Hidden Life

Bernie Madoff definitely makes the top ten list of most amazing secret lives: not only did he fool the S.E.C. and some of the smartest, richest people in the world, but it turns out he (apparently) pulled the wool over the eyes of his own wife, who worked with him daily and with whom he is extremely close.

In a league with him is the anthrax killer, possibly Dr. Bruce Ivins, who killed himself this past summer. He was a high ranking governmental scientist who apparently had another life as a killer. He had been diagnosed as a psychopath and had an obsession with sororities. The FBI has not been able to prove his guilt and many close to him adamantly insist that he was incapable of the deed. Definitely a top ten double life!

Perhaps the greatest double-lifer our time is FBI agent Robert Hanssen who is alleged to have harmed our national security more than any other spy. “Diabolically brilliant,” he was a “solid family man,” daily communicant, and Opus Dei participant as he was a high ranking intelligence officer and a spy and a sexual pervert who became very close to a prostitute with whom he refused to sleep because he was trying to convert her. Now that is not a double life, but more like a quadruple life! In addition to the excitement and glamour of being a “turned spy,” Hanssen had all the ingredients of a compartmentalized life: financial irregularities, disordered sexual proclivities, and a staunch religious life.

My own favorite spy is our own Uncle Billy, a thoroughly charming and intelligent WWII veteran who we now know worked covertly for US Army intelligence in South America throughout the postwar period. This was revealed only after his death when his paperwork was being processed. He never told any family member: his wife, daughter or sisters. Both sisters asked him directly, just prior to his death, if he had worked for the CIA; he merely smiled and raised his beer glass in toast fashion. I spent time with him and we became close before he passed and I was dying to know the truth but intuitively knew that he would tell me if he wanted to and that I could not ask.

The first rule about fight club is…

The masculine mind, which compartmentalizes so easily, is especially drawn to a secret life; the feminine brain, hardwired with greater connectivity, is more inclined to integration and synthesis than to separation and distinction. Instinctively, than, the male understands the dichotomizing of spheres of life: business, family, recreation, and religion.

The addict, of whatever flavor, is compelled to camouflage his acting out by creation of a double life that involves endless deception. The compulsive thus moves seamlessly from one life to another, skillfully covering his tracks at every move. Intensely religious people seem more prone to this dichotomy since they have developed a devotional life intolerant of the darker compulsions. Even beyond the pleasure and release of the chemical or behavioral high, however, there is clearly a thrill to this game of hide, deceive, and elude. The challenge of staying one step ahead seems to release a hormonal rush of excitement and energy.

This taps into a most primal impulse to “hide and seek.” Already, the infant is delighted by playing “where’s the baby” as she hides her face and then reveals it. “Hide and seek” becomes more complicated as the toddler and small child is able to actually hide behind furniture and await with excitement the climax of being found. I recall in elementary school the thrill of taunting older boys and then running away with an exhilarating charge of fright and excitement.

And so there is a game-like quality to the double life: Bernie Madoff seems relieved and composed now that his Ponzi game has concluded; Dr. Ivins may have penned his suicide note, in which he denied being the anthrax killer, in a mood of devious delectation; and agent Hanssen, now in solitary confinement, may console himself with euphoric recall of his brilliant deceptions and sexual irregularities.

But the hidden life is not always a devious and diabolical one. We know that anything evil is actually a counterfeit version of an authentic and real reality. And so we see that hiddenness is a constituent of the good, the true, the holy, and the beautiful life.

The 12-step program of AA, addiction antidote, is itself anonymous in the genuine and healthy manner of confidential, private, and humble. Protected by a seal of privacy, the participant is free to reveal the previously hidden and shameful in an environment of honesty, vulnerability, contrition and healing. His involvement is generally partitioned off from his public and social persona and exercises a quiet, covert and salutary influence on the latter.

Let us consider the many hidden dimensions of the life of Jesus himself. We refer to most of his years as his “hidden life” and we know nothing about them except that in his youth he was subject to Mary and Joseph and that he grew in age and grace and wisdom. So the incarnate life of the Son is mostly private, anonymous and hidden from us. In his public life we find the enigmatic “messianic secret” which refers to the many passages in which he directs demons or those he has healed to shield his messianic actions and identity. I have not yet heard a satisfactory theological explanation of the motivation for this secrecy that remains tantalizingly illusive and mysterious. The heart and soul of the life of Jesus, is, of course, his intimacy with his Father. About this, we are given the slightest possible glimpse: his nights alone in prayer.

The Gospel leaves us with a sense that ours is a partial vision of the Mystery of Christ: like seeing the tip of an iceberg and knowing there is so much there beyond our vision. And is this not the phenomenological structure of all personal knowledge, relating and love: something is revealed but much more is withheld so there is elicited a profound longing for greater revelation, participation and communion?

The lives of the saints all reflect this. Who would have guessed that beneath Mother Theresa’s radiant smile and preternatural energy was a secretive, limitless, enduring suffering? Who would have recognized the mysticism of the simple, unimpressive Sister Faustina? Who but Father Balthasar could have validated the extraordinary supernatural encounters of the doctor, widow, convert Adrienne von Speyr? In the aftermath of valid apparitions, the impulse of genuine visionaries is to hide themselves in the manner of St. Bernadette and Lucia of Fatima.

The spirituality of hiddenness seems especially pertinent for our times. Charles de Foucauld buried himself in the Sahara desert with the desire to draw close to the Eucharist and serve Christ in humble, hidden ways. In like manner, Kiko Arguello buried himself with the Gypsies where he eventually received the charism of the Neocatecumenal Way. Our ecclesial movements tend towards the discreet and anonymous in contrast to the explicit, overt style of traditional consecrated life. Secular institutes generally involve consecration to Christ in poverty, chastity and obedience in a lifestyle within the world that is overtly normal and unpretentious. Their witness to Christ is gentle, often inarticulate, and hidden. This wholesome and holy anonymity as humility is intrinsic to the style of Opus Dei as well as communities in Communion and Liberation.

The holy life of a genuine Christian is mostly hidden: “humility, simplicity and praise” is the way Kiko describes the hidden life of the Holy Family. Jesus instructed us to not let our left hand know what our right hand is doing. So, the goodness of a Christian must even be hidden from himself.

Amazing! Everyone we encounter today has a hidden life, maybe many hidden lives. Some of them involve fellowship with Satan; others draw from communion with God.

In the name of Jesus, be gone Satan!

Come Holy Spirit, so gentle, peaceful, hidden!