Middle-Class, Middle-Aged, in the Middle West

I've long known that sitting (as I do) on the fence between the Boomers and Generation X is advantageous in the sense of being aware of most trends that afflict both Boomers and Gen X'rs. (For this reason I always think I should be able to exploit this knowledge demographically in the stock market but never do due to sloth.) Certainly it's a conceit of mine that I'm a conduit between the two generations. (This sense is quickly eroding as Drudge linked to a David and Victoria Beckham. I have no idea who these people are but apparently the Gen-Xrs do.)

Still, I tend to be surprised when an anecdote I hear turns out to be far more common than I'd originally thought despite the fact that I live in extremely average circumstances tailor-made for knowing what the guy on the street is thinking. I'm not too young, not too old, not too Western, not to Eastern. I'm a marketer's dream. So I shouldn't be surprised that "Mark's friend", as discussed in the previous post, is hardly alone in his strange interpretation:

There is a lot of good reading on the web right now about the Pope's having declared that there will be no one in heaven but Catholics.

Oops. That's not really what he said, is it? Doesn't matter. That's what everyone is now screaming that he said, and that's good enough for all the people who want to join the screaming.

So it seems the people who are arriving at this interpretation are apparently doing so because the MSM (like the barf-inducing WaPo) is interpreting the document this way. Nevermind that it's like finding the right to an abortion in the Constitution.

Hell If I Know Where That Came From

Called my parents. Half-way through the call:

Dad (muffled, in background): "Tell him about the Pope."

Mom: "Oh yes - Mark's friend said that in the Enquirer yesterday there was a story about the Pope saying that anyone who wasn't Catholic was going to Hell. Did you hear that?"

Ay-yi-yi.

A quick search of the Enquirer archives reveals no story, meaning it must've been picked up elsewhere, probably from the Associated Press. Getting religion stories from the AP is like getting health food news from McDonald's restaurant. Further, getting religion stories from the Associated Press through the lens of an ex-Catholic who never got over the strict nun he had in 4th grade (Mark's friend) is like getting your health food stories from McDonald's via a guy whose sister died of tofu poisoning. It's laughable.

I don't have a clue to what they are referring, but a Vatican document recently said something distinctly non-triumphalistic. See this post. And this one.

I notified the go-to-guy in Cincy, Rich Leonardi, who writes actual, real-live columns for the Enquirer defending the Church against ignorances foreign and domestic. (Ought to be a full-time job.) I suggested the need for another column and he said he'd submitted such one just today on a related subject.

Before Vatican II, to quote Fr. Most, "when Father Feeney said that all who did not have their names on a parish register were lost, Pope Pius XII directed the Holy Office to condemn his error. In its declaration, the Holy Office quoted from the Mystical Body Encyclical of Pius XII, saying people can be saved, 'who are ordered to the Church by a sort of unrecognized [by them] desire and wish.'"

To say that you can be saved through the Church, without consciously being part of the Church, is nothing new. You can be saved by something or someone you don't know by name. St. Augustine said basically the same thing when he wrote, "This very thing, which is now called the Christian religion, existed among the ancients, nor was it lacking from the beginning of the human race until Christ Himself came in the flesh, whence the true religion, that already existed, began to be called Christian...From the beginning of the human race, whoever believed in Him and understood Him somewhat, and lived according to His precepts ... whoever and wherever they may have been, doubtless were saved through Him."

St. Augustine said there is no salvation outside of Christ and yet he asserted that Christianity existed before Christ. That is the same understanding of the Catholic Church, which was instituted by and exists in Christ, and whom Christ identified Himself with so closely as to say: "Saul, Saul why do you persecute me?'... 'I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting." [Emphasis mine.]

