Reality and reality shows

TV, at the moment, is teeming with what are known as reality shows. We have to know more about this phenomenon, the better for us to appreciate them and to be forewarned about their possible adverse side-effects.

I suppose that by now we all know that products come to us with both good and bad effects. The reality shows are no exception. In fact, they are the typical modern products that carry this trait of the double-effect.

So we have to learn to be very discerning. And that means we have to upgrade our discerning capabilities, such that while we widen our perspectives and try to be open and tolerant to different things, we should also be clear about what is right and wrong, what is good and bad.

Otherwise, we would slide into what is known as relativism, a worldview that removes the absolute and universal guiding elements in life, and then to confusion and anarchy.

This is how the Wikipedia describes reality shows: they ‘present purportedly unscripted dramatic or humorous situations, document actual events, and usually feature ordinary people instead of professional actors, sometimes in a contest or other situation where a prize is awarded.

“They cover a wide range of programming formats, from game or quiz shows which resemble the frantic, often demeaning shows, to projects focusing on surveillance or voyeurism.

"They portray a modified form of reality, utilizing sensationalism to attract viewers and so generate advertising profits. Participants are often placed in exotic locations or abnormal situations, and are sometimes coached to act in some way by off-screen directors to create an illusion of reality.”

Obviously, these shows are a phase in the ongoing search on the part of the media for novelty and creativity as well as profitability and survival. In themselves, they are not bad. In fact, they are good. Except that certain elements can spoil them.

This is where we have to be most careful about. We have to find ways of how to effectively regulate the terrain of novelty and creativity without compromising their objective values. It’s a very tricky terrain that reflects the complexity of how our sense of freedom, rights and arts is understood, developed and lived.

Hopefully the enormous challenge would awaken in those involved the idea that they need a deeper motive and a clearer sense of purpose in undertaking these projects. They simply have to go beyond the profit motive and to be unduly dominated by the ratings mentality.

This means that they just cannot remain in the level of gimmickry and of adolescent antics. Their shows should contribute to a better understanding of reality, of humanity, of religion and of God, since in the end reality can not be reality unless God is acknowledged to be always in the middle of it.

This is certainly a tall order. But unless we realize this, I believe that these reality shows won’t go far, won’t fly high. They can likely attract some attention and patronage, but these will not last.

Worse, they for sure will inflict some hidden damage on people and spread sweet poison around, for without God, all we are capable of doing is only evil. “Unless the Lord builds the house, they labor in vain that build it. Unless the Lord keeps the city, he watches in vain that keeps it.” (Ps 127,1)

Of course, this doctrine of our Christian faith now needs to be spread and accepted more widely. At the moment, we are faced with a world culture that is increasingly secularized, where God is ignored, avoided and even ridiculed. Let’s hope this truth is given more airing not only in the churches but also in the media.

This whole issue of reality and reality shows should surface the need for everyone to be concerned about how to keep ourselves in reality. We need to realize that reality is not just a passive phenomenon, totally given to us.

It is something that, given our nature, needs to be received, understood and lived properly. In our case as men and as persons, reality has both objective and subjective dimensions that need to be integrated properly by us in accordance to an objective law that comes from God, the creator.

Our problem nowadays is when we start thinking that reality is simply what we make out of it, completely subjective and dependent on changing and relative factors like culture and socio-economic and political conditions.

The problem we have is when we start thinking reality has no absolute, universal and permanent foundation.

Maria Kenosis

SOME years ago, I met a young fellow, newly married and, in fact, a brand new father with a newly born daughter. He was what was at that time called a yuppie, but still with a strong connection with his parish. I asked him what the name of his little girl was, and he surprised me when he said he named her Maria Kenosis.

So I asked him whether he knew the meaning of Kenosis and where in the world did he get that name. He smiled and simply said that, yes, he knew the meaning and that his parish priest suggested it to him.

He proceeded to say that Kenosis is Greek for ¨emptying,¨ and that the word appears in one of the letters of St. Paul. He liked it because it reminded him of his need for constant self-emptying as he moved on with his life.

I was dumbfounded to realize that I could meet a young and promising man still with that kind of culture. I thought that persons like this one were long extinct. I was happily mistaken, and I immediately prayed that more men be like him, and that the Christian culture can really have another springtime in today´s world. Hard, yes, but not an impossible dream.

That yuppie was referring to a passage from the Letter of St. Paul to the Philippians which says: ¨Have this mind among yourselves, which was in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.

¨And being found in human form he humbled himself and became obedient unto death, even death on a cross.¨ (2,5-8)

This advice of St. Paul continues to be relevant today, and in fact, even more so today, what with all the things that strongly and ceaselessly take us away from having the ¨mind of Christ Jesus.¨

We can be so full of ourselves, helplessly cocooned in our own world, completely at the mercy of our social, economic, political and other human conditionings, that we practically cut ourselves off from God, and then from others.

