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WEST EXPLAINS GOD, SEX AND MEANING OF LIFE

 Imagine comedian Jim Carrey helping Pope John Paul II explain his Theology of the Body.

At a November 8 talk at the Naval Academy in Annapolis, author and speaker Christopher West said that the Jim Carrey movie, “The Truman Show,” does just that.

“‘The Truman Show’ is all about the dilemma of seeking and finding the truth,” West declared in an upbeat talk that often had his audience of 400 midshipmen and civilians roaring with laughter.

Carrey plays Truman Burbank who, raised in a movie studio in which everyone is an actor except him, begins to suspect that he is living in a false world.

“But whenever he starts to question the world, he gets numbed either by beer or sex,” said West.

Christof, the character who keeps Truman duped, eventually is defeated when Truman overcomes his fear of the unknown, and in an effort to seek the truth, sails on a ship, the Santa Maria, to the end of the movie studio.

“The movie ends with Truman opening the door and walking through” to the real world and the truth, said West.

West sees the names in “The Truman Show” as replete with symbolism:  Christof, or Christ-off, personifies the forces in a godless world designed to lead us away from the truth.

The Santa Maria symbolizes Mary, “because she leads us to the Truth.”  And Truman is, of course, True Man.

“All of us have these big questions about God, sex and the meaning of life,” said West.  And all of us are looking for love – often, as the song goes, “in all the wrong places.”

“Sometimes we are so hungry for love, we’ll eat out of a dumpster,” he said.

Like Truman, we are raised in a culture that bombards us with the propaganda that the counterfeit is the real thing.

The propaganda is so convincing that we believe the dumpster is what we’re looking for and the banquet is unappealing.

“But you can only eat out of a dumpster for so long,” West warned.

“The culture, which sells you dumpster love, has to market all kinds of numbing agents to keep you from realizing the pain you’re in:  booze, drugs, sex, TV, even just plain noise.

“I want to share with you the Church’s vision of sex which, viewing it from the dumpster, you can’t figure out.  If you have the courage to open the door and walk through, the Catholic vision of sex is far more glorious than Howard Stern could dream up in a million years.”

Sex, in the Catholic view, is not only biological, it’s theological.

Pope John Paul II, between 1979 and 1984, delivered 129 talks on the Theology of the Body.

“Theology” means the study of God – “but how could our bodies be a study of God?” West asked.

“If you look at a masterpiece of an artist, you’re going to learn a lot about the artist.  What is the crown of creation?  We are!”

God created us male and female and made us fertile, West pointed out.

“As Christians, we believe this is the loving design of a loving God, who wants to reveal something about Himself.”

Not only are we made in the image and likeness of God, we also image God through the union of man and woman and the blessing of fertility, John Paul II said.

It is through the marriage of man and woman, which in the ordinary course of things produces a child from that love, that man images God, who is an eternal exchange of love between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.

“Why are our bodies theological?  Because they’re meant to point us to God.  The union of man and woman is the image the Bible uses more than any other to point us to God,” said West.

Throughout the New Testament, the image of Christ and the Church is that of a bride and bridegroom.  The Book of Revelation reveals heaven as the marriage of Christ and His bride, the Church.

“God made us sexual to foreshadow heaven,” West maintained.

But watch out for a counterfeit version of the story, he said.

“So often, what we call love is really mutual using and mutual exploitation of each other.

“All the sexual confusion around us is the human desire for heaven gone berserk.  I’m here to say, don’t be afraid to go out into the ocean and see a whole new way of seeing things.

“What is love?  Jesus says, ‘I’m the love you’re looking for.’”

The meaning of sex is to love as God loves, he concluded.

“I’ve tried to present to you the difference between the dumpster and a banquet.  Which do you want?  It’s your choice.  I have a suggestion:  choose the banquet.”

If we do, said West, maybe some day we’ll be singing with Mick Jagger up in heaven, “I have found my – satisfaction.”

Christopher West’s talk was sponsored by Generation Life and the Catholic Midshipmen Club.

West has helped make John Paul II’s scholarly Theology of the Body understandable and appealing to many through writings, lectures, videos and CDs.  

His books include:  Theology of the Body for Beginners, Theology of the Body Explained, and Good News about Sex and Marriage.

For more information on West  see www.christopherwest.com.