Sitemeter sez....
It seems gauche to monitor sitemeter, narcissistic even, but* it's hard to overlook the increase in traffic created from a recent link from Ad Orientem, not seen since a year ago link from the queen, Amy Welborn. (I can see the epitaph on my blogstone: Was once linked by Amy Welborn).
Seems Mark's a heavyweight contenda', based on the number of referrals. Dorothy Day can't be too happy about that. :) Sorry, couldn't resist. I must say there is something charismatic about certainty of opinion, be it wrong or right. Day's politics and economic sense are opaque to me, but I'm too awed by her holiness to object. It's sort of like an eccentric family member, you love them despite their eccentricities. (Disclaimer: I'm sure Mark loves Dorothy Day too but just objects to her politics & economics).
Part of the reason I so like Hilaire Belloc is that he was a prophet about so many things. He abhored communism and untrammelled capitalism, which seems to me gets it just about right (and he saw capitalism at its worse, when monopolies and oligarchies ruled).
* -see title of this blog
April 04, 2003
"Recovering a sense of the dignity of the human person is a prerequisite for Christianity. Recovering a sense of the natural is a prerequisite of the supernatural....Aristotle said that it was lunar and solar eclipses that most spurred wonder and led on to that quest for God called philosophy."
-excerpts from essay from Ralph McInerny in Crisis
-excerpts from essay from Ralph McInerny in Crisis
APRIL is the cruellest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
--TS Eliot excerpt from The Waste Land
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
Summer surprised us, coming over the Starnbergersee
With a shower of rain; we stopped in the colonnade,
And went on in sunlight, into the Hofgarten,
And drank coffee, and talked for an hour.
Bin gar keine Russin, stamm' aus Litauen, echt deutsch.
And when we were children, staying at the archduke's,
My cousin's, he took me out on a sled,
And I was frightened. He said, Marie,
Marie, hold on tight. And down we went.
In the mountains, there you feel free.
I read, much of the night, and go south in the winter.
--TS Eliot excerpt from The Waste Land
Accepted Suffering
"One has to accept sorrow for it to be of any healing power, and that is the most difficult thing in the world...A priest once said to me, 'When you understand what accepted sorrow means, you will understand everything. It is the secret of life.'"
-- Maurice Baring, via Pearce's Old Thunder
"One has to accept sorrow for it to be of any healing power, and that is the most difficult thing in the world...A priest once said to me, 'When you understand what accepted sorrow means, you will understand everything. It is the secret of life.'"
-- Maurice Baring, via Pearce's Old Thunder
No Blarney?
The following was obtained from an article in a scrapbook at the local historical society. It concerns my great-great grandfather who died in 1914 and who, after first emigrating, had no nearby church:
Rev. James P. Ward, who preached the funeral sermon, said: "Mr. Cogan was known to walk from Glynnwood to Piqua to be present at the divine Sacrifice of the Mass." It was his earnest zeal that prompted him to have a church close at hand, and he with others of the same sturdy faith united their efforts and established a pastorate at Glynnwood..
I checked a map and even as the crow flies the distance between Glynnwood and Piqua is thirty miles!
I went to the Ohio Historical Society a year or so ago and they have a village, like Greenfield Village in Michigan, that is a recreation of life a century ago. The church (of course) is a politically correct one. No cross adorns the chapel lest a non-believer in Christ be offended. (It's a bit difficult to suspend disbelief and think you are back in the 1850s when the chapel has a beautiful stained glass window - of the symbol for Ohio!). The "pastor", or the one who played one in this gig, related how services were often three hours long but that we should not suppose they to be more pious than us - no, this was simply their only social outlet and they milked it for all it was worth. I've noticed this increasingly tendency to believe that there are no real differences between eras or even people within an era - (i.e. George Bush is the same, more or less, as Saddam Hussein.) It is part of our culture of anti-haiography to tear saints down; even Mother Teresa had a dectractor in Christopher Hitchens.
