Partly Cloudy

The forecast for the Supreme Court vacancy is already looking a bit gloomy. I heard on the radio Pres. Bush defending Alberto Gonzalez. It's sobering if Bush is even thinking of nominating him. Also the President made some seemingly contradictory statements as quoted in the Wash Times link above:

Bush said he would have no "litmus test" that disqualifies candidates because of their opinions on abortion and gay marriage.

"I'll pick people who, one, can do the job, and people who are honest, people who are bright and people who will strictly interpret the Constitution and not use the bench to legislate from," Bush said.

Hopefully this is on order of the single gal saying, "I have no litmus test that disqualifies a potential husband because of his opinions on religion. But I do want someone who will enthusiastically attend Mass every Sunday."

Because if you want someone to strictly interpret the Constitution, then they won't find the right to an abortion in there. Even honest liberals such as this author admit that the Roe v. Wade was pulled out of thin air since there's no right to privacy found in the Constitution. My question is: "do you consider 'settled law' settled if the law was originally legislated from the Court?"

 Spanning the Globe To Bring You The Constant Variety Of Posts

Is it a sin for a moron to call an imbecile an idiot? - tagline of the blog "Nehring the Edge"

Ignatius Insight presents lots of Catholic bloggers on "The Problem With Blogs". My basic thought on blogging is "Take what helps or amuses you and leave the rest." It reminds me of my sister's theory of throwing a party: "If they're going to complain about free food and free entertainment, they're jerks anyway." But I am at least mentally healthy enough that I can't dredge up any guilt about blogging. People who are bored or irritated are obviously the wrong audience... I don't see how someone could be annoyed by a blog any more than they could be annoyed by a sign in the neighbor's yard. - Karen Hall of "Some Have Hats"

I am troubled by Orthodoxy’s “Easternness.” The coherence and power of Orthodoxy is partially achieved by excluding the Western tradition from its spiritual and theological life. One is hard-pressed to find an Orthodox writer who speaks highly of the Western Church, of her saints, ascetics, and theologians, of her manifold contributions to Christian religion and Western civilization....If the catholicity of Orthodoxy can only be purchased by the practical expulsion of Augustine and Aquinas, then, at least in my own mind, Orthodoxy’s claim to be the one and true Church is seriously undermined...A truly catholic Church will keep these great theologians in conversation with each other, and their differences and disagreements will invite the Church to a deeper and more comprehensive understanding of the divine mysteries. - from "Pontifications", prior to his conversion from Anglicanism to Catholicism

The famous psychologist Carl Jung put his professional reputation on the line with his book "Synchronicity." A synchonicity is kind of like a coincidence only it's a coincidence with great meaning and purpose to the person who notices it. If you're a fan, or an idle wonderer, about Intelligent Design, Jung's book is the equivalent of Intelligent Design only with Psychology. In a famous example, Jung is working with a difficult patient whose totally rational view of the world prevents her from overcoming her psychological problems. She relates a dream she had about a golden scarab beetle. Jung knew that the scarab held great significance to ancient Egyptians as a symbol of rebirth. As the woman was talking, they heard a tapping on the window, Jung opened the window and in flew a golden scarab beetle. The total shock of the instant resulted in the woman's rational view of the world being dropped and Jung was able to help her by acknowledging that there was a deeper meaning in the universe. - Rock of "Lofted Nest"

We will NOT, however, be staying in Key West, where one cultivates weirdness until it is merely boring. - Steven Riddle

One of the more fashionable ways of talking about faith these days is to use the image of the "story." We're told that what faith is essentially all about is finding a "story" (or "narrative" or "myth") that is meaningful to you, that fits, that informs your life and gives you strength for your journey....it's a day [feast of Sts Peter & Paul] to confront the lie, that has indeed infected the way Catholics talk about spirituality, that this journey is all about finding that blasted story. What an insult to the martyrs. What a violation of their experience of Christ, which was no page-turner, but the encounter with the Living One, whose impact on them was such that they could not but say "yes" when he called them to follow. Not to just keep telling a story and inviting others to groove to it if they feel like it, either. But called to invite others to meet that same Living One and be saved, reconciled and redeemed by Him. - Amy Welborn

Why should you worry whether God wants you to reach the Heavenly home by way of the desert or by the fields, when by the one as well as by the another one arrives all the same at a Blessed Eternity? -- St. Pio of Pietrelcina via "Sancta Sanctis"

