories, our thinking seems vulnerable to incursions from the unreal.

After all, the Oxford Dictionary in 2016 declared its word of the year to be “post-truth.”

Verisimilitude? Not Very

Katherine Maher, the suddenly controversial CEO of National Public Radio who previously headed Wikipedia, assured a 2022 TED Talk audience that “truth exists.” But, if you take into account a world of different beliefs, she said, our “collective decision-making” needs the “tremendously forgiving” notion of “minimum viable truth.”

This means “getting it right enough, enough of the time, to be useful enough to enough people,” according to Maher. Using patience and humility, fact-gatherers should work incrementally to state what we know now and then keep sorting through the “many different truths” in people’s minds; our “messy humanity” will accept more truth as time goes by.

Because Wikipedia is based on “collaboration” by a volunteer editor “community,” Maher suggested, the online encyclopedia is now one of the few places where “disagreements actually make you more agreeable.” Sadly, agreeability has proven more elusive at NPR.

Meanwhile, early this year, artificial intelligence became disagreeable with its own version of magical realism. Google’s Gemini image-generator concocted a world peopled by a female pope and Black founding fathers. Users rejected this as inclusivity promoting exclusivism, a tweak of reality creating the unreal.

How do people think about reality today? Obviously, each individual will be different. Politicians of either party might act like fabulists in their resumes and speeches. Other influential figures in the public square will be more rigorous and common-sensical.

Of course, it’s natural for us to Photoshop our slices of reality to make ourselves look better. But we also insert our unseen world, perhaps recalling a moment of spiritual epiphany, a personal passion that motivates us, or an observation about people that blends our knowledge and kindness.

Even thoroughly secular people, grounded in empiricism, will try to impress audiences with the values and experiences of their interior selves. Our modern culture favors role models in whom we see deeper dimensions of empathy, belief, and principle.

Judeo-Christian tradition and other religions have been telling stories with these dimensions for millennia. Catholic hagiography, finding inspiration in the stories of canonized saints, integrates mundane biography with the recognition that some people, through sacrifice and the sacred, can live life to the fullest.

The Church, which has developed a healthy skepticism toward miraculous claims, still asserts that an expansive view of reality offers a sense of purpose and joy. Persons cultivate this perspective not instantaneously as solo actors, but gradually in relationships with each other and their God.

Skeptics will use the term “magical realism” to dismiss these statements of faith. But religion shouldn’t be dismissed as magic. It continues to provide communities of benevolence where big-picture questioning is encouraged, even in these times of atomization.

So, we see magical realism taking opposite directions these days—as a blessing upon those who seek more meaningful truth, or as an insult from those who want “truth” without the baggage of higher perspectives.

Those in the latter segment will either limit different worldviews to portion-controlled bites or demand immediate definitions to ensure cultural progress.

Neither of these choices respects the noble roots of the magical realists. They birthed the genre to expose reality on multiple levels without imposing it. They felt a duty to preserve and honor their ancestral cultures’ essence in the midst of oppression and oversimplification.

Their imaginative, non-conformist “truth bombs,” vividly amending regime-sanctioned, minimalist doctrines, have helped countless readers see far more than the “minimum viable truth.”

These days, our battle for fuller truth confronts a new, yet familiar, cultural opponent—the “oppressor vs. oppressed” paradigm. It is more a handy tool of interpretation than a conquering force in our lives. But it allows a new “non-fiction” in America’s post-modern public square.

The new stories (morphed into narratives) emerge not from the grass roots, but from strategic communications. Too many leaders—and those amplifying them—will mix just enough reality and ideology to generate engagement through polarization. That’s precisely what “OG” magical realists resisted.

The Case of the Missing Opportunity

Let’s work toward a final judgment about our reality-challenged culture. Our first witness is NewsNation journalist Chris Cuomo.

America’s current political landscape is “not about truth,” he commented during his April 19 program. “It’s about preference, advantage, and animus…. All that matters is the other side being worse, not you being better.” 

In performative politics between Democrats and Republicans, one’s opponents are “not just wrong, they’re bad.”

But that’s not a dead end, says Cuomo. In all areas of life outside politics—“where you work, your partnering, your parenting, your parents, your kids, your friends, your passions”—the norms do center on “truth in every manifestation,” he says,  These include tough love, accountability, right and wrong, charity, loyalty, long-term thinking, and “trying to correct and interconnect and think team.”

