Team Mind Games

It's funny how newspapers and fans tend to build up, in their minds, the image of their competitors while giving their own team short shrift. For example, when the St. Louis Cardinals began losing games left and right, the St. Louis paper was all doom and gloom even while they held a 1/2 game lead over the Astros with three games to play. It was basically "over", and yet the Cards went on to win the division.

And now they won the first game of the playoffs and the headline is "Carpenter, Bullpen Give Cards New Life", which is sort of funny since this was the first game of the playoffs. They already had "new life" - they are in the post-season. New life assumes you are dead, and the only dead teams are those not in the playoffs.

Lacking confidence in your team is probably a way to avoid disappointment as well as make any victories sweeter. You can see a bit of it in politics. The Republicans are saying the '06 elections are going to be a huge, uphill battle, while the Democrats aren't prematurely celebrating anything yet.

Interview

...with art historian Elizabeth Lev, who formed a tour agency in Rome:

What drove me to St. Peter's was that once I got beyond this formal discussion of the balance, the symmetry and order of the works of art, there seemed to be something left in the discussion. It seemed to me over the years, St. Peter's has revealed itself to me slowly, but always with the promise that there is more coming. You see how the work of Bernini reveals the interaction of the Holy Spirit throughout the church. When Bernini is working in St. Peter's he's trying to make us understand the presence of the Holy Spirit. When Michelangelo's in the church, he's trying to give us more of the physical presence of God. So the way that art and history, and this sacredness of place all work together, provides just a constant draw to St. Peter's.
__

St. Peter's is the site of my reversion I'd have to say. I grew up Catholic but I left the church with such a door-slamming, bridge-burning attitude that if you'd have told me that when I was 25 that one day all I would ever want to do is go into St. Peter's and talk about God, I would have slapped you silly probably.

"All loss is redeemed!"

Translations

I have mixed emotions about dynamic equivalent biblical translations. On the one hand it feels like they're taking liberties, like they're "stealing a base" as Jonah Goldberg might say. But sometimes they steal that base with such finesse and beauty that I find myself a converted by the language.

An example is Psalm 143. The Revised Standard has verses 5-8:

I remember the days of old,
I think about all your deeds,
I meditate on the works of your hands.
I stretch out my hands to you;
my soul thirsts for you like a parched land.

Answer me quickly, O Lord, my spirit fails.
Do not hide your face from me,
or I shall be like those who go down into the Pit.

Let me hear of your steadfast love in the morning,
for in you I put my trust.
Teach me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul.

The New Jerusalem version, has it:

I recall the days of old,
reflecting on all your deeds,
I ponder the works of your hands,
I stretch out my hands to you,
my heart like a land thirsty for you.

Answer me quickly, Yahweh,
my spirit is worn out;
do not turn away your face from me,
or I shall be like those who sink into oblivion.

Let dawn bring news of your faithful love,
for I place my trust in you;
show me the road I must travel
for you to relieve my heart.

I find the New Jerusalem superior, at least with respect to the last two verses. The RSV in this case sounds more distant, more God-at-arm's-length. You can more easily feel the fatigue in the NJ's "my spirit is worn out" and the desperation in "oblivion" rather than "pit". The phrase "reflecting on all your deeds" reminds me of Mary reflecting on the words said to her by the angel and by Jesus, as well as us in our rosary meditations. "Let dawn bring news of your faithful love" is more appropriate than "Let me hear of your steadfast love in the morning", more musical and softer -- to say to someone, "Let me hear from you..." can sound like an order, far different from "Let dawn bring word from you...". The first is like the conversation between business workers, the latter between lovers. "Steadfast" is a colder word than "faithful"; we might normally hear it in these terms: "a steadfast employee...a faithful husband".

The final line, "Show me the road I must travel for you to relieve my heart", although presumably a very creative translation, expresses my own sentiments (if not the Psalmist's) more accurately than "Teach me the way I should go, for to you I lift up my soul". Flannery O'Connor once wrote that she could "never describe my heart as 'burning' to the Lord (who knows better) without snickering" and in a somewhat similar way I think my announcement to the Lord that I'm lifting up my soul to Him doesn't ring as true as the NJ version.