The notion that somebody in New Zealand was praying for me was more than I could imagine. I have never been an emotional worshipper of Christ; I have never felt the weight of His love and presence literally drive me to the floor prostrate. I can say that no longer, as I have felt just that in the last 24 hours, and have cried the cries of a child humbled at the love of my Heavenly Father and His providential workings in my life. - Lance Salyers, assistant prosecutor in Dayton, Oh. fired over a blog entry

What does it avail you to argue profoundly of the Trinity if you be wanting in humility, and consequently be displeasing to the Trinity? - St. Thomas a Kempis, "Imitation of Christ" quoted on a blog

I cannot ever hear "Cat's in the Cradle" without starting to cry a little. I really can't. "We'll get together then..."--the thing about fatherhood, I sometimes think, is that it is so thoroughly a metaphor for our relationship to God the Father that no real human father can suffice. That's part of why ordinary human fatherhood deserves so much honor. Because ordinary human fathers bear so much of the brunt of their children's aloneness. Mothers (sometimes) get the desperate confessions of fear and sickness; fathers often don't even get that solace, that trust. Every mother is Mary, Mother of God (Mother of Sorrows, Queen of Heaven, Mary at Cana and Mary at Calvary), but every father is (symbolically) Yahweh, not Joseph. And it's terribly hard. So I guess... there's nothing really to say except, Thank you. - Eve Tushnet on Father's Day

I volunteer at a crisis pregnancy center. A 16 year old girl came in for a pregnancy test. As we waited for the results she was visibly trembling and near to tears. When the result was negative, she began to cry and laugh and bounce up and down. I asked her why she was so happy. She looked at me like I was a total idiot and and with that "duh, you're so stupid" tone that teenagers do so well, she answered "I'm way too young to have a baby". I leaned toward her and said "Then you're also too young to be doing what makes babies." For a long moment she stared at me with her mouth open and not breathing, then in a very small voice she said "No one ever told me that before." - commenter on Fructus Ventris, replying to Alicia's post with the line "I don't understand why so many people are surprised that sex leads to pregnancy."

I think the other thing that has changed, though, is the willingness of Christians (evangelical? All of us? I don't know) to be publicly honest about failure and weakness. Christians have always sat in Church and listened to sermons about how sinful they are and how much they need to repent. Christians have always read books inspiring them to be better people. But in the public conversation, in the process of creating an image for what Christians were, there was a hard shell of propriety, a deep desire not to show any fractures to the world, despite the bumper sticker sentiment, "Christians aren't perfect; just forgiven." I do think that the public image, as crafted and presented by Christians, of what the ideal Christian is, has shifted, or is in the process of doing so, and that image is far more likely to include public acknoweldgement of sin, temptation and weakness than it was a few decades ago. That's intriguing. - Amy Welborn

You could go...

..a month of Sundays and not hear a decent country song on the radio, so I have to thank Tim McGraw for his latest. Now that's country! And a beautiful, sunny day like today also conjures up the ol' Merle Haggard song, "Big City".

Better Living Through Fiction

Cindy McCray had a favorite saying. It was “if you’ve got your health, then you’ve got everything.”

She learned it from her father and it became her mantra. She told it to the grocery store clerk and to the person who did her nails and to the local city bus driver. She shouted it from the rooftops and told everyone she met for it amazed her how few realized it. Every morning she checked that her limbs were working and that her breathing was sound and then she thanked God.

Her husband Sam was the superstitious sort and said that if you think too much about your health you'll jinx it. He also said that if you get too high over good health then you’ll get too low when you’re sick but Cindy always seemed to be in such excellent health that his theory went untested.

On her 28th birthday Cindy said that celebrating a birthday every year was too infrequent. "Our time on earth is too precious and brief to recognize it annually – why not measure it in days?" So every day at 10:38am (the time she was born) she’d sing Happy Birthday to herself and she'd sing it again at 5:19pm for Sam (the time he was born) and they'd eat a piece of birthday cake. (She didn’t put candles on it due to the city fire code.) Her husband, in putting up with it, wasn’t sure if he was edging closer to sanctity or insanity, or whether there was really any difference. He knew he loved her despite her eccentricities. He also knew when his real birthday came it didn’t feel like his real birthday. It felt like just another day.

When Cindy turned 12,723 she drove to the store as was her custom. (“Cake supplies don’t grow on trees!” she told Sam, when asked about her grocery receipts.) She was proceeding through an intersection when a huge green truck tried to make a left at the same intersection. She slammed on the brakes but it was too late – there was the shock of impact and she looked down amazed at the sheer wrongness of seeing bone jutting from skin. It nearly made her vomit for bone was meant to be used but never seen. She lost consciousness before she could check the extent of other injuries.

