Trey Gowdy says disgust follows sadness and anger. Disgust—an interesting word. It nails what I couldn’t identify. It leads to aversion, avoidance and dismissal. I’m presently in a severe disgust mode. “Get out of my face!” Refusal to listen, read or watch. “Don’t even talk to me!” “Your presence is corrupting my life—that behavior and speech pattern is toxic to me. Be gone!”

While contemplating Harrison Butker’s Commencement speech at Benedictine College in Kansas, I thought through how I evaluate life with my wife. I want her input into my thinking. I depend upon her special expertise and views.

Butker is a kicker in the NFL. His speech was about relative normal Catholic beliefs at a Catholic school speaking to Roman Catholic students. It included a statement about women responding to the calling of motherhood and homemaker. The backlash disgusted me. I don’t want the women in my tribe to be limited to washing dishes and baking cookies. But neither do I want someone outside my reference point to dictate what my faith and family should treasure.

Fred Grandy, former U. S. Representative from Iowa was getting flak concerning his wife’s opinions. He responded that she had her own mind. “She’s not my FFA project.”

Quote about and from movie star of the 1950s Ava Gardner:

“Ava Gardner undoubtedly lived a full life, but towards the end, she made some statements that indicated that she had some regrets. ‘I’m sorry I spent 25 years making films. I wish now I had the things most important to a woman – a good marriage, children, a better education,’” she said.

Butker was prophetic. “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world…” (Romans 12:2).

One of my friends is studying The Desert Fathers. We talked about who they were, why they are important, and what they believed. Two days later, I opened a book to these words:

“At the end of the third century in the deserts of Egypt, North Africa an extraordinary phenomenon occurred. Christian men and women began to flee the cities and villages to see God in the desert. They discerned how easy it was to lose one’s soul in the entanglements and manipulations found in society, so they pursued God in a radical way by moving to the desert. They became known as the Desert Fathers

“They saw the world:

“…as a shipwreck from which each single individual (person) had to swim for (their) life…These were men who believed that to let oneself drift along, passively accepting the tenets and values of what they knew as society, was purely and simply a disaster…They knew they were helpless to do any good for others as long as they floundered about in the wreckage. But once they got a foothold on solid ground, things were different. Then they had not only the power but even the obligation to pull the whole world to safety after them.” (Thomas Merton—quoted in Daily Office, Peter Scazzero, ©2008, Willow, page 7).

Change depends upon disgust.

Gowdy describes impending disgust in reference to the weaponization of the USA legal system. At some imminent moment—now that our republic has gotten into the banana business—disgust will sweep our land and radical healthy change will begin. The Desert Fathers escaped the environment of disgust. Mr. Scazzero prays “Lord, I need for you to show me how to ‘create a desert’ in my full, active life to be with you.” Escaping, avoiding or hiding is not going to work for many of us, nor should it. Being responsive (walking in the Spirit) to the nudging or shoving to retreat temporarily to our restoration place  is to regain strength and vision for change, repudiation of social, culturally accepted sin and lack of justice.

Godly disgust is the 10^th non-advertised fruit of the Spirit. As such it demands attention and more intense thinking.

©2024 D. Dean Benton