I have long been a reader and have learned much from Julia Kristeva, a profound thinker, a philosopher, a literary critic, a poststructuralist, and a feminist in somewhat the French style. It is her work and writing as a psychoanalyst, however, that’s had the most influence on me.

In her book, New Maladies of the Soul, she wrote about a patient of hers, a young boy named Paul. He had struggled with neurological difficulties since birth, and he couldn’t really speak. All he could manage was to repeat vowel sounds, mutter a few consonants. He was, she described him, an “inexpressible child.” Sometimes he would scream and cry, not from anger but frustration. Desperate, Paul’s mother brought him to Kristeva for treatment; maybe she could help, she thought.

And what happened I’ve always thought remarkable. “I decided to communicate with Paul and his mother by using something that was accessible to him—song,” she wrote. She found him through song, basically. She and Paul would begin to improvise little ordinary operas; that is, their conversations they would turn into opera-like dialogue. “Please come here,” (do-re-mi) he would sing. “How are you?” (do-si-la) she would sing. Slowly he gained confidence; he began to articulate through singing; and he began to speak very well. And more, Paul also found himself—his identity, his subjectivity. “The singer became a speaker,” Kristeva wrote. And this—if you know anything else of Kristeva’s thinking is a profound thing for her to say. Basically she’s saying Paul found himself; you see, for Kristeva, fundamentally, we are “speaking beings.”[1] To find one’s voice, to find words and language is to find oneself. Speech therapy is not just speech therapy, Kristeva suggests. It’s human discovery—beautiful, necessary.[2]

“The singer became a speaker.” We are “speaking beings.” That’s the simple lesson—to find the song, to find the speech, to find ourselves. And really, that’s all I want to say to you. This is the deep thing, the deep question that haunts each of us, the search—to find the song, the speech, to find ourselves. That’s what Paul was after, what Julia Kristeva helped that child begin to discover.

And the thing is, this search is primeval. It’ what you and I are looking for too—even if we don’t admit it or are too concussed by the nonsense noise of the world to realize it. We’re wired to look for ourselves like this. These are our “immortal longings,” to quote Shakespeare.[3] Such is the restlessness of all hearts, St. Augustine said.[4] As that troubled poet, Rilke, wrote in the Duino Elegies, “For who, if I cried out, who would ever hear me among the angels and archangels?”[5] We long for the divine or at least the angelic or at least for what’s bigger, more enduring than us, a cause or God. And we feel distant from it, and we long for it. This is true of each of us, no matter the fake front we put up, the mask we wear, or our false, completely see-through social media profile. We desire this thing, this song; desperately we desire it.

But how on earth do we find this song, this voice, ourselves? It’s easier said than done. As St. Augustine said at the beginning of his Confessions—calling out to the unknown, seeking the song, the voice: the chances you’ll make a mistake are high.[6] “Let me run toward this voice,” he said.[7] But what if it’s the wrong voice? So often it is.

In our world generally we see this mistake writ large, in this loud world of rage and hatred—this not-one-sided hatred but this all-sided hatred; if your villains are all too clear to you, be sure that you’re probably a villain yourself. We live in an Orwellian world of competing hatreds where both the simple and sophisticated are hooked like fish into all the many hatreds of the day. Don’t think you’re different here; don’t think you’re better; if you see all hatred as something external to you, be sure that an invisible hatred is likely hollowing you out as we speak, making you into a person you’d rather not be. Most of us these days are like Julia in Orwell’s 1984: “Always yell with the crowd, that’s what I say. It’s the only way to be safe,” she said.[8] Pick your ideology, your grift, your chants, your music; fool yourself into thinking you think for yourself. These are exactly the mistakes we make that make us less than human—hearing the wrong music, learning the wrong language: this is the psychological stuff of “man’s inhumanity to man,” as Dr. King called it.[9] Again, those who don’t think they’re fooled are the very ones fooled. And so, welcome to the world, my sisters, and good luck. And be careful too.

For you and me, though, more particularly, more locally, more socioeconomically: we must be careful how we live in this very pretty world, this wealthy world. You see, the songs we hear, which we falsely play for ourselves are finer, cleaner, more seductive. What explains us more are not the cruder hatreds we see in the less-educated, the less-resourced, what explains us are the drives and quirks of ambition and social survival and domination, those prizes of social status like what Veblen called “invidious distinction,” those anti-virtuous behaviors he called “conspicuous leisure” and “conspicuous consumption.”[10] We sell each other myths of success and uniqueness—especially to our young people—silly dreams that you and only you can do for the world what only you can do, what you want to do, that only you can change the world. But then, of course, you hit 27-years-old, and you realize none of that’s true, and so enters the heart that quiet, cold desperation, the loss of meaning, the realization that you know nothing of meaning at all; and then you turn around and inflict the same lie on your daughters—overscheduling and overachieving their souls out of existence. Because you don’t know anything else to do. Because you know no other music.

