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The Index of Self-Destructive Acts is a book from 2020 by Christopher Beha that a friend recommended, and I enjoyed it, if that be the right phrase; at least, I was glad to have read it. The title implies that things do not go well for at least some of its principal characters, but more impressive is how badly things go for all of them largely because of, yes, their own actions.
The title is explained in the book as being something like a statistic in baseball, a way of keeping track of a range of actions like a balk by a pitcher, because, of course, baseball has a statistic for everything. But it is the title that came to my mind now not in the context of baseball, but in our daily lives especially in these days we now inhabit and endure.
This is a particularly sinister season in our society when so much that is common and good frays, unravels, or is dynamited by individuals and groups with goals that are neither. At home and abroad, we see the folly or even malice of the presumption that of its own, society can and will be civil.
Look abroad, look at home, look around and you will see plenty of evil afoot and ascendant. Unfortunately, that is the easy part – to see evil in other people’s actions, and in other places. The hard part, but necessary, is to look for where it has taken up residence in our own lives and actions.
If politics or persons distress us, the first order of business is not to change them but rather to evaluate ourselves, our own actions, and our own words. Our principal contribution to the health and success of our society is our own personal fidelity to truth and goodness, and our own labor for one another’s good.
The work of charity in thought and word is enough to keep us busy day and night, within our families and our neighborhoods. To encourage one another and build one another up (1 Thes 5:11), as Saint Paul admonishes the early members of Christ’s body the Church, is not only an idiosyncrasy among Christians, but also the task of Christians in a society and a world not ordered according to the knowledge and love of God. That’s right, it is a task, it is work: the work, and our work.
If we put ourselves to this work, it will take our time and effort, and we will not have room in our day to accuse, detract, or defame people. Yes, all that tearing-down of one another takes time and vital energy from us. Time we spend reading or listening to the latest offense or outrage, time we willingly spend laying blame everywhere but on ourselves, costs us and everyone who loves us.
Much of our misery, and the misery that we observe in the people around us, is the result of our own actions and words. Any and every sin in reality is a self-destructive act, a path chosen by the self for the purposes and goals of the self that are disorded, and result in the harm of that same self. Almost but not all self-destructive acts cause harm to others as well. We can avoid them if we believe the word of the One Who Loves Us, who points us in direction of building one another up because it will build up a society that will resist evil and defend what is good.
Do you want this year to go well for our parish, our school, our county and our country? Encourage one another and build one another up, and avoid every other use of your time and effort as if it were inscribed on The Index of Self-Destructive Acts.