But I ask...if you look around at the great variations in nature, the fact that there are imbeciles and geniuses, there are Tiger Woods' and T O'Rama's...shouldn't that suggest that there are degrees in holiness? Why should saintliness be exempt from the normal pattern of great variation within a species, and why should not cultures, as collections of peoples, not be similar?
The following was obtained from an article in a scrapbook at the local historical society. It concerns my great-great grandfather who died in 1914 and who, after first emigrating, had no nearby church:
Rev. James P. Ward, who preached the funeral sermon, said: "Mr. Cogan was known to walk from Glynnwood to Piqua to be present at the divine Sacrifice of the Mass." It was his earnest zeal that prompted him to have a church close at hand, and he with others of the same sturdy faith united their efforts and established a pastorate at Glynnwood..
I checked a map and even as the crow flies the distance between Glynnwood and Piqua is thirty miles!
I went to the Ohio Historical Society a year or so ago and they have a village, like Greenfield Village in Michigan, that is a recreation of life a century ago. The church (of course) is a politically correct one. No cross adorns the chapel lest a non-believer in Christ be offended. (It's a bit difficult to suspend disbelief and think you are back in the 1850s when the chapel has a beautiful stained glass window - of the symbol for Ohio!). The "pastor", or the one who played one in this gig, related how services were often three hours long but that we should not suppose they to be more pious than us - no, this was simply their only social outlet and they milked it for all it was worth. I've noticed this increasingly tendency to believe that there are no real differences between eras or even people within an era - (i.e. George Bush is the same, more or less, as Saddam Hussein.) It is part of our culture of anti-haiography to tear saints down; even Mother Teresa had a dectractor in Christopher Hitchens.
But I ask...if you look around at the great variations in nature, the fact that there are imbeciles and geniuses, there are Tiger Woods' and T O'Rama's...shouldn't that suggest that there are degrees in holiness? Why should saintliness be exempt from the normal pattern of great variation within a species, and why should not cultures, as collections of peoples, not be similar?
April 03, 2003
A friend wants to move to Yuma, AZ, where it is said that over 300 days a year are sunny and where we would "not have to feel so uptight" about a day like today, with its accompanying vague sense of unease for not having extracted from it all its profligate goodness. A freakishly warm, sunny day in Central Ohio in early April induces a giddiness such that folks from down south might say, "act like you've experienced a sunny day before!".
Nancy Nall writes: It's spring, honest and truly. NN.C Central is now updating with an open window inches from my right elbow, a glass of Cote du Rhone a few inches closer, and a nice mushroom risotto digesting somewhere else on the triangulation plane. Plus, I rode my bike for nearly an hour after work. I'm SuperBlogger again, my euphoria tempered somewhat by the certain knowledge that my Australian equivalent is slipping into seasonal depression as we speak. To her I say, chin up, sheila! Life is one big wheel.
Someone translated my blog into German here. Ye olde blog looks a heckuva lot smarter auf Deutsch. Maybe I'll throw in an occasional mißdeutet or enthält just for the spice.
German was the language of my youth, at least for three years in high school. Third-year German consisted mostly of kreidekriegs, or chalk-wars, because our teacher (sadly) could not maintain discipline and John, Eric and I were the Husseins of the classroom. I'll never forget John heaving a water balloon and watching it splatter against the chalk board, an affront both audacious and mendacious. The dear Fraulein soon fled the teaching profession. But perhaps I digress...
German was the language of my youth, at least for three years in high school. Third-year German consisted mostly of kreidekriegs, or chalk-wars, because our teacher (sadly) could not maintain discipline and John, Eric and I were the Husseins of the classroom. I'll never forget John heaving a water balloon and watching it splatter against the chalk board, an affront both audacious and mendacious. The dear Fraulein soon fled the teaching profession. But perhaps I digress...
Quote Thursday
Faith begins at a naive level, with a lot of self-interest mixed in. With time, our act of trust is purified as the barriers between us and God are dismantled. No matter how mixed our motives for approaching Jesus, once we place ourselves in his hands, we can be sure that whatever imperfections are there will be gradually leached out.