As Ralph Martin said in The Catholic Church at the End of an Age:

Some first discover Christ's Body, the Church, and are convinced by her history or theology or structure that she is indeed Christ's Body, but these people need to go on and discover the Head of the Body they have encountered, the source of her life, history, structures, theology, all of which are servants of his, Christ himself. There are others who discover the Person of Christ and are won by his glory, his truth, his power, his radiance. These people need to go on to discover Christ's Body, the Church, and learn to love her and abide in her as Christ loves and abides in her. Christ has identified himself with his Body in a remarkable way: "And he fell to the ground and heard a voice saying to him, 'Saul, Saul why do you persecute me?'... 'I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting'"

UPDATE: Parody blog updated with Pope Outed as a Catholic.

Various




Porn for Reds fans can be found here. (Since there's an extremely small market for that, I offer the beer bottle art at left by way of compensation.)

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Bob Novak's Book

I'd pre-ordered it ages ago, so it's nice to have a "look what I found" come to the house with me unawares. He talks about his conversion to Catholicism, which I'm naturally looking forward to reading. (As well as any gossipy asides about the fellow Capital Gang'rs, back in those ancient days when political talk shows had more substance.) Unfortunately he begins with the Valerie Plame affair, which is not quite as interesting as pumping gas.

This link from is from Drudge explains why Bob Novak is playing "hardball". I'm glad Novak won't have to sit down with the insufferable Chris Matthews or with humorous liberal propagandist Jon Stewart.

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It doesn't take a braniac to figure that in a culture devoted to comfort church weddings are going out of style. Overheard a young newly-married co-worker say: "We had it so that the guests would not have to drive to a reception hall. They could get a drink, find a seat and then enjoy the ceremony and reception."

Yep, because that's what it's all about. The guests' convenience.

A Hodge-Podge of Items Up For Bids

NRO adds to the problem of "so many books, so little time" with their summer reading symposium. The book of (once) private letters of Mother Teresa looks particularly interesting.

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Been reading Annie Dillard's The Maytrees. Like it or not, I guess I find myself more in the lyrical tree-hugging camp than the Eudora Welty-Flannery O'Connor plot-loving camp. (My appreciation of O'Connor is primarily due to her letters.) Dillard takes lyrical leaps and risks incomprehension. Welty wrote in the NY Times of a particularly cryptic Dillard line: "I honestly do not know what she is talking about at such times." More here.

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What's so funny is how politicians like Bill & Hillary Clinton can say "I'm personally against gay marriage" or something like that, when they're not personally against anything other than not being elected to higher office. That "personally opposed" line is like gold for politicians. They owe a debt of gratitude to whoever thought that one up (Mario Cuomo in its current application?).

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Happened to be at a Mormon genealogy center the other day and noticed in the hallway there were nine plaques of Mormon missionaries, each with a favorite scriptural verse. Eight of nine quotes were from the Book of Mormon. I ask thee: Where's the love for the Bible?

Speaking of LDS'rs, Fr. Neuhaus suggests that the election of Romney could help power LDS evangelization...I wonder though...if Romney does for Mormonism what Bush has done for Christianity then...well, draw your own conclusions. The obligatory "I'm just sayin'" applies.

For '08, I am leaning towards Romney these days. In the political game of rock-paper-scissors, the guy who flip-flops to the right side beats the guy who never flip-flopped from the wrong.

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I'm happy for the Motu people. They've been obedient for a long time; they didn't go SSPX or declare the last couple popes illegitimate. They have tried to think with the Church, to the extent they were able, and now that the Church is "thinking with them" they are thrilled. And their "victory" has been sweetened by the their period in the wilderness. I think this well expresses some of the better reasons behind the joy.

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As a kid, I liked the bibles with indexes where you go by want you want to hear given the situation. Whatever your emotion there’s a palliative bible verse. Like if you’re looking for comfort it guides you to Ps 23. But despite my appreciation for it, I could never in good conscience use the bible that way. It just felt like I was driving, instead of God. I mean wouldn’t I end up a Thomas Jefferson who instead of cutting out all the miracle stories from Jesus I cut out all the challenging “hard sayings”? That’s cheating. But because Jesus’ words have to cover a broad audience – i.e. all of humanity - that doesn't mean every hard saying(or easy saying) applies to each individual.