Her condition stabilized and Sam held her hand in the intensive care unit. He feared greatly, not so much for her life now but for how she would handle her ruined health.

“Honey…,” she said with great effort.

“Yes?”

“It’s almost 5:19…”

He cried.

Quotable

"Posterity who are to reap the blessings will scarcely be able to conceive the hardships and sufferings of their ancestors." - Abigail Adams

word and Word

Recently the eparchy (Eastern Catholic equivalent of 'diocese') of the local Byzantine Catholic Church decided to change the word "testament" to "covenant" in the words of consecration. I've been reading a lot recently about the difference between covenant and testament, which I won't go into in this post, but suffice it to say that despite covenant being more accurate I'll miss the words "this is the blood of the new testament" because the first time I heard it it unified the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist anew for me. It was a way of saying that Christ not only gave his word concerning the promises of the New Testament but signed them in Blood.

St. Augustine writes of the gift of Scripture: "God is faithful, for he has put himself under a debt to us, not as if he had received anything from us, but by promising us so much. The word of promise was too little for him: he wanted to bind himself in writing, by giving us, as it were, a handwritten version of his promises."

In Fairness to Lewis... (see previous post)

Here's his self-defense. You make the call. Via Jay Nordlinger of NRO, a CNBC interview with Maria Bartiromo:

BARTIROMO: . . . Do you think that you have misread [the Iraq situation] at all?

LEWIS: Yes, I think I was a little too optimistic, but what I misread, I think, was not so much what happens in Iraq as what happens here.

. . . BARTIROMO: What do you mean?

LEWIS: I mean, the response, the way that the media have reported what's happening in Iraq. I mean, I understand that one bridge destroyed makes a better story than ten bridges built. But nevertheless, the situation in Iraq, the standard of living, the improvement in general conditions to the Iraqi people, and the measure of support that we enjoy among the Iraqis — all these are far better than one would gather from simply following the media.

[Bartiromo asks Professor Lewis about Senator Kennedy's comparison of Iraq to Vietnam.]

LEWIS: I think that is a disastrous comparison. If you listen to the propaganda of the fundamentalists in Iraq and elsewhere, they have a litany that they keep repeating. They say, "The Americans have become degenerate. They are soft and pampered. They can't take it. Hit them and they'll run." And then they repeat: Vietnam, Beirut, Somalia, and all the other small episodes since which brought no effective response. Talking about Vietnam now will merely confirm them, tell them that they are right, because we all know how Vietnam ended, and that will assure them they have a good chance that this will end the same way. And they have just won a considerable success in Spain . . .

BARTIROMO: What has surprised you most about the events in post-war Iraq?

LEWIS: What has surprised me most is the indecision which is shown by us, not by them. You have to remember that we began with a rather unfavorable record. In '91, the time of the Gulf War, President Bush Sr. called on the Iraqi people to revolt against the tyrant. They did. They revolted against the tyrant. In the meantime, we made a cease-fire agreement with the tyrant and then sat and watched while he crushed the revolt . . . You can understand therefore that when we call on them again to revolt, they were rather more cautious. There is, shall we say, a well-grounded mistrust. They know also of the abrupt departures from Somalia, the departure from Vietnam. They don't want to become boat people . . .

BARTIROMO: . . . many have long believed that peace in the Middle East would first have to come between the Arabs and the Israelis. Do you believe that instead peace in Jerusalem will come through Baghdad?

LEWIS: I believe that the peace between the Arabs and the Israelis will come after, not before. At the moment, the conflict is an extremely useful safety valve. It is the licensed grievance all over the Arab world. When they're angry and resentful and embittered, which they all have very good reason to be, for the most part, against their own governments, this provides a means of expressing it, which does no harm to their own governments. Before the invasion of Iraq, people were saying, "We have to settle the Palestine question first and then deal with Iraq." That sent a clear message to Saddam Hussein: Make sure they don't settle the Palestine question.

What Went Wrong With Lewis?

I'm hypmotized by the semi-fall of a "wise man", or so was informally dubbed the great Islamic scholar Bernard Lewis. I know I shouldn't be surprised since it was learned, impressive men who gave us Marxism and Calvinism (not to in any way equate the two but still...).

From Michael Hirsh, an editor at Newsweek:

Perhaps in the long run, you can't Islamicize democracy, and so Islam is simply standing in the way.

