Let's Go Take a Hike
All is patient in the woods. The spider waits by her web, "let the prey come to me" she says. Tiny red wildflowers wait with patient regard for bees to visit. Oaks of huge circumferences stand stolidly, more permanent than houses. Leaves under the canopy stand at horizontal attention, table-top straight to receive every bit of sun that leaks down. Metallic beetles, florescently green, flit about like little green goblins, or hotrodders showing off their new paint job.
June 10, 2002
"How much misery is escaped by frequent and violent agitation of the body” – 18th century pro-exercise tract (the first?)
I'd like to live the "dumb life" for a week & avoid reading, writing, thought in general, & the 'data-smog' and live the body-life instead: hiking, gardening, biking, tipping a pint, listening to music. Nice to be brainless for awhile, though I feel vaguely guilty. On the positive side it is life as festival; on the negative, life as animal.. But the truth is we are animals too.
Tis always bothered me that one’s disposition and tendency to sin or not to sin can be as provisional as whether you’ve had that meditative 45 minute run that Kosturbula writes of in the “Joy of Running”. The author Lauren Slater believed in the power of stories, and of the word (small 'w' I think, unfortunately), until along came her little pill, Prozac, that became her savior. Best get out the wide-angle lens and see that, in the big picture, God makes up for whatever losses we produce. If the 45 minute run makes you a better Christian, then use it. With or without Prozac He loves us.
I'd like to live the "dumb life" for a week & avoid reading, writing, thought in general, & the 'data-smog' and live the body-life instead: hiking, gardening, biking, tipping a pint, listening to music. Nice to be brainless for awhile, though I feel vaguely guilty. On the positive side it is life as festival; on the negative, life as animal.. But the truth is we are animals too.
Tis always bothered me that one’s disposition and tendency to sin or not to sin can be as provisional as whether you’ve had that meditative 45 minute run that Kosturbula writes of in the “Joy of Running”. The author Lauren Slater believed in the power of stories, and of the word (small 'w' I think, unfortunately), until along came her little pill, Prozac, that became her savior. Best get out the wide-angle lens and see that, in the big picture, God makes up for whatever losses we produce. If the 45 minute run makes you a better Christian, then use it. With or without Prozac He loves us.
June 09, 2002
Another interesting Baudrillard comment on religion & America:
It is not by chance that it is the Mormons who run the world's biggest computerization project: the recording of twenty generations of living souls....Evangelization [has] progressed thanks to the latest memory-storage techniques. And these have been made possible by the deep puritanism of computer science, an intensely Calvinistic, Presbyterian discipline, which has inherited the universal and scientific rigidity of the techniques for achieving salvation by good works. The Counter-Reformation methods of the Catholic Church, with its naive sacramental practices, its cults, its more archaic and popular beliefs, could never compete with this modernity."
Au Contraire! It is our bishops, not beliefs, that are undermining the faith at the present moment. (end of cheap shot).
It is not by chance that it is the Mormons who run the world's biggest computerization project: the recording of twenty generations of living souls....Evangelization [has] progressed thanks to the latest memory-storage techniques. And these have been made possible by the deep puritanism of computer science, an intensely Calvinistic, Presbyterian discipline, which has inherited the universal and scientific rigidity of the techniques for achieving salvation by good works. The Counter-Reformation methods of the Catholic Church, with its naive sacramental practices, its cults, its more archaic and popular beliefs, could never compete with this modernity."
Au Contraire! It is our bishops, not beliefs, that are undermining the faith at the present moment. (end of cheap shot).
Fr. Hayes, our brilliant Dominican (he got degrees in biology & law before becoming a priest 12 yrs ago), said an interesting thing the other day. He said that God will hold us accountable for our use of time (suggesting, of course, less TV), but went on to recommend we learn a trade, something like carpentry or wood-working or leather crafts...something of the hands, a sort of tangible, physical learning. I was reminded of this while reading Jean Baudrillard's America. Baudrillard wrote that "everything now is destined to reappear as simulation. Landscapes as photography, women as the sexual scenario, thoughts as writing...events as television. Things seem only to exist by virtue of this strange destiny. You wonder whether the world itself isn't just here to serve as advertising copy in some other world."