A friend of mine calls a female friend of his "the glurge queen”. I’d never heard the term “glurge” but apparently it’s those sickeningly sweet email forwards you get. The glurge queen sends them at a rate far above any mere mortal. The constant temptation is to become a Christian glurge king or queen and only pass on the sweet, never the “bitter”, i.e the Resurrection, but not the Cross.
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As I wrote yesterday, I sure hope we're far away from this.

* * *Lastly, I was amused by this Bethune Catholic graphic:

Saints and Good Writing

Annie Dillard writes lyrically:

Against blue sea she saw sand crests trace catenary curves against the sky. Knee-high pines marked some hollows...She claimed to like the way starlight smelled on sand. Once Cornelius asked her how the smell of starlight on sand differed from the smell of moonlight - More peppery.
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Maytree picked up cash by moving houses for friends and whacking up additions, at whim. They voted. They were not social thinkers, but their friends were. Their summer friends, in particular, harvested facts row on row from newspapers like mice on corncobs. The Maytrees were not always up-to-the-minute. Their city friends envied their pace.

There are also many arresting one-liners like: "She lacked a woman's sense of doom."

That sort of writing doesn't happen in a vacuum. It is manured with great gobs of free time. In a sense she's the literary equivalent of a contemplative and in fact calls herself a "gregarious reclusive" and refuses interviews and book signings. She shuns the writer-celebrity-marketer game and it's worked mostly because she was well-known before her current book and so had the option of reclusiveness. She was grandfathered in.

One senses that good literature, like good prayer, is partly a function of time. Or at least time is a prerequisite. Her writing productivity seems...shall we say...leisured? Although in fairness, The Maytrees, eight years in the making, began at 1400 pages and was whittled down to 200 or so.

It's easy to be dismissive and say something like, "after eight years of presumably few responsibilities it ought to be good!". Reminds me of what someone I'd knew said about priests - that it was easy for them to be peaceful and calm because they didn't have screaming children or the pressures of the business world. That surely undersells the stress priests experience. I recall one retired priest, who had a temper, saying he hasn't gotten angry at anyone for three years - ever since he retired. He highly recommended it. (Retirement, that is.)

Indeed. But all of these examples merely take advantage of the natural. Don't even pagans do as much? And it feeds into the cynicism that people are just as good (or bad) as their environment allows them to be. The saints crucially refute this. A remarkable passage from Pope Benedict's book (pg 162) declares that the saints stand up for man, and in doing so thereby stand up for God:

Satan derides man in order to deride God: God's creature, whom he formed in his own image, is a pitiful creature. Everything that seems good about him is actually just a façade. The reality is that the only thing man - each man - ever cares about is his own well-being...Satan wants to prove his case through the righteous man Job: Just let everything be taken away from him, Satan says, and he will quickly drop his piety, too. God gives Satan the freedom to test Job, though within precisely defined boundaries...This is a very subtle, still implicit, yet real glimpse of the mystery of substitution that takes on major profile in Isaiah 53: Job's sufferings serve to justify man. By his faith, proved through suffering, he restores man's honor. Job's sufferings are thus by anticipation sufferings in communion with Christ, who restores the honor of us all before God and shows us the way never to lose faith in God even amid the deepest darkness.
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The great saints, from Anthony in his desert to Therese of Lisieux in the pious world of her Carmelite monastery...follow in the footsteps of Job, so to speak; they offer an apologia for man that is at the same time a defense of God. Even more, they enjoy a very special communion with Jesus Christ, who suffered our temptations to the bitter end. They are called to withstand the temptations of a particular time in their own skin, as it were, in their own souls. They are called to bear them through to the end for us ordinary souls and to help us persist on our way to the One who took upon himself the burden of us all.

The Once Grand Old Game?

Watching the pre-game All Star hype show was a grating experience. Oh to be young, I thought, and not know it was not ever thus!