Iran is the best real-world test of this hypothesis right now. A quarter century after the Khomeini revolution, Iran seems to be stuck in some indeterminate middle state. The forces of bottom-up secular democratic reform and top-down mullah control may be stalemated simply because there is no common ground whatsoever between their contending visions. That's one reason the Kemalist approach had its merits, Fouad Ajami argued in a recent appearance at the Council on Foreign Relations. “I think Ataturk understood that if you fall through Islam, you fall through a trap door. And in fact, I think the journey out of Islam that Ataturk did was brilliant. And to the extent that the Muslim world now has forgotten this. . .they will pay dearly for it.”

But there is no Ataturk in Iraq (though of course Chalabi, and perhaps Allawi, would still love to play that role). For now, Sistani remains the most prestigious figure in the country, the only true kingmaker. Suspicions remain in the Bush administration that Sistani's long-term goal is to get the Americans out and the Koran in—in other words, to create another mullah state as in Iran. But those who know Sistani well say he is much smarter than that. Born in Iran—he moved to Iraq in the early 1950s, around the time Lewis saw the light—Sistani has experienced up close the failures of the Shiite mullah state next door. He and the other Shiites have also suffered the pointy end of Sunni Arab nationalism, having been oppressed under Saddam for decades, and they will never sanction a return to that. So Sistani knows the last, best alternative may be some kind of hybrid, a moderately religious, Shiite-dominated democracy, brokered and blessed by him and conceived with a nuanced federalism that will give the Kurds, Sunnis and others their due. But also a regime that, somewhat like the Iranian mullahs, uses its distinctive Islamic character, and concomitant anti-Americanism and anti-Westernism, as ideological glue. For the Americans who went hopefully to war in Iraq, that option is pretty much all that's left on the table—something even Bernard Lewis may someday have to acknowledge.

Full article here.

Fictional Monday

“Schedule my midlife crisis for March 21^st, 2007,” Bernard Scully told his secretary on September 3^rd, 2005. “No, I’m not kidding.”

Scully had long wanted a Mercedes both for the fine hood ornament and the thrill of German engineering, and thought that by fulfilling a desire and checking off one of the famous demands of a midlife crisis he could kill two birds with one stone. This was in character, for he had the reputation of exerting the sort of control over his life others dream of. His lists had lists, his plans had plans. It was a joke around the office that he’d scheduled his own circumcision.

Toward the goal of becoming the CEO of a Fortune 500 corporation he read business books voraciously. There were the animal books: “Swimming with the Sharks” and “Taming the Tigers”. There were the etiquette minders: “Using Your Voice to Communicate Authority” and “How to Use Golf to (Pitching) Wedge Your Way to the Corporate Green”.

His philosophy was that your main responsibility in life was to keep yourself happy because happy people don’t cause much trouble. They don’t throw red paint on people for wearing fur and don’t disrupt G-8 summits. They don't abuse their wives or take mind-altering drugs. They aren't extremists of any sort.

Months passed and Scully continued making lists and consuming things in order to make him want to get up in the morning. On the morning of September 3rd his secretary knocked on office door. "It’s time for your mid-life crisis now. What’s it gonna be? Beach bum on Maui?"

He smiled broadly. “Nope. Time for my first Mercedes-Benz.”

At the dealership he caressed the lines of the latest Cabriolet convertible and felt...nothing. He stared at the famous insignia, which looked like the ‘60s peace sign, but felt no peace, no happiness. It was just metal, he thought, morosely. Nothing but sheet metal and car parts that would rust and fill a landfill.

This wasn't in his business books.

“What kind of midlife crisis am I having?” he said to himself. Not even the thought of having an affair or becoming a beach bum lifted his funk. "Affair. Car. Dropping out. What else is there?"

A voice came: the crisis isn't what you haven't gotten, but what you haven't given.

Justice Not Served

It's always disheartening to listen to the female Cokie Roberts, who happens to be a political pundit & public Catholic. I identify her first by gender because it sometimes seems (am I being too male?) that anything that is good for women is good for society.

Her retrospective on Sandra Day O'Connor was, necessarily, a retrospective on the way she felt when Sandra Day O'Connor became the first female SCOTUS. And she positively beamed when another This Week panel member explained how O'Connor was the most powerful justice, as if "power" has now suddenly taken on the the same connotation as "good" or "wise". Oh sure, we all adore our ethnic groups and our gender identities more than things like ideas and principles. So whatever O'Connor espoused, the important thing is that she was a woman, nevermind that at least half of aborted children are females and that O'Connor helped foster its continuation.