Reading the Tea Leaves

It seems kind of odd that none of the new Catholic Channel's personalities are familiar, at least to me. When they were choosing personalities it appears there was no decision to "round up the usual suspects".

I would've liked to see Fr. John Catoir, but it's interesting that there's no Fr. Manning (of Larry King Live fame) or Fr. Dietzen or the infamous Fr. McBrien. I was thinking the channel would try to position itself on the progessive side of things since that wing would seem to be underrepresented on EWTN (my understatement of the day) but the list of names doesn't seem to give any indication of that.

The flyer for the event describes it thus: "Jesus of the Gospel never shrank from entering into intimacy with persons encountered in his ministry. The bonds he formed created a unity only rivaled by the nature of the Trinity. What has happened in today’s Roman Catholicism?... Psychology has helped countless couples find intimacy. Can it advise the Church, our Church?" The way it advised the Church, our Church, on how to cure the priest pederasts? - Terrence Berres of "The Provincial Emails"

It's bad luck to be superstitious. Except in baseball. - John at "The Inn at the End of the World"

Few would expect Muslims to sit idly by if Christians seized control of and denied Muslims access to the Kaaba in Mecca and the Dome of the Rock and al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. It would be fully expected that Muslims would retaliate and seek to reclaim control of or access to their holy sites. Common sense makes it difficult not to see among the chief lessons of the Crusades "Don't conquer half of another group's civilization without expecting reprisals" and "Don't touch a people's holy sites without expecting retaliation." Far from being embarrassed by what the crusaders did, contemporary Christians should be proud that--despite their own internecine struggles in the Middle Ages--prior generations of Christians found the wherewithal to do precisely what Muslims would do in the same situation. Christians today certainly should deplore evil acts committed during the Crusades, such as the massacres of innocent Muslims and Jews that periodically occurred, as well as the entire debacle of the Fourth Crusade. However, the enterprise of the Crusades themselves had two important goals at its core: the defense of Christian civilization against outside aggression (making the Crusades as a whole wars of self-defense) and securing access to the holy sites that commemorate to the most important events in world history. - Jimmy Akin

Where the book takes an even more interesting twist - and it wil be interesting to see the reviews in Protestant circles, some of whom are already not too keen on [N.T.] Wright because of that whole New Perspectives on Paul business - is at the end, when he settles on a paradigm to blame for all of this: Western (particularly North American) Protestant Neo-Gnosticism. You'll really have to read it to get what he's saying completely, but it comes down to this: his opinion that Protestantism has a gnostic core, having been founded on the conviction that the Catholic Church was "hiding" the truth about Christianity, and that it was up to them to reveal the real Jesus. - Amy Welborn

Mussalmans have an ordeal to pass through. There can be no doubt that they are too free with the knife and the pistol. The sword is an emblem of Islam. But Islam was born in an environment where the sword was, and still remains, the supreme law. The message of Jesus has proved ineffective because the environment was unready to receive it. So with the message of the Prophet. The sword is yet too much in evidence among the Mussalmans. It must be sheathed if Islam is to be what it means - peace. - Ghandi, on Muslims, via Jeff of "Curt Jester"

Perhaps part of the reason most of us aren't likely to be put to a shameful death is that we don't much hope in God. We live, not in hope, but in expectation. We expect things of ourselves and of other humans, but we have learned not to expect things of God. That doesn't sound good, but I think it's the correct lesson; God has a way of doing the unexpected, and it's hard to construct expectations around that. We're left busily expecting things today and tomorrow, and leaving all that hope in God stuff for after we're dead. A hope like that isn't likely to stir the wicked to revilement and torture. - Tom of Disputations

One of the more ridiculous things I hear [Bengals] fans say is they're "defending our turf,'' as if it's London in 1940. No, you're not. You're rooting for a collection of individuals who live here 6 months of the year and wouldn't know the mayor if he handed them the keys to a Benz. - Paul Daughtery

A good work talked about is a good work spoilt. - St. Vincent de Paul

I watched for years as liberals cocooned themselves in an impenetrable web of smugness till they were utter out of touch with reality. One doesn't achieve this typically without something in your background that you can really be proud of. Liberalism has much to be proud of: the civil rights movement, seeing America through the Depression and WWII, a serious willingness to engage things like the rights of migrant works, etc...Liberalism had a legacy of greatness and goodness--and it knew it. The problem came in, as always, with pride. You begin to isolate yourself from criticism, because the criticism comes from those toads who voted for Nixon, who supported Vietnam, who were so wrong about the Civil Rights Act....The simple fact is, I cannot, for one second, believe that either Christ, nor any bishop in the world (including, particularly, the Holy Father) would do anything but laugh (or weep) at the American Right's excuses for torture. - Mark Shea