Advertising, the kudzu of American life, has seemed to have reached a tipping point. It taints even ostensibly beautiful moments like the tribute to Willie Mays. I was sitting there thinking: this is to draw in the over 40 demographic... They are using Willie. The 'Say Hey Kid' embodied the love of the game. (How quaint sounds Ernie Banks's "Let's play two!")

Look at it in the context of the pre-game. Everything was about selling. Wasn't it nauseating to see Homer Simpson shilling his new movie via cartoons of various major league players? It just felt so...obvious. Cross-marketing is always painfully obvious. Homer has nothing to do with major league baseball other than they share the same network (FOX) so the connection was forced.

And how self-conscious the game has become! Jimmy Leyland is in the clubhouse before the game exhorting his players not to beat those dreaded National Leaguer's but complimenting them on the fact that baseball is popular again, that even in places like Detroit people are coming out to see the game. Pardon while I puke! Nothing says your sport is in trouble more than a constant self-monitoring of the fan base. Nothing takes the fan out of the spirit of the game more quickly than reminding him it's really all about business.

It's sort of like watching an orchestra interrupt Beethoven's Ninth for a speech about the state of classical music, or a ballet dancer troll for tips in the middle of the ballet. The message Leyland is sending is perhaps unintentionally honest: "We know you players really don't care about the All-Star game but this one is for the fans." And yet people in the business world long for something that takes them away from business. Art, music, literature, sports - we hope that at least those folks are doing it for the love of the craft.

As for me, if a player doesn't want to sign autographs or be what is now called an "ambassador for the game" then I say bully for him! We don't expect Gary Kasparov to be an ambassador for chess and kiss our asses or successfully cross market Tampax tampons. And I, for one, am glad. I would much rather see excellence on the field than excellence in marketing.

What did it have inside, I wonder? The true, the blushful Hippocrene? Actually, that would be uncivilized... if you're going to offer a libation, you pour it on the ground; you don't leave it standing there going "Nyah nyah!" Maybe the vase was filled with crumpled-up sonnets...It tore me up that Keats only came to Italy when he was dying. Rome is the worst place in which to be living a posthumous existence; when I was there, I often felt a kind of panic that I was going to have to leave without seeing some marvelous thing or other. His doctor kept Keats from visiting the famous sights of Rome, fearing that the excitement would weaken him; and as he fell asleep at night, listening to the plash of Bernini's fountain outside his window, the "warm South" must have seemed as distant as it was in England when he imagined it vaguely as a land of "summer waters":

...Happy is England, sweet her artless daughters;
Enough their simple loveliness for me,
Enough their whitest arms in silence clinging:
Yet do I often warmly burn to see
Beauties of deeper glance, and hear their singing,
And float with them about the summer waters.

-- Meredith of "For Keats' Sake!" on a sealed vase left at the grave of John Keats

From Books & Culture: "Our surroundings call forth certain behavior. We tend to act like students when we step in a classroom, and we tend to act like shoppers at the mall. This is . . . the logic of ‘ecological psychology’: I am not a wholly separate entity from my surroundings, but rather, my [surroundings] and I ‘form an interdependent behavior setting.’" That’s what I call a “perfect bite of knowledge.”...It tells me, for instance, why I’ve always insisted on having a study/library in my house, where the kids toys don’t roam and the kids themselves are vowed to civilized behavior when they enter. It explains why I reserve it for study: reading, thought, writing; why I feel like I “dirty it” when I use it to work on projects from my day job. It explains a lot, but in only a few words. It makes me want to learn more about this thing called “ecological psychology.” - Eric of "The Daily Eudemon"

I could never myself believe in God, if it were not for the cross. The only God I believe in is the one Nietzsche ridiculed as “God on the Cross.” In the real world of pain, how could one worship a God who was immune to it? I have entered many Buddhist temples and stood respectfully before the statue of Buddha, his legs crossed, arms folded, eyes closed, the ghost of a smile playing round his mouth, a remote look on his face, detached from the agonies of the world. But each time after a while I have had to turn away. And in imagination I have turned instead to that lonely, twisted, tortured figure on the cross, nails through hands and feet, back lacerated, limbs wrenched, brow bleeding from thorn-pricks, mouth dry and intolerably thirsty, plunged in God-forsaken darkness. That is the God for me! He laid aside his immunity to pain. He entered our world of flesh and blood, tears and death. He suffered for us. ---John Stott via Cowpi Journal