Cuomo calls upon freethinkers to rage against the “binary” political traps in the media. “Start looking at politics through the lens of the rest of your life. Don’t accept that it’s a different reality and different rules.”

There is great wisdom here, pointing toward magical-realism themes which celebrate family and faith, community and cultural authenticity, to refresh the political battleground .

But he fails to acknowledge that our grass-roots advantage has been whittled down. The aspects of life which he rightly salutes are in the process of being politicized themselves. More and more, it seems politics is the only (zero-sum) game in town, played with fear, confusion, and hostility.

We can blame various causes—the two-party structure extending into state and local governments, big-money lobbying and activism, our lopsided class structure, the education establishment, global economics, our lack of strong relationships, and a power-and-greed culture whose intellectuals have replaced God with the “oppressed vs. oppressor” ethic.

There still may be hope. Drawing upon Americans’ spirituality, love for country, freedom, and fairness, and the same cultural strengths that made early magical realists declare the whole truth, we may have a chance to heal our secular politics over time.

However, we can’t assume that masses of people will offer us systemic assistance. Others’ promises to incrementally build a broader common ground of beliefs and experiences are unlikely to bear fruit. Not if Wikipedia, NPR, social media, artificial intelligence, and world leaders are any indicators of collaboration.

The job of refreshing our link-up with reality—its practical and moral mandates, its meaning and hope—is ultimately up to individuals. We can’t use magic tricks, but imaginations attuned to the fantastical and elevated aspects of life will help us to paint a panorama together.

Therefore, in this inquiry to locate magical realism within the 21^st century, we call a second, surprise witness. Unfortunately, he is deceased, but surely our sensibilities can incorporate his memory and message.

The imaginative comic Robin Williams famously mused, “Reality: What a concept!” He may be the very personification of benign magical realism—hardly a clone of Gabriel Garcia Márquez, but a genuine representative of a culture trying to make sense of itself.

His worldview perceived life’s abundant connections, and he expressed them spontaneously, with fervor, in his improv routines and screen roles. He was a maximalist, embracing hefty doses of truth and insight, acclaim and pain. A rare disease ate away at his body and mind, and he took his own life in 2014.

We can draft him as a secular “saint” whose deeper dimensions still offer the encouragement we need. Like Williams, our society teeters between brilliance and suicide. We crave the fullness of truth, but we’re afraid of it.

He made audiences feel happier, and smarter. He exposed us to lots of reality and absurdity, but we also had fun in the otherworldly playground of his brain.

As our assessment of worldviews in the 21^st century concludes, what’s our takeaway from the man who said na-nu na-nu?

In this trippy century, magical realism can play a role in making both non-fiction and fiction richer—so long as it keeps them separate, and so long as we keep control of our inner dreamers.

We must grow in respect for both the prosaic and the profound in our personal stories. Once we balance them properly, we can share them in relationships, helping everyone see and honor truth on a grander scale.

If we surrender reality to artificiality, either tyrannical or trivial, we’re in the conundrum described by Robin Williams as Aladdin’s Genie in the bottle: “Phenomenal cosmic powers … in an itty-bitty living space.”

Images from ClipSafari.com, a collection Creative Commons designs.

This is a preview of the commentary to be published tomorrow in “Phronesis in Pieces” at billschmitt.substack.com. Be sure to check out some of the links below to view videos.

Comedians have a key area of expertise: timing. We enjoy entertainers’ mastery of this crucial aptitude, so worthy of preservation, for a couple of reasons.

First, comics get us to laugh by surprising us with an insight that illuminates something in the here and now. They hop aboard the train of thought we’re currently riding, and then they derail it.

Second, today’s jesters are avid students of the present itself. They draw their material, and construct their relationship with an audience, from what’s happening now in our heads, perhaps details in the news. They make good use of the past and the future insofar as those time frames inform our understanding of this moment.

Top comedians through the decades have bonded with us by elevating our spirits while pointing out our screwball nature and peculiarities in the truth around us. It’s no wonder that humorists keep popping up on current media panels of wisdom and punditry.

Back in the day, Don Rickles insulted his audiences outright, but he was good-natured, and most of his targets felt invited into the game, not victimized. He may not be our favorite in 2024. Nevertheless, we laughed at his jokes, and everyone rose together above the absurdity of division.

Gadflies remind us that our times are not exclusively in our hands, as Psalm 31:15 affirms. We ride our trains of thought with a mix of spontaneity, humility, and readiness for anything, having learned our earthly timelines are replete with uncertain possibilities. Somehow, we’ll get to our destination. Life is like Amtrak.