When St. John presents his series of 'signs', he is at pains to portray the hopelessness of the situation. The man by the pool at Bethesda had been infirm for 38 years - any prospect of a cure was out of the question. This should encourage us greatly. Even when we consider that our situation is so tangled that no resolution is possible, there is ground for hope. God alone knows how to 'write straight on crooked lines' to bring forth from chaos a world of order and beauty.
--Fr. Michael Casey, O.C.S.O. Return to the Heart
But he knows hardly anything yet wants to think that he knows all that there is to know. This seems to be a common defect in those who have been bred up on physical science. And I think the reason is that physical science tells one a lot of facts, but nothing else.. He can explain quite clearly something which he has been dogmatically taught - such as a third rate materialism of modern English physical science, but he can't explain the problem let alone the solution of the religious appetite in mankind.
--H. Belloc
Faith begins at a naive level, with a lot of self-interest mixed in. With time, our act of trust is purified as the barriers between us and God are dismantled. No matter how mixed our motives for approaching Jesus, once we place ourselves in his hands, we can be sure that whatever imperfections are there will be gradually leached out.
When St. John presents his series of 'signs', he is at pains to portray the hopelessness of the situation. The man by the pool at Bethesda had been infirm for 38 years - any prospect of a cure was out of the question. This should encourage us greatly. Even when we consider that our situation is so tangled that no resolution is possible, there is ground for hope. God alone knows how to 'write straight on crooked lines' to bring forth from chaos a world of order and beauty.
--Fr. Michael Casey, O.C.S.O. Return to the Heart
But he knows hardly anything yet wants to think that he knows all that there is to know. This seems to be a common defect in those who have been bred up on physical science. And I think the reason is that physical science tells one a lot of facts, but nothing else.. He can explain quite clearly something which he has been dogmatically taught - such as a third rate materialism of modern English physical science, but he can't explain the problem let alone the solution of the religious appetite in mankind.
--H. Belloc
April 02, 2003
Sun o' matic*
Two o'clock escapee
released from the fluorescence
Exultantly she holds the sky
Singing hymns of jubilo!
Palms abut the jutting cirrus'
marvels, turns she to companions:
"Resiliancy, thy name is Spring!"
* - written after witnessing a young woman spontaneously break into joy at the sight of the sun upon leaving her place of work.
Two o'clock escapee
released from the fluorescence
Exultantly she holds the sky
Singing hymns of jubilo!
Palms abut the jutting cirrus'
marvels, turns she to companions:
"Resiliancy, thy name is Spring!"
* - written after witnessing a young woman spontaneously break into joy at the sight of the sun upon leaving her place of work.
David Mills on Islam
Pelagianism is said to be the English heresy (Pelagius was British) and the English dislike theology, or at least metaphysics, and so Islam in its modern form might well appeal to them. It's all very practical and directive, makes your salvation a matter of works it spells out for you, works you can do and know you have done them (none of this Christian concern about whether you've hated your brother in your heart, as long as you've done your duty to him), and doesn't worry about your heart at all, and not much about your mind. It's very English, in some ways.
And I think that in Western European societies, in which Christianity seems so played out and what is "Christian" not much different from what is "secular" (in having high divorce rates, for example), Islam can offer the same blessings or benefits (a vision of stable marriage, for example) as Christianity but seem like a fresh thing and a new deal. And as an identifiable and only partly enculturated community, it will seem to be more successful than Christianity at those things (in having low divorce rates, for example). I have heard people speak in a hazy, wistful way of the wonderful life of Muslim families, when they themselves wouldn't tolerate the life for a second.
Above all, the Islamic life seems to offer order and the resulting benefits of tranquility, stability, and secure status in societies in which most people live disordered lives, who are therefore untranquil, unstable, and insecure. I am told this is the great appeal of the Black Muslims in prisons and slums. Prince Charles may love the ghastly Parker-Bowles, but given the life he has lived so far he must wish at some level for order. His writings on architecture and liturgy suggest this. At least he must wish (I hope he does, for his soul's sake) for a life without adultery.
