This past Sunday I played baseball. And it was glorious.
It was a perfect fall evening as the sun fell behind the picturesque Kansas hills. The men played a game of baseball while our wives chatted on the sidelines. Meanwhile our many many children ran amuck getting into all manner of mischief.
Reflecting on why this felt so glorious, I have found three reasons: The event was Biblical, Catholic and American.
First it was literally Biblical. Man’s social nature was on full display as we proclaimed that “it is not good for man to be alone”. Genesis 2:18. Flowing out of that, it affirmed that “male and female he created them” Genesis 1:27, as the masculine urge toward friendly competition sat alongside the joyful companionship of the feminine. And the command to “be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth” Genesis 1:28 was on full display as the pervasive presence of children stood athwart the hyper-contraceptive ethos of modernity.
Second, it was also Catholic. The Second Vatican Council defines the common good as “the sum of those conditions of social life which allow social groups and their individual members relatively thorough and ready access to their own fulfillment”. Gaudium et Spes, 26. This is not a utilitarian calculus, but rather the whole of society seeking their fulfillment together. That fulfillment, meanwhile, is meant to be a reflection of God and God’s plan for us. Further, this reflection takes a particular form. St. John XXIII exhorts that this reflection is best achieved through “numerous intermediary bodies and corporate enterprises…for these groups must themselves necessarily present the form and substance of a true community.” Mater et Magistra, 65. Thus we find an understanding of the common good wherein local associations and social networks reflect the divine life.[1]
This describes Atchison. In recent years, the Catholic community in Atchison, Kansas has grown considerably. The influx of families to town has given rise to a rich social life of friendships and institutions lauded by others as “little boats”. These little boats have become the foundation of a way of life which stands in contradiction to our present crisis of individualism and isolation. And this is an expression of a concept which has featured prominently in the church’s engagement with modernity; the common good.
Atchison is a project in this understanding of the common good. The little boats which comprise city life reflect the local associations of catholic social teaching. And this past Sunday we experienced this understanding of the common good as what seemed to be a simple get together reflected back to us, silently, several truths about human nature.
John Falter painting of baseball in Atchison, Kansas.
Third, it was American. In many ways the genius of the great American game itself reflects the Christian understanding of man; a creature who affirms the goodness of his body while subjecting it to the rational laws of the game, and of his soul. In short, St. Augustine would have loved baseball.
This reflection is what makes our game, and our city, an expression of the common good. What we have here is a condition of social life wherein we seek God together and which reflects God back at us. It affirms the idea that we are not just a collection of atoms floating around in proximity. The community of Atchison is a true community, with a purpose, and that purpose is to climb the mountain toward God. Baseball games, whiskey Wednesdays, ladies coffee, and other “little boats” are the social institutions which present the form and substance of this true community. Thereby expressing the common good.
In our age of technological expressive individualism, defined by increasing polarization and depersonalization, Atchison serves as an example set apart. Perhaps your town should follow suit?
[1] To be sure, the common good has other expressions and requires legal and economic structures. However, those structures should act at the service of the local associations and social networks.
