Exorcising the demon of claptrap

It's not often that one discovers what one's demons are actually named - and yes, they do have names, as the Bible itself attests.

My particular demon seems to be named "claptrap", and the two definitions that Dictionary.com provides are as follows:

1.

pretentious but insincere or empty language:

His speeches seem erudite but analysis reveals them to be mere claptrap.

2.

any artifice or expedient for winning applause or impressing the public.

The Google dictionary is far more blunt:

absurd or nonsensical talk or ideas.

Indeed, "nonsense" or "bunk" are common synonyms.

So, what to make of these in my own case?

Well, upon analysis it would appear that the two-point definition from Dictionary.com hits the mark - if both are taken together. My language tends to be pretentious but insincere or empty because it's typically merely an artifice or expedient for winning applause or impressing the public.

It is precisely because I care so much about looking good in front of others - i.e. admired for my superior knowledge and intellect - that even my accurate (or at least mostly accurate) statements carry little if any real substance.

In the first place, I tend to overly concern myself with topics - like nuclear superpower politics - which generate a good buzz and commotion, yet which ultimately matter little to the everyday life of your average Joe or Jane.

And when I do so, both the topic itself and the way I present it is for the express purpose of making myself seem to be obviously so much on top of matters which, even were it true that I were indeed on top of them (i.e. their outcome), wouldn't really be relevant in most cases anyway, either to my own life or to my audience's. The bottom line being that I puff up things for the sake of appearing important to have a grasp of them - and further beyond that puff up my grasp of them as well.

The only antidote to this is to stick to the time-honored adage: "Knowledge puffs up; love builds."

The world has always preferred knowledge to love - that is, God's unconditional love or agape - because the former is a lot flashier and showier about purporting to have the answers to the most vexing questions of human existence. On an individual level, we as creatures in God's all-knowing image are also naturally wired to have the answers right at our fingertips - it gives us a sense of power and control that we feel entitled to (or at least entitled to wholeheartedly seek) as bearers of a divine or quasi-divine imprint. Mostly though, it boils down to one thing in the end: impatience. And funnily enough, this itself is precisely what betrays just how pitifully limited we really are - no matter how hard or instinctively we try to pretend otherwise.

For it is only the unfathomable scope of eternity - the exclusive domain of God Himself which He has imparted to us in a relative and contingent manner - that can finally and ultimately disclose the full breadth and depth of Knowledge. Until that endpoint both in the history of the universe and also individually in our own lives, what we know must remain a mere minuscule shadow of what we are eventually meant to know.

This is why it is so essential in this brief earthly life to simply store what knowledge we gain from partaking of the Love that is the Most Blessed Trinity within our hearts - as the Virgin Mary so astutely did in her earthly pilgrimage with her Son. Rather than show it off or trumpet it before the world to demonstrate our own importance, it should be quietly employed to serve our neighbor and humanity at large without being uncovered to them - or even, to be honest, to ourselves (that is, once we've stored them away in the recesses of our soul, provided we attain the grace to do so even if it takes a while).

After all, for us creatures, it is revealed love that is the source of true knowledge, not the other way around. Only for God Himself are Love and Knowledge in perfect unity - for only He is God. This infinite Love that is the triune Godhead is an inexhaustible fount of treasures that we must always behold with such an awe that flushes away what little wisdom we do have of our own accord (even God-given as it may be) as an ocean wave does a few specks of sand; it is only in this genuine apprehension of God as being God alone - with no rival even worth giving a fleeting thought - that we become authentic bearers of His all-knowing image. For the creature, to know the Creator as the Creator indeed is the only final sum of all goodness, beauty, and truth.

And apart from rendering this service to our fellow man - pointing them not to the knowledge we have gained but rather to the Source of it, so that they can discover it for themselves in their own unique way - what else is there to do on this earth?

Holy Mary, Mother of God - you who alone among mortals were found worthy to receive the Divine Wisdom and Essence in its pure fullness, thus making you the bearer of Wisdom Himself - pray for us sinners, now and at the our of our death, that we may like yourself subject our indescribably minute knowledge of the Trinity to the Love that is the Trinity.