My friend also noted that... "In Amsterdam last year, the No. 1 male name for babies was Mohammed."
This is what happens when societies stop having children, which is to say, when they give up on life.
—David Mills
George Will has said that "what the government subsidizes, you'll have more of". A corollary might be: What a society values you'll have more of. I've been told that back in the 1940s priests were extremely well-respected. Perhaps too much - they drove the best cars, ate the best food. They were portrayed favorably in Hollywood (ala "Going My Way"). And this "value" placed on priests meant there would be more of them. And there were. But now many not even don't respect priests but look at them as if there were something wrong with them. Result: less priests.
Similarly with children. I heard a talk show host recently say the cut-off is three children. When he had his fourth he became almost a pariah - people looked at him like he was wierd and gave him disapproving looks. How sad! Those folks should be our heroes, those who buck societal trends and have the strong faith that accompanies it. May we value children so that we have more of them. As I tell my Protestant friend (who has four children) - "you're more Catholic than I!"
Pelagianism is said to be the English heresy (Pelagius was British) and the English dislike theology, or at least metaphysics, and so Islam in its modern form might well appeal to them. It's all very practical and directive, makes your salvation a matter of works it spells out for you, works you can do and know you have done them (none of this Christian concern about whether you've hated your brother in your heart, as long as you've done your duty to him), and doesn't worry about your heart at all, and not much about your mind. It's very English, in some ways.
And I think that in Western European societies, in which Christianity seems so played out and what is "Christian" not much different from what is "secular" (in having high divorce rates, for example), Islam can offer the same blessings or benefits (a vision of stable marriage, for example) as Christianity but seem like a fresh thing and a new deal. And as an identifiable and only partly enculturated community, it will seem to be more successful than Christianity at those things (in having low divorce rates, for example). I have heard people speak in a hazy, wistful way of the wonderful life of Muslim families, when they themselves wouldn't tolerate the life for a second.
Above all, the Islamic life seems to offer order and the resulting benefits of tranquility, stability, and secure status in societies in which most people live disordered lives, who are therefore untranquil, unstable, and insecure. I am told this is the great appeal of the Black Muslims in prisons and slums. Prince Charles may love the ghastly Parker-Bowles, but given the life he has lived so far he must wish at some level for order. His writings on architecture and liturgy suggest this. At least he must wish (I hope he does, for his soul's sake) for a life without adultery.
My friend also noted that... "In Amsterdam last year, the No. 1 male name for babies was Mohammed."
This is what happens when societies stop having children, which is to say, when they give up on life.
—David Mills
George Will has said that "what the government subsidizes, you'll have more of". A corollary might be: What a society values you'll have more of. I've been told that back in the 1940s priests were extremely well-respected. Perhaps too much - they drove the best cars, ate the best food. They were portrayed favorably in Hollywood (ala "Going My Way"). And this "value" placed on priests meant there would be more of them. And there were. But now many not even don't respect priests but look at them as if there were something wrong with them. Result: less priests.
Similarly with children. I heard a talk show host recently say the cut-off is three children. When he had his fourth he became almost a pariah - people looked at him like he was wierd and gave him disapproving looks. How sad! Those folks should be our heroes, those who buck societal trends and have the strong faith that accompanies it. May we value children so that we have more of them. As I tell my Protestant friend (who has four children) - "you're more Catholic than I!"
Missing the Mark
I began reading Tom of Disputation's post and was ready to object but he anticipated me. He wrote that "everything has a catch".
Tom refers to the convicting passage in 1 John 3: "No one who remains in him sins; no one who sins has seen him or known him." St. Paul, with a stunning matter-of-factness, writes in Romans 6 that we are dead to sin, definitionally: For sin is not to have any power over you, since you are not under the law but under grace.