That would be an anomalous situation since our life cannot be but a life with God, a shared life, since we have been made in the image and likeness of God, and with his grace, made children of his. We are also meant to live our life with the others, loving and serving them.

This is a fundamental truth about ourselves that we should never forget nor set aside from time to time. We have to live this truth always, even and especially so when we are deeply immersed in our human and earthly affairs. Otherwise, we would be fatally handicapped from the start. We would set out on our earthly journey without the guiding star.

We can never exaggerate this need for our self-emptying, our humbling ourselves constantly. That is the only way to proceed properly, to keep us vitally connected with God, to dispose ourselves to see and judge things objectively, and to progress in our spiritual as well as in the all the other aspects of our life, including our physical and social life.

This is the only way to clearly see and discern the will of God in every moment and to act on it promptly, at God´s pace, keeping us in step with his Providence. Otherwise, we would be cruising on our own, relying only on our own lights, which at the beginning may give us some help, but definitely not enough for us to reach our final destination.

We have to welcome every opportunity to be humble, and in fact, to look for ways to grow in humility. Let´s remember that cancer is not the number one killer. It is pride that kills us not only physically, but also spiritually. And it stalks on us endlessly, and attacks us the most subtle and treacherous of ways.

Humility melts away any emerging tendency to be rigid in our ways and to get so attached to persons and things, if not to our own selves, that we practically cut ourselves off from others. It helps us to be flexible, ever adapting ourselves to different persons, events and situations.

When we get stuck in some dead-end in our life of prayer, faith and ascetical struggle, the sure formula to keep on moving is to empty ourselves.

Life as an offering

Yes, our life ought to be spent as an offering. It has to be lived as a gift, because it is first of all a gift also from God to us. This is a fundamental attitude to develop toward our life, because absent that, we would have a gravely handicapped understanding of life, prone to all sorts of anomalies.

Our life, of course, can be described in many, endless ways. It's a shared life with God. It's a life in the Spirit, a life of grace. It's a participation in the intimate trinitarian life of God. But we have to remember that we have been created in love and for love, and that love should be the basic governing principle of our life.

In other words, our life has to mirror the life of God himself, whose image and likeness we are. Since God is love, is self-giving, then we too have to live in love and in self-giving.

That means giving ourselves to God and to others. That's what an offering is, what a gift is. It has to be given away freely, because as our Christian faith tells us, it's when we give that we receive, when we lose that we win, when we suffer that we gain in glory.

It's a mysterious law, spiritual and supernatural, that goes way beyond our natural understanding of things, or our common sense. But that's how it is. We need to live by that law, because outside of it, we expose ourselves to danger, to harm and to our own destruction.

In fact, given the temper of the times when we are almost systematically subjected to pressures and challenges, to moments of thrill and sadness, we need to have a very clear grasp of this basic law, otherwise we would just be lost.

We need to do everything to realize this truth, and to keep it vibrating in us individually, personally, and then socially and culturally. It's undeniable that many of us are still ignorant of this law. Many of us are chasing the wrong things in life, thinking that these are what would give us true joy, peace and fulfillment.

Crucial in attaining this ideal is the education of our emotions and passions or our whole world of affectivity, which is a very complex one, because if not properly trained, it usually gets us disorbited from this law of loving, of offering, of self-giving. It has the uncanny tendency to get lost in its highs and lows.

Being an integral part of our nature, our emotions and passions are important to us. We have to disabuse ourselves from the idea, common especially in the past among the Stoics and even now among the Buddhists, that our proper development would consist in the suppression of our feelings and desires.

But they have to be properly formed. And the ultimately criterion to assess their usefulness is when they conform and reinforce our dignity as persons made in the image and likeness of God, and as children of God.

This means that we have to train our feelings and emotions to behave according to the dynamics of love, of an offering, of a gift, of self-giving. We need to ground them to a deeper foundation and orient them to a higher goal, since they they tend to remain in the here and now and in the superficial and narrow view of things.

This means that, first of all, we have to understand that they need to be educated. They just cannot be left on their own, to act spontaneously according to the law of the flesh and ignoring the law of the spirit and the supernatural dimension of our life.

This means that we have to be on guard against the many elements and factors, social and cultural, that tend to desensitize us from this need. More than that, we need to be pro-active in deliberately cultivating our affective powers according to this law of real love.

So, everyday, and many times during the day, we need to renew our acts of offering, our acts of love, since many are the things that can deviate us from the road proper to us. Let's see to it that before we start our work, our plans, our projects, etc., we offer it to God and to others.

Then while doing it and even after doing it, we should renew these acts of offering and love many times. This way we effectively avoid being held captive by the selfish and narrow-minded tendencies of our feelings.