The line "thoughts as writing" hit home. It reminds me of Mark Shea's tagline about never having an unpublished thought. I felt it too on a recent trip to the Smokies, where we would do a photo-stop and the image was beautiful but it didn't represent a memory...for we weren't there long enough to enjoy it in the moment. Anyway perhaps Fr. Hayes was right in suggesting we make something that isn't a copy... something concrete made for its own sake...
The line "thoughts as writing" hit home. It reminds me of Mark Shea's tagline about never having an unpublished thought. I felt it too on a recent trip to the Smokies, where we would do a photo-stop and the image was beautiful but it didn't represent a memory...for we weren't there long enough to enjoy it in the moment. Anyway perhaps Fr. Hayes was right in suggesting we make something that isn't a copy... something concrete made for its own sake...
June 07, 2002
Poetry Friday
A Poem Named "Spot"*
Kansas saw-grasses whisper and wave
in the unbearable 1800s wind
I listen to Dixie songs first as irony
till the simpleness wins my heart
crystal voices selling honesty
be they so or not, I am sold
I Fly Away to unbearable earlier ages
Kansas saw-grass waving on the prarie
little houses, yes.
*Flannery O’Connor wrote that she would name her dog ‘Spot’ as irony, her mother would sans irony. FO said she figured it didn't matter much in the end.
Hangman
In the history of man
we few
we hang like half-done hangman scrawlings
our tombstones
holding yet one date.
A Poem Named "Spot"*
Kansas saw-grasses whisper and wave
in the unbearable 1800s wind
I listen to Dixie songs first as irony
till the simpleness wins my heart
crystal voices selling honesty
be they so or not, I am sold
I Fly Away to unbearable earlier ages
Kansas saw-grass waving on the prarie
little houses, yes.
*Flannery O’Connor wrote that she would name her dog ‘Spot’ as irony, her mother would sans irony. FO said she figured it didn't matter much in the end.
Hangman
In the history of man
we few
we hang like half-done hangman scrawlings
our tombstones
holding yet one date.
Why this thrall of blogdom, this heady rush, this swoon of reading ones words in a public forum – this seeming nudity in public? Why the need to reveal? Reassurance that we have something worth saying? Reassurance is like a sponge that sops up attention while never quite filling it. This seemingly universal thirst to blog is interesting to me. I like to think my motives are the same of any other frustrated writer, exacerbated by all the left-brain thinking required as a computer programmer. I recall St. Thomas Aquinas’s words of warning that as long as one cares what others think of you then you are far from the kingdom. And no one lived up to that better than him. Can you imagine an intellectual giant being sanguine about being called the “Dumb Ox”? That modesty and reluctance to show-off is such a sure mark of the saints. St. Therese of Liseux had to be dragged kicking & screaming to write her autobiography. Yet Chesterton had great reverence for even the most mediocre artist because they were engaging in an activity that reflects our dignity in being created in the image and likeness of God. You'll never find a dog arranging the food in his food bowl in an aesthetically-pleasing manner...
John Updike on writers:
"From the admission that a good writer might be a scoundrel it is but a short step to the speculation that a writer is necessarily something of a scoundrel. A raffish and bitter scent clings to the inky profession. Seeing truly and giving the human news frankly are both discourtesies, at least to those in the immediate vicinity. The writer's value to mankind irresistibly manifests itself at some remove of space and, often, time."
John Updike on writers:
"From the admission that a good writer might be a scoundrel it is but a short step to the speculation that a writer is necessarily something of a scoundrel. A raffish and bitter scent clings to the inky profession. Seeing truly and giving the human news frankly are both discourtesies, at least to those in the immediate vicinity. The writer's value to mankind irresistibly manifests itself at some remove of space and, often, time."