I recall listening to a Baptist minister on the radio who asked a large crowd to raise their hands if they've gone the last month without sinning. No one raised their hand. Then he asked, "the last week?". Maybe two people raised their hand. "The last day?". Again, hardly anyone. He preached against this notion of sin, this notion that it is impossible to even go through a single day without sinning. This notion that Christ didn't sin because He was God, and we really can't follow his model. The minister said that he sometimes goes a month or so w/out sinning, a clarity that I found worthy of envy. Especially when sinning in one's thoughts is often a very difficult judgment call.
Sin can be hard to grasp for me, especially the aforementioned but also the "sins of omission" category. How much charity is enough? In strictly monetary terms, the OT had an answer: 10%. Given the limitlessness of the NT, that answer must now be made according to one's conscience. And, if you are a rich American (which is pretty much redundant), then one's conscience may be afflicted. But if God afflicts the comfortable and comforts the afflicted, then how is anyone comfortable? Ultimately I recognize the impossibility of my salvation, while nurturing hope since with God all things are possible.
I began reading Tom of Disputation's post and was ready to object but he anticipated me. He wrote that "everything has a catch".
Tom refers to the convicting passage in 1 John 3: "No one who remains in him sins; no one who sins has seen him or known him." St. Paul, with a stunning matter-of-factness, writes in Romans 6 that we are dead to sin, definitionally: For sin is not to have any power over you, since you are not under the law but under grace.
I recall listening to a Baptist minister on the radio who asked a large crowd to raise their hands if they've gone the last month without sinning. No one raised their hand. Then he asked, "the last week?". Maybe two people raised their hand. "The last day?". Again, hardly anyone. He preached against this notion of sin, this notion that it is impossible to even go through a single day without sinning. This notion that Christ didn't sin because He was God, and we really can't follow his model. The minister said that he sometimes goes a month or so w/out sinning, a clarity that I found worthy of envy. Especially when sinning in one's thoughts is often a very difficult judgment call.
Sin can be hard to grasp for me, especially the aforementioned but also the "sins of omission" category. How much charity is enough? In strictly monetary terms, the OT had an answer: 10%. Given the limitlessness of the NT, that answer must now be made according to one's conscience. And, if you are a rich American (which is pretty much redundant), then one's conscience may be afflicted. But if God afflicts the comfortable and comforts the afflicted, then how is anyone comfortable? Ultimately I recognize the impossibility of my salvation, while nurturing hope since with God all things are possible.
Belloc on the Islamic Threat
...excerpts written in 1938
Islam has survived, and vigorously survived. Missionary effort has had no appreciable effect upon it. It still converts pagain savages wholesale. It even attracts from time to time some European eccentric, who joins its body. But the Mohammedan never becomes Christian. No fragment of Islam ever abandons its sacred book, its code of morals, its organized system of prayer...
In view of this, anyone with a knowledge of history is bound to ask himself whether we shall not see in the future a revival of Mohammedan political power, and the renewal of the old pressure of Islam upon Christendom....
These things being so ([the military impotence of Islam]), the recrudescence of Islam, the possibility of that terror under which we lived for centuries reappearing, and of our civilization again fighting for its life against what was its chief enemy for a thousand years, seems fantastic. Who in the Mohammedan world today can manufacture and maintain the complicated instruments of modern war?
Cultures spring from religions; ultimately the vital force which maintains any culture is its philosophy, its attitude towards the universe; the decay of a religion involves the decay of the culture corresponding to it - we see that most clearly in the breakdown of Christendom today.
That culture [Islamic] happens to have fallen back in material applications; there is no reason whatever why it should not learn its new lesson and become our equal in temporal things which now alone give us our superiority over it - whereas in Faith we have fallen inferior to it.
-- Hilaire Belloc, 1938, The Great Heresies
...excerpts written in 1938
Islam has survived, and vigorously survived. Missionary effort has had no appreciable effect upon it. It still converts pagain savages wholesale. It even attracts from time to time some European eccentric, who joins its body. But the Mohammedan never becomes Christian. No fragment of Islam ever abandons its sacred book, its code of morals, its organized system of prayer...
