a quest for mastery

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Yesterday, because he knew I was interested in the Vatican's sexual depredations, my friend Frank sent along a three-month old piece by former New York City mayor Ed Koch about child molestations within the ultra-orthodox Jewish community. I read it and then wrote back that I marveled at the similarities in reaction by both Catholic and Jewish hierarchies. Maybe, I suggested, all tightly-shuttered communities were destined to this sort of corruption. It was just a speculation.

Frank replied reasonably that "Members of these communities need to be informed of the downside of their approach. Not that the perpetrators will be convinced."

Quakers, perhaps borrowing from Mohammed, are sometimes credited with saying, "speak truth to power" and surely that encouragement is both patient and courageous. But too, power is so wonderfully addictive and high-powered intentions are so enthralling that what is truth to one man is a scurrilous and unfounded attack to another. The hallucination of the hallucinator is as powerful and convincing as reality is to the realist.

And so sweet reason has its limits and sometimes nothing will do but a slap upside of the head.

Institutionally, lawsuits, jail time and fines may provide a wake-up call. The Vatican, for example, despite its endlessly deep pockets, is being credibly nibbled to death with $500,000 or $1 million judgments and occasional jail time for its priests and prelates.

But is the conundrum of institutions much different from quite personal aspirations? On the one hand, if you want to do something well, you have to set aside other considerations and put pedal to the metal with focus and effort. On the other hand, there really are all those other things that have been set aside.

I once went to estimate a painting job for a sinewy and impossibly thin young woman in New York. I forget what the job was -- perhaps a living room, perhaps a bedroom, perhaps the whole apartment. I came prepared to estimate the job as I had estimated others in the past. But as we sat in her living room, she seemed unable to restrain herself and got off on her very disciplined lifestyle as a ballet wannabe. It seemed that she simply could not deflect her course to any other focal point ... as for example, painting her apartment.

Who has not, in one way or another, been hip-deep in that Big Muddy? The shining heights beckon and all else is garnish around the roast beef. Everything -- positively everything -- has no force or relevance outside the laser beam of effort.

For any serious person, I don't see much of an alternative. If you want to do something well -- do it completely -- there is a time of damn-the-torpedoes-and-full-steam-ahead effort ... narrowed, confined, focused. A much-touted 'balance' or 'perspective' can take a hike when mastery is in the gun sights. And so long as it does not harm others ... well, go ahead. Get a snootful!

Yesterday, a presentable middle-aged woman with a tie-and-jacketed teenager in tow knocked on the front door. I was in the middle of doing something, could see that a Christian sales pitch was in the offing, and was not really in the mood. I was pleasant enough, but before she could get going, I said plainly that I could never understand why such door-knockers as herself lacked the courtesy to call beforehand. "It's discourteous," I said. "Well, we try to cover a whole neighborhood and the phone numbers are not always available," she parried. "But that's part of your job -- to do the work," I said. And as she left, I could not help thinking, "If you can't handle the small stuff, why should I credit that you can handle anything more significant?"

Who has not been blinded by their own shining stars?

And who, thank goodness, has not been slapped upside of the head by one or more of the things that has been set aside in the quest for mastery?
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