Bobby Darin…

Toward the latter part of the 1960's two public figures stood out as lightning rods for social justice in the United States. Both these men, Martin Luther King Jr. and Robert Francis Kennedy were to be murdered within the space of two months. One individual who was a friend of King Jr. and an acquaintance of Kennedy was the popular music idol, Bobby Darin, probably best known for his Grammy Award winning version of the jazz song: "Mack the Knife".

Darin had spent over a decade at the dizzying heights of world music, becoming involved with many of the pitfalls synonymous with rapid wealth and fame. Yet on the evening of Kennedy's funeral, Darin was to later write of what he described as a mystical experience, standing vigil at graveside as midnight arrived. In his words: "Thanks to those hours standing at RFKs grave …The old Bobby Darin is gone for good. There's a new me, a better me, a person who's at peace with himself, and striving for only one thing: to help the world change toward goodness, just as the late Senator Kennedy ardently desired."

The effect this experience had on Darin inspired him to sell his possessions and live the rest of his short life, in simplicity and service to a higher cause; from this point on, he performed, but donated his time and earnings to medical research as well as social causes. Darin had come to a life-changing self-realization by taking a step out of the everyday to ponder his spirit.

Cardinal Newman…

Cardinal Newman

The life of Bobby Darin is a good entry point for us to consider the words of John Henry Cardinal Newman. Newman, the theological forerunner to the Second Vatican Council, challenged his audience with the words: "To live is to change and to be perfect is to change often".

Newman's phrase is based on an assumption that each life is punctuated by a series of events which can either be ignored or considered for what they are, opportunities to grow into the fullness of being. Each new day provides us with fresh possibilities to grow beyond our limits, a fact which Goethe exalted in his famous adage: "Nothing is worth more than this day". For Darin it was the realization of his own selfishness, for Newman it was the painful decision to convert to Catholicism, after he had been one of the Anglican Church's foremost spokespersons.

Newman's recommendation that we be open to change, has more than a tinge of the Buddhist spiritual philosophy that a plant which is alive and fertile is green and flexible, and that which is dead or dying, is hard and brittle. Yet Newman goes a stage further by speaking not only about the need of the individual to grow but the need to re-create oneself, not for the mere sake of change, but for the purpose of developing every spiritual gift within and aligning these all toward God. We read in the Gospel of St. Luke, Christ brilliantly alluding to the need for spiritual growth, by way of an analogy of a simple fig tree:

"A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, 'See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?' He replied, 'Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'" (Luke 13: 6-9, NRSV)

In short, there is the imperative for the Christian to desire fulfilment and nourishment of the spirit; to retain youthfulness of the innermost being, even while the body decays due to time. Newman suggests that to come toward the goal of God, one must be flexible enough so as to make the journey, to be able to grow with God. St. Paul reminds us: "When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways". (1 Corinthian 13: 11, NRSV) The human spirit was not created to be static, it needs to grow; and this development has been set to accompany the growth of all other elements of God's creation, the seen and the unseen. As the Apostle to the Gentiles also notes: "We know that the whole creation has been groaning in labour pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption the redemption of our bodies". (Romans 8: 22, NRSV) For this reason the hymnist, Farjeon, interplays the growth of the human spirit with the bringing to fruition of all of creation when she writes: "Mine is the sunlight, Mine is the morning, Born of the one light, Eden saw play. Praise with elation, Praise every morning, God's recreation, Of the new day".

To be able to recollect and recreate ourselves, to keep ourselves spiritually anew, we need time and space. Christ teaches us that if we do not have the time, we must make it, as a passage from St. Mark's Gospel illustrates: "In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed". (Mark 1: 35, NRSV)

Each of us needs the time to discern, to learn how God speaks to us, to speak the language to God which is aboriginal to our spirits. We have been created to dialogue with God. Yet it is at such moments of recollection when we re-discover our true selves, our true desires and purpose in living. It is these moments which prevent the life-blood within from freezing, and which prevents living from becoming a mere existence.

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©2007 Dr Andrew Thomas Kania

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