June 06, 2002
Interesting comment from Steve Ray's board: "All sins are highly subjective and as St. Paul says, we are poor judges of even our own sins, let alone the sins of others." I've always simultaneously liked & cringed at the idea that Padre Pio, soon to be St. Pio, was able to point out unconfessed sins in the confessional - it's our own blindness that somehow most defeats us and most comforts us. Defeats us in that it prevents us from holiness, comforts us in that we cling to our blindness and sins for fear of suffering.
June 05, 2002
Crisis of Faith the real Crisis
Catholic author Walker Percy had one of his characters, a priest, say to a man who didn't feel he should serve Mass because of his lack of faith:
'Don't worry,' he said, doing a few isometrics in the hall, pushing and pulling with his hands. 'It is to be expected. It is only necessary to wait and to be of good heart. It is not your fault.'
'How is that, Father? I ask him curiously.
'You have been deprived of faith. All of us have. It is part of the times.'
Over the past 40 years the American bishops have gone from a dogmatic, authoritarian style to a more pastoral, "kinder/gentler" style. An unfortunate side-effect seems to have been a crisis of confidence. And that confidence was a belief not just in God but in sin - that sin was evil and that discipline necessary. A priest fooling around with a kid was shocking not primarily because it was against the law but because it was a mortal sin. What is prison compared to losing your eternal soul? And so when someone loses their confidence, they tend to hang out with the crowd, they adhere to the culture for support. One senses that in the way the bishops pandered to the left in the 70s - the call for U.S. unilateral disarmament and the flirtation with socialism while being relatively quiet on abortion. That drive for approval from the intellectual left was a warning sign of the lack of confidence. The culture at the time most of the bad priests were committing their acts was the 1960s & 70s when sexual license was rampant. But then in the 80s with the advent of Reagan and a conservatism, the culture become more materialistic, more pro-business. And so most of the bishops, influenced by this culture, became CEOs. And what do most CEOs do? They think short-term. They put off/hide bad news from stockholders as long as possible. Sound familiar?
I hope our leaders can find that ever elusive middle ground. Not dogmatic, cruel or needlessly authoritarian, nor confused, unconfident and undisciplined.
Catholic author Walker Percy had one of his characters, a priest, say to a man who didn't feel he should serve Mass because of his lack of faith:
'Don't worry,' he said, doing a few isometrics in the hall, pushing and pulling with his hands. 'It is to be expected. It is only necessary to wait and to be of good heart. It is not your fault.'
'How is that, Father? I ask him curiously.
'You have been deprived of faith. All of us have. It is part of the times.'
Over the past 40 years the American bishops have gone from a dogmatic, authoritarian style to a more pastoral, "kinder/gentler" style. An unfortunate side-effect seems to have been a crisis of confidence. And that confidence was a belief not just in God but in sin - that sin was evil and that discipline necessary. A priest fooling around with a kid was shocking not primarily because it was against the law but because it was a mortal sin. What is prison compared to losing your eternal soul? And so when someone loses their confidence, they tend to hang out with the crowd, they adhere to the culture for support. One senses that in the way the bishops pandered to the left in the 70s - the call for U.S. unilateral disarmament and the flirtation with socialism while being relatively quiet on abortion. That drive for approval from the intellectual left was a warning sign of the lack of confidence. The culture at the time most of the bad priests were committing their acts was the 1960s & 70s when sexual license was rampant. But then in the 80s with the advent of Reagan and a conservatism, the culture become more materialistic, more pro-business. And so most of the bishops, influenced by this culture, became CEOs. And what do most CEOs do? They think short-term. They put off/hide bad news from stockholders as long as possible. Sound familiar?
I hope our leaders can find that ever elusive middle ground. Not dogmatic, cruel or needlessly authoritarian, nor confused, unconfident and undisciplined.
