On Reverence and Irreverence

“The felicitous union of wonder and irreverence in children’s literature….will give birth

To rhymes that charm and rhymes that tickle”

Juliet Basa, Cebuano Children’s Rhymes: Wonder and Irreverence , p. 278

“Probably this is one of the values of the rhymes, that they reflect the child’s life

As he would like it to be—a time of care, a time of fun,

Of wonder and irreverence, times that unfortunately

Last but a fleeing moment.

Best to enjoy such pleasures while he can.”

Juliet Basa, Cebuano Children’s Rhymes: Wonder and Irreverence , p. 299

I am a reverent person and an irreverent person. They are each part of me and I honor them both. I revel in them. They are part of each of us, though the tendency of social conformity is to try to snuff the irreverent and also the too reverent out of us. Groupthink, The Road to Abilene, trying to “fit in”, or worse, forcing people to fit in, all need irreverence as a counter-balance. Reverence for a God, or a leader, or for nature is one of our highest human aspirations, but without a sense of irreverence to offset and to put it all into perspective, reverence can lead to drinking the kool-aid, true believers, subjugation in the name of what is revered, and all the harmful effects of close-mindedness. The oppressed, as Paulo Freire says, can become the oppressors and we have seen that all over the world.

I love the irreverent and it brings me joy. The offbeat, the ludicrous, the daring all make me feel alive. Make me laugh. Make me human.

I love the reverence and it brings me joy. The ritual, the magnificence, the feeling-tiny-in-a-universe-unknowable, the feeling connected to everything much larger and much smaller than my own humanness all make me feel alive.

Think about it. Poetry and art are vehicles for both reverence and irreverence. How could that be so? How could it not be so?

Reverence and irreverence seem so antithetical to each other, so inimical, so incompatible but they are not. They complement each other in our search as humans for the mystery in life. Each brings life to the other, each opens up the possibility that there is something greater, something more true, something that we can…not…understand completely.

Both reverence and irreverence are on a search for deeper and deeper truth , both are dedicated to asking questions , seeking to understand more of the mystery and the wonder of life and the universe. Irreverence skewers words, phrases, ideas, beliefs, customs, ideologies, traditions which pose as “truth”. Irreverence exposes hypocrisy, those who duplicitously speak one truth but then act another. Irreverence is most directly related to problematizing our unquestioned belief systems. Reverence is a feeling of being in the presence of something bigger than ourselves, that is beyond any belief or ideology that we humans can ever hope to understand. Beliefs and ideologies are based on assumptions about the unknown-beyond but can never fully encapsulate it, even if they are based on personal experience. The feeling of reverence, though often steeped in beliefs, ultimately transcends them because reverence is related to the sacred, to the awe of that which goes beyond our understanding or knowledge, it is a lifelong process of penetrating the mystery which can never be fully understood or experienced. Both reverence and irreverence involve continually seeking a deeper understanding and experience, both involve an ongoing quest, and a questioning, to get closer to the mystery of the universe and the universes beyond our universe.

Irreverence serves its most powerful purpose when used in the service of reverence.

Just as reverence, when short-changed - waylaid, short-circuited - by intractable, unchanging, and unreflected-upon belief systems, can lead to hero-worship or extremism, not all irreverence is generative or positive. Irreverence can be mean-spirited or self-indulgent. Spitting on another person’s icon for the pure spitefulness of it is irreverent and reprehensible. Irreverence can tear down for no positive reason. For these reasons, reverence needs irreverence and irreverence needs reverence in order to manifest their true potential for finding wisdom, touching wonder, and seeking the unfindable.