Roberts and Gringrich then had a fascinating little exchange. Cokie said that women are more practical, they are good at helping others reach consensus. And Gringrich agreed, saying that O'Connor didn't interpret the American Constitution but interpreted the consensus of the American Zeitgeist. Gringrich said that most women want to figure out how they can meet their opponent half way, while most men want to know how they can beat their opponent. And he was pleased that we're now apparently free to recognize gender differences and Cokie was pleased that Gingrich agreed with her. As long as men are depicted as competitive ape-like figures, then sexual stereotyping is fine.

But I must've missed the news because I didn't know the job description of a SCOTUS changed. That it's now to determine the consensus of the American people instead of interpreting the Constitution. (Although I suppose it is progress that at least she attempted to judge by the opinion of the American people instead of judging by her personal opinion, the way most of the justices have over the past five decades.) The question in the end becomes when does the rule of law become rule-by-arbitrary-opinion? Bill Luse put it well: "It seems that the rule of men is now the rule of law".

Various

I'd like to do a study* of the Psalms and the use of the word "blood". It's often used in the sense a desire to wash in the blood of his enemies...in one Psalm it's rendered "wash my feet in the blood of the wicked". This is interesting in light of how Paul said Christ was "made sin" for us, and how now in the New Covenant we, who are wicked, are washed in the blood of the Holy One.
++

Our priest today had a sermon about how God is sovereign, in the sense of knowing & permitting, random events. Now that’s a real difficulty in a nutshell – moderns understand the randomness in a way ancients didn’t. The ancients didn't know of randomness and saw all events as a personal message from God. Moderns error on the other side by mistaking randomness as something apart from God, rather than something he sees and permits.
++

Abraham seemed to have his greatest test in the sacrifice of Isaac. And he lived years after, to a great old age. He was never tested again as severely. It occurred to me that it’s possible the time of our greatest testing is already behind us! At least we can hope. Just another reason not to borrow trouble.
++

St. Alphonsus tells us that we need to pray for our final perserverance daily not because God is checking off a daily prayer sheet in a desire to deny us final perserverance, but because He knows us so well, knows our single weakness which is to take Him for granted and forget His benefits. He knows well that we would grow complacent and that that which we do not seek with hunger is not appreciated.

* - I found twelve separate references to blood in the Psalms, subdivided into these categories:

Vengeance - 5
God desires Mercy, not Sacrifices - 2
Power of Innocent Blood - 4
Other - 1

I've Gotta Be You

I was reading NRO’s list of recommended summer reads and I learned there was a new biography of C.S. Lewis. I went out to read the comments on Amazon and the gist of the new material is that C.S. Lewis drank a lot. Borderline alcoholic. But I think that’s yet another example of the historian’s mistake of judging the past by the standards of the present. Everyone drank like fish back then. Everyone was “borderline alcoholic”, at least by our present-day MADD-inspired standards. Which is just another indication of just how influenced we are by our society. That’s not to say we don’t have free will, but our behavior lives in a very cramped living space.

Around Town

NR's annual recommendations on beach reads.
~
Sharp pictures from the Saint Rose Priory in Springfield, KY. The "Sacred Heart at Dawn" one is exceptional.


~
John Miller on Shelby Foote's Southernness. "...if the New York Times were reviewing his book afresh this Sunday, he would be portrayed as a crank". Undoubtedly true.

Idiotology

My brother-in-law has been giddy after discovering scientology because it confirms his long held theory that "people are idiots" and Scientology appears to be exhibit A. (I've been lately giddy about the news that Justice Souter's hometown might be thinking of eminent domainin' his property, but that's another post.) Jesus put it in a kindler and gentler way by saying that people are sheep, and there's no question we are severely retarded compared to angels. The key is to find the right teachers and follow them. More on the wrong teachers here, here, and here.

To tune of David Bowie's "Ground Control":

Ground control to Major Tom, Ground control to Major Tom:
Take your protein pills and put your helmet on
Ground control to Major Tom: Commencing countdown engine's on
Check ig-nition and may L Ron be with you

This is ground control to Major Tom, you've really made the grade!
And soon you'll be a Thetan level VI,
Now it's time to leave the spaceship if you dare

This is Major Tom to ground control, I'm stepping through the door
And I'm jumping on the couch in a most peculiar way
And Lauer looks very different today

For here am I sitting in a tin can, far above the world
Planet Earth is blue and there's nothing I can't do

BRIDGE

Though I've spent eight hundred thousand dollars, I'm feeling very still
And I think my spaceship knows which way to go,
tell my ex's I love them very much, they know

Ground control to Major Tom:
Your circuit's off, there's something wrong.
Can you hear me Major Tom?
Can you hear me Major Tom?
Can you hear me Major Tom?