I had always believed in God's love and God's omnipotence. But once I put the two ideas together, saw the unavoidable logical conclusion (Rom 8:28), I could never again see the world the same way. If God is great (omnipotent) and God is good (loving), then everything that happens is our spiritual food; and we can and should thank him for it. - Peter Kreeft
Check this out from Slate magazine of all places:
"Who'da thunk it? Hollywood takes celibacy more seriously than most members of the elite Eastern media, whose by-and-large reaction to the church's pedophilia scandal has been to opportunistically attack a celibacy doctrine they see as outdated and nonsensical. It's startling to see putatively liberal moviemakers portray celibacy as a noble, selfless, even rational endeavor. Of course, it's possible that the Hollywood message is more subversive and underhanded than that: Only superheroes are fit for lives of celibacy, and as we've learned, not all priests are superheroes."
"Who'da thunk it? Hollywood takes celibacy more seriously than most members of the elite Eastern media, whose by-and-large reaction to the church's pedophilia scandal has been to opportunistically attack a celibacy doctrine they see as outdated and nonsensical. It's startling to see putatively liberal moviemakers portray celibacy as a noble, selfless, even rational endeavor. Of course, it's possible that the Hollywood message is more subversive and underhanded than that: Only superheroes are fit for lives of celibacy, and as we've learned, not all priests are superheroes."
June 04, 2002
Read a fascinating article about a series of experiments showing, impossibly, that simply by observing photons changes the path they take (from Discover magazine). It gets even wierder when the physicist claims that it appears past events can be changed likewise. Whether true or not, the article insists that the universe is a much more interactive place than we can imagine. A week later I read that one of the Vatican's top scientists (I forget his name, but he heads the Vatican astronomy dep't) said that his notion of God is not as an autocrat. God as a jazz improvisationalist I guess...
June 03, 2002
May 31, 2002
a story
The smell of aged tobacco lay in every crease and corner of the 40’s style dance hall. It was there dreams had begun, chance meetings to marriages, and where adulterous boundraries were crossed, the juxtaposition of their physical geographies seemingly without penalty – just the unreal sense gratification of the sword in a new sheath, a key and a lock not supposed to fit – but they do! His humble body, nothing special, not something held dear – what is it that its part fit another lock? Every seven years every cell in his body would be swapped - in seven years it would be as if he hadn't done it, another self had.
What to do with that awful knowledge that locks and keys fit without consequence? But what if the impossible happened – a baby? Well you can prevent those. But skin on skin is intimacy! And she hates the pill...But anyway there was that a fellar he knew in Birmingham who knew of a clinic. They’d do it for cheap, just the sudden removal of tissue, another geographic boundary crossed without consequence. Her body, her tissue. Moved to another location. He thought, what is her husband but tissue grown big? What would it mean if he were missing? What if it be if he speeded up the process, arranged his death-date a little sooner on the tombstone, that stone all march to? He puzzled over it. He couldn’t figure where evil’s geography really lay. The law says you could kill that baby minutes before it was born. The law doesn’t make sense…He wondered if the law knew what it was doing, and if it could be wrong about it all, even that fatal juxtaposition of his body in hers...
The smell of aged tobacco lay in every crease and corner of the 40’s style dance hall. It was there dreams had begun, chance meetings to marriages, and where adulterous boundraries were crossed, the juxtaposition of their physical geographies seemingly without penalty – just the unreal sense gratification of the sword in a new sheath, a key and a lock not supposed to fit – but they do! His humble body, nothing special, not something held dear – what is it that its part fit another lock? Every seven years every cell in his body would be swapped - in seven years it would be as if he hadn't done it, another self had.
What to do with that awful knowledge that locks and keys fit without consequence? But what if the impossible happened – a baby? Well you can prevent those. But skin on skin is intimacy! And she hates the pill...But anyway there was that a fellar he knew in Birmingham who knew of a clinic. They’d do it for cheap, just the sudden removal of tissue, another geographic boundary crossed without consequence. Her body, her tissue. Moved to another location. He thought, what is her husband but tissue grown big? What would it mean if he were missing? What if it be if he speeded up the process, arranged his death-date a little sooner on the tombstone, that stone all march to? He puzzled over it. He couldn’t figure where evil’s geography really lay. The law says you could kill that baby minutes before it was born. The law doesn’t make sense…He wondered if the law knew what it was doing, and if it could be wrong about it all, even that fatal juxtaposition of his body in hers...
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