Seeking a Middle Way not Middle Mediocrity... of Via Media and Aurea Mediocritas

If one spends long enough in Anglican Circles one comes across the phrase via media, latin for middle way. If one spent long enough in Anglican Prepschool one would also eventually encounter the term aurea mediocritas, latin for golden mean. Th
e first phrase refers to an Anglican trend to strive to live together in the midst adverse diversity. The second comes from the works of the poet Horace, specifically the tenth ode of his second book.

I want to spend some time looking at the second so that we can, I hope, see some dangers in the first. The poem, which I translate here with a bit of license, goes something like this…

                                    You will live with more virtue,
                                    If when setting out to sea,

                                    You neither fear the raging storm,

                                    Nor hit the rocky shoals.

                                   
                                    Embrace the Golden Mean,

                                    And never lie in squalor,

                                    Nor know the softest bed,

                                    Avoid both scorn and envy.

                                    It is the tallest trees,

                                    That shake in the wind,

                                    And make the loudest fall,

                                    When struck by lightning.

                                    A well shielded heart,

                                    Hopes in adversity,

                                    Scorns prosperity,

                                    Knowing the rain

                                    Will fall on rich

                                    And poor alike.

                                    That the stuck

                                    Will get unstuck.

                                    Move amidst

                                    Darkest night

                                    But always stop

                                    Before you risk a fall.

Now on one level Horace is being pretty straightforward. Supposedly he is putting forward a simple moral axiom of good living. It is best to take the safe path, never risk too much and one will never fall that far, that one may never rise too far either is simply prudence. The deal, however, is that if you read enough of Horace’s work one quickly realizes that the more clearly and sweetly he puts forward a moral axiom… the more he thinks it is a load of crock. His embellishments are not to advanced his initial cause but to undermine it. What becomes apparent is that while many might cite the joy of the Golden Mean one quickly realizes that it creates individuals, and a society, that are only capable of a fool’s gold mediocrity.

Exploration and Adventure not Mediocrity and Compromise

So now let us turn to via media. To be clear I am a huge fan of via media. The call for finding balance, wedding the heart and the mind, the need to find the path that all can walk down and name their own, is an amazing ideal for us to strive for. My worry, however, is that we have devolved it from a call to find that difficult path that all must walk with some trepidation in the midst of much hope, and turned it into a call not for a middle way but for a middle mediocrity.

The original via media proposed by Queen Elizabeth was not a nice happy compromise where everyone got a bit of what they wanted and went about their happy contented spiritual lives. It was a political risk where no one got what they wanted but were expected to seek a path where everyone could enter into something greater.

The last thing the Anglican Church needs at this point is a middle mediocrity, is the inability to take risks. When Queen Elizabeth asked the Church of England to remain independent, neither aligned with Catholicism nor Protestantism, she was not avoiding the rocky shoals on one side and the storm on the other. She was taking a ship of fools on a fools journey into uncharted waters. She was risking a near political cataclysm for the dreams of a nation beyond any of their foolish dreams. It was this risk, for a middle way beyond the known mediocrity before them, that is the true heart of via media.

Too often when an amazing idea is put forward it is immediately rejected on account of how it may unsettle a certain party. Too often the request is that the amazing idea gets watered down so that it will not rub any one the wrong way. The request is can be near automatic that we stop a tree from growing before it gets to tall, before we risk getting struck by lightening and in the midst of a horrendous crash. What is cited to prompt this is via media, is the call for compromise and a shoring away of risk. What occurs then is not a middle way but a middle mediocrity.

When this happens it is not via media. The call of via media is a call to wed diverse parties so that both can advance and grow to their fullest by relationship with each other, not to stem the growth of both so that neither can properly grow. It is not a request to allow everyone to be happy with where they are now, it is a call for everyone to engage each other for the sake of growth and understanding, even when understanding simply means being able to disagree better not agreement or compromise. So move forward into via media, call forth via media, but never make via media into aurea mediocritas.