In view of this, anyone with a knowledge of history is bound to ask himself whether we shall not see in the future a revival of Mohammedan political power, and the renewal of the old pressure of Islam upon Christendom....
These things being so ([the military impotence of Islam]), the recrudescence of Islam, the possibility of that terror under which we lived for centuries reappearing, and of our civilization again fighting for its life against what was its chief enemy for a thousand years, seems fantastic. Who in the Mohammedan world today can manufacture and maintain the complicated instruments of modern war?
Cultures spring from religions; ultimately the vital force which maintains any culture is its philosophy, its attitude towards the universe; the decay of a religion involves the decay of the culture corresponding to it - we see that most clearly in the breakdown of Christendom today.
That culture [Islamic] happens to have fallen back in material applications; there is no reason whatever why it should not learn its new lesson and become our equal in temporal things which now alone give us our superiority over it - whereas in Faith we have fallen inferior to it.
-- Hilaire Belloc, 1938, The Great Heresies
April 01, 2003
It's Islam, Stupid
The old saw goes, "the rich are different from us - they have more money". Well unlike the rich, Muslims really are different from us.
This article, via Disordered Affections, underscores the root issue that I've been starting to gain a clue on - what if they don't want freedom, democracy, etc?
Muslim countries mostly fall into two groups: those whose populations hate the U.S. & freedom (freedom meaning the opposite of a theocracy) and those whose leaders hate the U.S. & freedom. This "damned if you do, damned if you don't scenerio" means we'll undoubtedly be left with either a puppet regime that the people will loathe and eventually overthrow (ala Iran) or an evil regime which is what we're trying to get rid of. We could hope for a less evil regime; Iran's leaders look like saints compared to Saddam & his thugs. On the bright side, anyone is better than Saddam and less likely to acquire & use WMDs. But messy business all around.
The old saw goes, "the rich are different from us - they have more money". Well unlike the rich, Muslims really are different from us.
This article, via Disordered Affections, underscores the root issue that I've been starting to gain a clue on - what if they don't want freedom, democracy, etc?
Muslim countries mostly fall into two groups: those whose populations hate the U.S. & freedom (freedom meaning the opposite of a theocracy) and those whose leaders hate the U.S. & freedom. This "damned if you do, damned if you don't scenerio" means we'll undoubtedly be left with either a puppet regime that the people will loathe and eventually overthrow (ala Iran) or an evil regime which is what we're trying to get rid of. We could hope for a less evil regime; Iran's leaders look like saints compared to Saddam & his thugs. On the bright side, anyone is better than Saddam and less likely to acquire & use WMDs. But messy business all around.
Ex-Pres filling in for current Pres
Back from a day at the ol' ball orchard. The 10-1 loss was not pleasant, although I go to baseball games for aesthetics, like a ballet dance. No one goes to the ballet for the plot do they?
Actually, I go for the same reasons Mike McConnell (WLW radio talk show host) goes:
1) Sun
2) Beer
3) the Game
I usually keep score, mostly because I like being able to report what Larkin did earlier in the game and as an excuse to draw diamonds. Paul Dickson writes, "The world is divided into two kinds of baseball fans: those who keep score at the ballgame... and those who have never made the leap." Something tells me Paul has too much time on his hands.
Yesterday's game was a nice relief from war news anyway.
Stadium Beefs
Okay the park is a baseball park, real grass, etc. But what bothers me are two things:
1) Size of seats. I'm 5'11'', 210 (but reportedly look 170) and my father is bigger. We are collectively way too big for these seats.
2) Advertising uber alles. It spoils the rural ambiance of the game to see every unmarked space urging me to "run like a Deere" or "buy Pepsi". There was an olde-fashioned clock that was a copy of the one at old Crosley Field (1914-1970, RIP), only this one had the name "Subway" on it. Give me a break.
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