Living in the inner city is certainly a much different experience than the one I grew up with. Our original plan was to live here a few years and then sell the house at a profit. We never ever intended to raise a family here!! But then Mr. Pete decided to start his own business. He thought we would need to be here a few more years. A few has turned into about 20 and we are definitely a fixture in the neighborhood. We are actually one of three Caucasian families on the street, but my kids are very well liked and get along well with the other kids...Preston, an 8th grade friend of Sam's, had to move to another part of the city where his mom bought a house. Ironically, now he is the only black kid in his white neighborhood and he has had trouble getting along with his new neighbors. He frequently takes the city bus across town to come over here and visit. Late in the spring he took the bus to come over to see Sam. He was sad in his new school and didn't like his new neighbor kids. Preston talking to Sam: "Man I just can't get along over there. Everybody's white." Sam with a quirky smile back to Preston: "I'm white." Preston to Sam: "Sam, you aren't really white. You know what I mean." Yes Preston, he knew what you meant. - Elena of "My Domestic Church"

A friend tells me that the blogosphere doesn’t do nuance. In too many instances, I’m afraid he’s right. In last Friday’s posting, I respectfully dissented from my friend John Fund’s assertion that the presidential candidacy of a Mormon will be a test of whether the country has overcome religious barriers... In sum, I am neither supporting nor opposing the candidacy of Mitt Romney. That applies as well to those opposing him for the nomination. I don’t do the endorsement of candidates. I would like to think that this position is not excessively nuanced. - Fr. Neuhaus @ First Things

The Deerhunter Principle applies. What's that? If you're out hunting deer and you see something in the woods that might be a deer but might be a human you are not allowed to shoot it. You can only shoot it if you are certain it is not a human being. Same principle applies whenever you have something that you're not sure if it's a human. So the stem cell procedure must be presumed to be objectively immoral and thus impermissible until such time (if ever) that we know more about how much human DNA something needs to qualify as human. - Jimmy Akin

Inspiration is a mystery. It was the subject of Hopkins's last poem - and he, of all people, was complaining about the lack of it. A number of things - now including Christian Wiman's account - are moving me towards the belief that poetic inspiration really is a spiritual event. - Meredith of "For Keats' Sake!" (I suspect most either love or hate that blog title. I love it.)

Japanese psychological warfare effort during World War II included radio broadcasts that could be picked up by American troops. Popular music was played, but the commentary (by one of several English speaking Japanese women) always hammered away on the same  points; 1 Your President (Franklin D Roosevelt) is lying to you. 2 This war is illegal. 3 You cannot win the war. - from strategypage.com via Bill of Summa Minutiae

Sex, then, continues to fascinate, even as the culture insists that there's nothing to it, "everyone is doing it," and so forth. In a sense, those who abuse sex are often like those who attempt to desacrate a church or altar; they recognize that it is sacred and so launch themelves, even violently, against its implicit authority; it is raw rebellion, for sure, but also a statement of acknowledgement, as sure as the man who opens a door for a woman he has never met makes a statement about what it means to be male and female. - Carl Olson of "Insight Scoop"

