Posted by
ClearCommentary.com on Monday, July 14, 2008 3:07:48 PM
As we wend our way through life we all instinctively look for examples of the right way to behave. We look to moral exemplars whose lives seem informed by a more adroit touch in areas that matter most. Those include the consistent application of principle to our behavior, how we treat our fellow man, grappling with complex moral decisions, issues of God and faith, and, finally, how we deal with our own mortality.
The death of Tony Snow last Saturday provides the opportunity to explore those crucial elements because his was a life worthy of emulation. First, read the commencement address he gave last year at Catholic University, which contains pithy insights into this conundrum called life, and, for a man who was dying of cancer, the kind of faithful resilience that is as commendable as it is rare.
His speech contains many glimpses into the timeless treasure of human thought, its paradoxes, its yearnings, and it parses for those who require it, the uniquely unhelpful way in which culture can vitiate our thinking. Indeed, moral choices, when viewed in the context of our secularized culture, become opaque and vexing, which can lead to dark decisions that might haunt us for years.
Snow's advice takes us back to our childhood observations of the world:
We know in our hearts, intuitively, from our first years as children, that the universe unfolds with a discernible order and that moral laws, far from being convenient social conventions, are firm and unalterable. They predate us, they will survive us.
That's not the romanticized or psychologized gloss on our human condition that provides more comfort than direction that we're used to getting. That segues us to the special human yearning for something greater than ourselves, faith. Quoting St. Paul, Snow tell us:
Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
He moves into the world of love, which is easily the most abused word in our modern world. It's not the stuff of romance novels or adolescent expressions of unconditional devotion, but rather the desire to build, through work and sacrifice, through deeds not words, and to create in the process, the bonds that are at the core of our shared humanity. Whether it's the love between a man and a woman through holy matrimony or the selfless acts of charity for someone in need, it's what takes us away from ourselves and draws us nearer to God.
According to friends and colleagues Snow exemplified all of these virtues, and, remarkably, they shone brightly through the obvious pain and daunting challenges he faced as he fought cancer, which he beat once but which returned, more vicious than ever.
None of us can know whether we would have the conviction and the perseverance to maintain the sunny disposition Snow did, to tell us, as his death approached, that he wouldn't trade the last year for anything, because the love and support he received strengthened his faith in ways he could neve have imagined.
May God bless and keep you Mr. Snow, and may He bless your family.