Although I have wanted to write for a very long time, doing so was a means for my own pleasure, and hope that others could learn and be entertained by my writings. It was not until this week that it occurred to me that I have far greater a responsibility than that. As a social communicator, I play a role in shaping the community at large, or at least having an effect on a portion of it. Every word I write. Every letter. Every number. Every punctuation point. It all has a ripple effect on the people who read it. The neurons firing in my brain causing thought processes, leave me through my writing, and then attach themselves to others (the readers), causing more explosions, contained in their brains... and from those people, they pass it on to the next, and the next, and the next...
Our existence is not in and of itself. Everything we do- and don't do- has a consequence, whether good or bad, or neutral. And because my love is of writing, and writing is rarely kept to oneself, it is inevitable that I will have an effect on other people. I already have- whether I like it or not!
Now when I decide to write that status on facebook, upload a new blog post, or add another sentence to that novel... I must tread carefully. For every word that I write has the opportunity to build up or bring down society. For with everything there is a chain reaction.
I must not write purely for "aesthetic considerations", or even to write in an aesthetically pleasing way. His Holiness, Pope Benedict XVI agrees, "too often, the beauty that is thrust upon us is illusory and deceitful, superficial and blinding, leaving the onlooker dazed; instead of bringing him out of himself and opening him up to horizons of true freedom as it draws him aloft, it imprisons him within himself and further enslaves him, depriving him of hope and joy" (www.zenit.org/article-27632?1=english 2010).
I must write for something more than that- to "make the moral climate of society more wholesome!" To counteract all the immoral social communication out there! And I am not alone in this responsibility. Artists, writers, social communicators, God is calling you to more!
Oh the Catholic Church is so smart!!!
"Artists, writers and all in whose hands are the means of social communication should use their skills in ways that are in keeping with their Christian faith and with a clear awareness of the great power that is theirs to exercise over men. They should bear in mind that 'all must accept the absolute primacy of the objective moral order' and that it is wrong to give priority to what are known as aesthetic considerations, to material advantage or success. Whether it be question of art or literature, entertainment or communication, each person in his or her province must be circumspect, prudent and moderate and must display sound judgement. In this way, far from increasing the growing permissiveness, each will help control it and make the moral climate of society more wholesome" (Vatican Council II- Volume 2, 109 "Declaration of certain problems of sexual ethics").
Having said this, there is nothing wrong with writing beautiful things. Beautiful things can be uplifting and bring about good morals and a wholesome society. Benedict XVI continues that authentic beauty "unlocks the yearning of the human heart, the profound desire to know, to love, to go towards the Other, to reach for the Beyond".
Reaching for the Beyond... I like that... I like that very much!