To the degree that typical comics pelt and puncture reality but still embrace and preserve it, one might say their art is conservative. If they lean toward progressivism, the art may be more difficult.

Consider late-night host Steven Colbert. Wherever the line between his real self and his TV persona has drifted during his career, he and other celebrities now use wit as a tool, and it seems more forced. Jokes “pile on” to make a point, adding more word twists to an already established narrative. The reality they portray holds less surprise.

Partly because humor now is less free-wheeling and fun, it’s possible that America, or at least our popular culture, is losing its sense of timing. We bring our tool belts to the party instead of checking them at the door.

Progressive politics seem particularly disdainful of the present and the past, concentrating on the “cutting edge” of our timelines. There is hope in the future, our opinion-leaders say, but only if we follow certain kinds of scripts.

The future doesn’t exist yet, so our approach to it is filled with abstractions. Our discussions about it must be accompanied by an externally imposed glossary. Comics, commentators, and audiences who lean far left (or toward either endpoint of our political spectrum) prefer terms and motifs they have pre-digested, not the basic facts which flow in on internet tides.

They deem alternative scripts mistaken, requiring revision, even though these stories may contain pungent insights, fuller celebrations of reality, and plain enjoyment. Reducing the number of ideas we can safely react to risks closing not only comedy clubs, but our minds. We find we’re not “in the moment.”

These trends are not new. Back in 2015, Jerry Seinfeld said he had stopped performing on college campuses because political correctness was quashing laughter.

Students “just want to use these words: ‘That’s racist;’ ‘That’s sexist;’ ‘That’s prejudice,’” the comic told Entertainment Weekly. “They don’t know what the hell they’re talking about.”

Senses of humor which have morphed from self-effacing to self-identifying can stifle the imaginations of audiences and presenters alike. Tom Lehrer, a mid-20^th-century favorite of college students who has been called “the most brilliant song satirist ever recorded,” told The Los Angeles Times in 2000 why he retreated from the spotlight after the 1960s.

“I stopped having funny ideas, that’s all,” said the composer of “The Vatican Rag,” “National Brotherhood Week,” and “We Will All Go Together When We Go.” He mused, “What caused that, I have no idea. Times have changed? Senility replaced adolescence? I don’t know.”

Modern (and post-modern) audiences want to be on the “right side of history.” But history does not write the stories of our lives, our families, or our sit-coms. Human beings construct them in a cosmic collaboration, from moment to moment.

It takes time, under conditions of creative freedom, to interpret our rapidly changing world. Without patience, grace-filled fact patterns are reduced to pre-programmed narratives.

By contrast, in a comedy club setting, observers have said the key to good timing rests in the performer’s continuous management of, and responsiveness to, the fans in attendance on any given evening.

Greg Dean, who taught stand-up for four decades, talked about this in a 2017 New York magazine article. “A successful comedian reads what each audience needs and delivers at the right time for that night’s crowd,” the author explained. As Dean put it, “The timing is in the relationship. It’s in the feedback loop.”

Aspiring truth-tellers behind the microphone—comics, expert speakers, advocates, etc.—may be canaries in the coal mine who can spot when Americans’ timing goes awry. They see up-close when audience members try to reschedule (or cancel!) our train trips. Attendees may lack interest and attentiveness, familiar encounters with diverse people and situations, or a comfort level with comments which violate their abstractions.

At worst, audience members will try to fit every “slice of life” tale from our shared stories into an oppressed-vs.-oppressor matrix or a pocket guide to some ideological future. This sort of augmented reality is valuable sometimes, but artificial intelligence cannot “read the room.”

All event participants owe it to themselves and to the presenter to make a special effort for the sharing of experiences. This is not difficult. They merely need to mix three modes: relaxing, receiving, and remembering.

This is true of conservatives and progressives alike. The feedback loop is everyone’s responsibility. Of course, the management of the story-telling process must be handled well by audience-conscious presenters, whether they’re telling jokes, giving a lecture, making a political speech, or offering their opinions in the local or global public square.

Time and timing go together. Perhaps the major revelation from the canaries is that our “common ground” is shrinking. Participants simply may not be bringing the memories and learning, the values and virtues, which can place a whole group into a zone of dialogue and discovery.