An older lady, a retired teacher, came and sat with me. She was very interested in The Da Vinci Code, from what I gathered; and had been pulling for a Jesus/Mary Magdalene relationship for forty years, which I guess means ever since Jesus Christ Superstar came out. - Maureen of "Aliens in this World"

Why would you want a pair of shoes commemorating LAUNDRY? What's next? Shoes with little toilet brushes on them? - MamaT of "Summa Mamas", on $135 dress shoes with pictures of laundry on them

Any subculture exists at its own risk, and can be easily turned in on itself...The self-protective instincts within the [clerical] culture are no different from the same instincts that exists within the law, the medical profession, the military, teaching, or even a family...The dominance of Irish priests who made up the core of the Florida priesthood from the 50's on, had to take on some sort of subcultural aspect, and it did. Those of us who have worked in it have seen it close up. It has its great qualities - a celebratory spirit, a determination to work hard and build up something concrete, and, yes, a generosity. But it has a downside, as well, and one that we see doesn't just involve clerics, but involves many more people in a parish culture in which, in the absence of diocesan controls and audits, much damage can be done. It's a subculture in which secrets are rampant. It's a subculture which joins forces with another subculture - the actively homosexual clerical subculture - and the two, which actually and actively despise each other, weave an intricate, perverse bond of secrecy in which everyone tacitly agrees to keep everyone's secrets - so the party can go on. - Amy Welborn

The father of a 17-year-old Shiite youth killed in an Israeli air strike...asked the youth minister, "Why are Christians helping Muslims?" The minister shared the story of the Good Samaritan and asked, "Who was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?" The father responded, "The one who had mercy on him." The youth minister then recited the words of Jesus in Matthew 5: "But I tell you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be sons of your Father in heaven." Touched, the father of the deceased boy said, "We have many Christian friends. But we never knew that you have these teachings." - Christianity Today

One of Life's Little Mysteries

I really can't understand why Amy Robach isn't on this list.

Parody blog updated...

Today's topics include Sherrod Brown and the rehab cliche. Mark Foley's entering rehab is today's non-sequitor.

Make Zippy Pay! :-)

Weekend Quotables

Later, in defense of Herman Melville's passion for minutiae, spread out over hundreds and hundreds of pages, [E.L.] Doctorow concludes: "It is indisputable in my mind that excess in literature is its own justification." - Sunday's Columbus Dispatch
__

"The contemporary reader would do well to read the King James side by side with the Revised Standard. Some lovingly stereophonic truths come of the fact that a devotion to God did not preclude the use of narrative strategies." - E.L. Doctorow regarding the book of Genesis
__

Perhaps there is a sense in which each and every saint, even those who were scholars, would be regarded as insane by many in the modern world because of their devotion to a way of life that was completely senseless apart from the Gospel. Every saint is troubling. Every saint reveals some of our fears and makes us question our fear-driven choices. - Jim Forest
__

Two kinds of memoirs are worth reading: those whose authors have led such long and fascinating lives that the prose almost doesn't matter, and those in which the writing is so insightful or gorgeous that the events described are almost irrelevant. Jonathon Franzen's strange little collection of autobiographical essays doesn't fall into either category. - Columbus Dispatch book review
__

St. Francis saw the glory of God in the birds and the streams and the stars, in all the creatures of our God and king. He was not imagining it; he was no jaded primitivist! He was in love with God and longed more than anything to praise him aright...When we praise God, we surely render unto him what he does not need. But for precisely the above all do we praise him, that he does not and cannot need our praise. - Anthony Esolen in Touchstone
__

When all else is lost and gone forever, there is yearning. One of the few welcome lessons age teaches is that only desire trumps time. - from Cold Mountain author Charles Fraizer's latest novel

St. Thérèse of Lisieux



Photo depicts St. Therese acting the role of St. Joan of Arc in a play -- the accessible saint of the little way imitates an inaccessible saint of the big way. Although if the little way were that accessible we'd all be saints. (More accurately, the way is accessible, it's just narrow.)