Which is why, my sisters, having the privilege to speak to you today—dare I say, to preach to you today—I don’t want to throw you just more forgettable gibberish. I want to speak to you the truth. I want to suggest to you that the most important thing to do at this time in your life (or any time, if any of your parents or friends are lost but listening), the most important is to find the song, to find the speech, to find yourself. Which is really hard to do. But which is possible. Because of what this great sorority, this Ursuline Academy, has given you—a wisdom of Serviam born of a true song. Inscribed in your brains and hearts whether you know it or not, this wisdom is what I beg you to discover and beg you to keep—for yourselves, for the world. Because it matters that you do, that you find it—for yourselves, for us.

And, of course, I’ve not talked too explicitly about it, what this wisdom is. Plainly, because it’s so often shouted down—this wisdom—so often mentally blocked out, so often ruined by its own advocates. But the wisdom I’m talking about, the song that will help you find the words that will help you find yourself: it is Jesus Christ. And suddenly it’s a lover’s song.

And really, I can’t push or pressure you or trick you into hearing or singing this lover’s song. It’s there, it’s sung in the stars—again, Rilke: “How many stars have urged you to become aware of them?”[11] It’s a song sung in the churches; it’s sung among the poor; it’s sung among the quiet, among the vulnerable. It’s only sung among the rich (people like us) when we’ve learned truly what Serviam means. It’s sung in the Scripture, in sacrament. It’s sung in your heart only when you’ve stilled your heart enough to listen.

Which is my warning, what I’m begging you: that you do your most to listen to this true song. And as I said, it’s often hard to hear it, because silence surrounds it, and our world screams. That’s why it’s difficult. Because we don’t pray very much. So, try to listen, for as St. Augustine said, “The Word of God is never silent—though it is not always heard.”[12] So try, so struggle, and don’t give up. For what’s true of the wisdom of God is true of all real love—it’s not an easy thing to find; it’s not cheap at all.

And so finally, my sisters, I leave you with the words of Imani Perry, a beautiful writer and a beautiful soul. She’s a professor of African American Studies at Princeton. Her latest book has moved me so, her travelogue through the American South called South to America. It is very good. She sees this country with the sort of eyes we all should see this country with—with justice and history, but also with empathy and beauty and truth. She’s a woman who knows how to hear the song—a song of truth and reconciliation, of justice and mercy. Now, I don’t know why I’m giving you this book recommendation here at the end of a homily. I don’t know; I just think her words are perfect for smart people like us, people who likely will change the world in some way, for good or for ill. They’re beautiful words, words that have haunted me and made me better. I don’t know; maybe not. Anyway, hear her words and look for the song yourself. She wrote at the beginning of her book, “Acting like you know everything and acting like you don’t know how to be respectful will keep you ignorant. Be humble.”[13] “Be humble.” Serviam. That’s good advice, I think. That’s how you may begin to find the song.

And so, as I said, good luck. You are in my prayers. May we find this song together. May we sing it with St. Angela and the angels, with friends and enemies and all the saints we love, also those saints we didn’t expect, the saints who surprise us, especially them. Maybe even saints like you. If you can hear the song. I hope so. Congratulations. Amen.

[1] Noëlle McAfee, Julia Kristeva, 29

[2] Julia Kristeva, New Maladies of the Soul, 103-112

[3] William Shakespeare, Anthony and Cleopatra V.ii

[4] St. Augustine, Confessions 1.1.1

[5] Rainer Maria Rilke, The Duino Elegies, “The First Elegy”

[6] St. Augustine, Confessions 1.1.1

[7] Ibid., 1.5.5.

[8] George Orwell, 1984, 122

[9] Martin Luther King, Jr., A Knock at Midnight, 174

[10] Thorstein Veblen, The Theory of the Leisure Class, 23, 28-69

[11] Rainer Maria Rilke, The Duino Elegies, “The First Elegy”

[12] Augustine, Sermons for Christmas and Epiphany 1.17

[13] Imani Perry, South to America, 32

© 2022 Rev. Joshua J. Whitfield