Nowadays, given America’s deficits in history and civics education, as well as changed sensibilities and the involvement of at least six age-cohorts, or “generations,” in our population, we can grasp why citizens (and non-citizens) might see each other as strangers in a strange land.

Recall the controversy that erupted last month when Politico journalist Heidi Pryzybyla cautioned on MSNBC that the idea of our rights coming from God, rather than human institutions, signals danger from a growing force she identified as “Christian nationalism.”

She surely knew unalienable rights from our Creator were a central theme in the country’s founding, but she may have downplayed the idea as an abstraction being manipulated, not a transcendent principle with personal significance held dear by numerous audience members.

We need to spend more time being “real” with each other. If we don’t, our respective bubbles of nostalgia or utopianism, floating in asynchronous orbits, will never allow for the in-sync timing—the respectful responsiveness—Americans have shown in the past.

Think of the unity we developed during World War II and the 9-11 terror aftermath. Or the spontaneous passionate outpourings—of pride after the first moon landing, of grief after school-shooting horrors. Or the whopping TV viewership of MASH and Friends finales, not to mention this year’s Super Bowl.

Nowadays, many apolitical situations look like cultural time-warps where different dimensions clash. But instead, they could become teachable moments of comity if better understood with help from historians, theologians, philosophers, other scholars, and, yes, good listeners.

For example, emotions now play an outsized role in public affairs and popular culture. This is bad timing.

We need more people behind microphones reminding us that the complex, urgent nature of today’s most crucial issues requires disciplined cooperation exercising knowledge and wisdom—rather than unrestrained emotions.

Even braver presenters should “get real” about the mental health and social-media crises which have planted atomization, narcissism, and malevolent overreaction which make gatherings more volatile.

Despite regular announcements of big spending and futuristic visions, we lack coordinated, coherent responses to our growing reliance upon the power grid, varied energy resources, cybersecurity and AI, uninterrupted shipments of necessities from overseas, and a sustainable, balanced economy. This is bad timing.

We need to educate and motivate more people to take responsible roles in a wide range of purposeful vocations that answer these challenges. Leaders in our families, communities, houses of worship, and media should call out “quiet quitting” and our dismissal of duties to each other and the common good.

The phenomenon which Dietrich von Hildebrand called the “cult of cognition,” profusely and egotistically generating abstract ideas as solutions to concrete problems, must be replaced by a proactive simplicity—a drive to achieve the priorities of natural law, human dignity, societal stability, and charity. In Transformation in Christ, he cites a metaphysical dictum: “Simplicity is the seal of verity.” Yea, verily, it would set our timing aright.

Why are we injecting politics into all aspects of our lives at a time when our politicians amply demonstrate that games of power and persuasion create alternative, post-truth realities, not actual solutions?

Why are we cultivating additional reliance on government spending at a time when the financial, functional, and moral pillars supporting our founders’ vision of governance are suffering reputational decline?

Why are we replacing religion with science when the Covid pandemic and technological advances show us that science can just as easily be misused or misinterpreted? Science, writ large, is a process for generating ever-better questions, but it would flop on any game show that asks, “Is that your final answer?”

Perhaps we can imagine overly philosophical comics making points like these at the local comedy café. They might not be funny, but they could help find peace in the foibles which inevitably arise on our cognitive Amtrak.

Ultimately, as comic-coach Greg Dean suggests, these matters of timing must be addressed by free-thinking, free-wheeling audiences who ease on down the road, enjoying the feedback loops and sharp curves.

Progressive or conservative, we all should convene for such learning, bringing offerings of interpersonal experience and hard-won humility.

Our beliefs will be crucial to the alchemy of renewal and rebound which takes place when we laugh at our incoherence. The most valuable beliefs will not “cut to the chase” in search of a perfected future. Rather, a vision of solidarity will reward whole lifetimes of patient pilgrimage, stirring trust in a Creator who inspires our steps—and permits missteps.

Popular evangelical pastor T.D. Jakes has urged us to preserve the give-and-take aptitude our best messengers model for us. “Timing is so important!” he says.

“If you are going to be successful in dance, you must be able to respond to rhythm and timing,” according to Jakes. “It’s the same in the Spirit. People who don’t understand God’s timing can become spiritually spastic, trying to make the right things happen at the wrong time. They don’t get His rhythm,  and everyone can tell they are out of step. They birth things prematurely, threatening the very lives of their God-given dreams.”

Comedy club scene from Bing AI, using “Designer” image creator.