I Just Don't Understand

Watched some of the Brown-DeWine debate on Meet the Press and it's astonishing that Sherrod Brown, the Ohio Democratic contender for the Senate, could tell such a whopper on television like "we would've overthrown Saddam Hussein ultimately by sanctions, by doing what we were doing [without war]".

Yeah, just like we overthrew Fidel Castro. Besides, weren't those Iraqi economic sanctions so effective during the '90s?

The Republicans in Ohio have been so bad that it's like they're giving the Dems the ball and yet Brown somehow hoses a lay-up. All Brown had to do during his appearance was avoid lying and avoid making ridiculous statements that insult our intelligence.

There's a reason there's been twelve years of Republican one-party rule in Ohio. There's only one real party.

Catholic Books on the Web

Note to me: Add to template/favorites.

Chesterton on Poe

If any reader knows anything about Edgar Allen Poe hanging out with Jesuit seminarians near New York City, I'd appreciate any information you might have. In Googling for that info I found Chesterton's thoughts on Poe here:

For the reader who wishes that Chesterton had written a book about Edgar Allan Poe, the wish is fulfilled in this book about Stevenson. But a book is not needed. Chesterton sums up Poe in one paragraph.

Dark wine, dying lamps, drugging odours, a sense of being stifled in curtains of black velvet, a substance which is at once utterly black and unfathomably soft, all carried with them a sense of indefinite and infinite decay…The point of Poe is that we feel that everything is decaying, including ourselves; faces are already growing featureless like those of lepers; roof-trees are rotting from root to roof; one great grey fungus as vast as a forest is sucking up life rather than giving it forth; mirrored in stagnant pools like lakes of poison which yet fade without line or frontier into the swamp. The stars are not clean in his sight; but are rather more worlds made for worms. And this corruption is increased, by an intense imaginative genius, with the addition of a satin surface of luxury and even a terrible sort of comfort… This dark luxury has something almost liquid about it. Its laxity seems to be betraying more vividly how all these things are being sucked away from us, down a slow whirlpool more like a moving swamp. That is the atmosphere of Edgar Allan Poe; a sort of rich rottenness of decomposition, with something thick and narcotic in the very air.

Elsewhere on the 'net, Joseph Pearce writes:

"Certain things are accepted in a lump by all the Moderns," Chesterton complained in a review of a book by Noyes, "mainly because they are supposed (often wrongly) to be rejected with horror by all the Ancients." Taking the example of Edgar Allan Poe, Chesterton remarked that the moderns hijacked their favorite ancients, bestowing honorary modernity on them. Poe had been "set apart as a Modern before the Moderns," whereas he was "something much more important than a Modern . . . he was a poet."

More Chesterton on Poe:

Moreover, it is worthy of remark that when a poet really was morbid it was commonly because he had some weak spot of rationality on his brain. Poe, for instance, really was morbid; not because he was poetical, but because he was specially analytical. Even chess was too poetical for him; he disliked chess because it was full of knights and castles, like a poem. He avowedly preferred the black discs of draughts, because they were more like the mere black dots on a diagram. Perhaps the strongest case of all is this: that only one great English poet went mad, Cowper. And he was definitely driven mad by logic, by the ugly and alien logic of predestination. Poetry was not the disease, but the medicine; poetry partly kept him in health. He could sometimes forget the red and thirsty hell to which his hideous necessitarianism dragged him among the wide waters and the white flat lilies of the Ouse. He was damned by John Calvin; he was almost saved by John Gilpin.

After church ...

...had the usual talk with our church-going agnostic. He's a strong believer in experience and he's particularly mad that God hasn't made himself more obvious to him, a common lament (Benedict, then Cardinal Ratzinger, wrote in one of his books that he sometimes wished God would make leave a heavier footprint, or words to that effect). Anyway, pray for him.

Experience Uber Alles

I am a Democrat
because they helped my dad when he was low.

I am a scientist
because I’ve seen the good things science has given us.

I am not a Catholic--
look what they did to Galileo!

I am not an Evangelical--
did you know Pat Robertson lied about having a child out of wedlock?

I don’t much believe in God
because He’s never done much for me.