I was playing for a bridal shower yesterday. That's unusual in itself...People with Y chromosomes just don't get invited to those. So this was my first, so far as it went. I played for the bride-to-be when she arrived followed by a few other tunes. When they got down to the serious business of the bridal showering activity, whatever that might be, I was given my fee and the door. But that's not the point of this. What I actually learned yesterday, is that dogs understand English better than I thought. More than just "heel", "sit", "beg", and "squirrel!!". I was sitting in an out of the way spot as various guests arrived. The family dog was having a great time giving the visitors a welcoming sniff and allowing himself to be petted by those so inclined. One woman was a little late. The dog welcomed her, approved, and started to trot off as she explained to the hostess why she was late. "I had to pick up Jody from Little League. And then we had to take the dog to the vet, come home and change and it just took longer than I thought." At the words "dog to the vet", that dog spun around and stared at the woman for a good 15 seconds, quite obviously trying to determine if he was the dog in question and if evasive action was needed. The answers appeared to be "no" and "no" so he went back to the front door to resume his duties. It was wonderful to see. Clear understanding where understanding was not expected. -John at "The Inn at the End of the World"

We, too, are held to our own crosses not by physical things, but by our own love for Him...I suppose it would be nice, in a way, to be held to the cross of Christian living by something stronger and more reliable than free will. If God is Love, though, then depending on our own love in response likely isn't a regrettable side-effect of an arbitrarily chosen means of salvation; it's kind of the only way that makes sense. - Tom of Disputations

Breaking News

My understanding is that something called Motu Proprio has just been promulgated. "Motu Proprio" is Latin for "many posts" and has already lived up to its name.

I'm not an expert on things liturgical but Motu, or MP for short, concerns the re-living of the year 1962 in a sort of Groundhog's Day redux.

But to get serious for a minute, the natural concern is for a further fracturing of the Roman Catholic community along liturgical lines. I propose this is not a problem because the difference between a respectful Novus Ordo Mass and a Saturday guitar Mass complete with liturgical dancers is at least as wide a chasm as between the Old Mass and the respectful Novus Ordo. But I have no statistical backing on that. Parishes in my neck of the woods are as different as girls and boys; that is, there are some with kneelers for Communion and long Confession lines and others which offer "Hippy Masses" with old folk songs.

My 1996 visit to an SSPX 1962 Mass was astonishingly different from my Latin Mass visit, (where the New Mass is simply said in Latin). I can't recall all the differences except to say the former felt much more other-wordly.

Remember what you paid for this post!

Pope Benedict Quote

"If Francis Xavier was able to pray to God, saying, ‘I love you, not because you have the power to give heaven or hell, but simply because you are you – my kin and my God,' then surely he had needed a long path of inner purifications to reach such ultimate freedom- a path through stages of maturity, a path beset with temptation and the danger of falling, but a necessary path nonetheless."

--From Jesus of Nazareth (no copies at the local Borders - a papal diss or underestimated demand?)

The Scooter Libby news...

...was almost stale upon impact and in a fortnight will be ancient hisory, but shamefully Parody is Therapy piles on... Please see my blog title for an explanation.

Rational Voters

Interesting New Yorker article on voting, or rather a book review of an economist's view of American voters. Not surprisingly he says voters should be required to take econ courses.

Of course voting would be an irrational exercise even if everyone had economics expertise and every vote mattered in the statistical sense. The reviewer points out that "many policy decisions don’t have an optimal answer. They involve values that are deeply contested: when life begins, whether liberty is more important than equality, how racial integration is best achieved (and what would count as genuine integration)."

The point I would add to the reviewer's counterpoints to the book is that the desirability of more productivity is easier in the abstract to dismiss. In real life it has huge consequences less to the middle class and rich so much as to the poor. The better off can afford to be more sanguine about sacrificing a point here or two of GNP while not recognizing the onerous effects on the poor, who suffer economic downturns more harshly than anyone else. (But here I skate on very thin ice; good economic growth also tends to obsolete the cheaper products that would be very helpful to the poor, such as small, fuel efficient cars and affordable housing.)

Update: Terrence Berres quotes Arthur Lupia. I agree that a voter can fail to name the Chief Justice and that certainly doesn't make him a "bad voter". You can use "voter shortcuts". The only problem is sometimes those shortcuts are based on bad information, like not being aware that there's a link between taxation and economic growth. It's one thing to decide to sacrifice the latter, it's another to think there's a free lunch.

Various

Here's my candidate for most understated post from an MP fan concerning the MP. It's the sort of stiff-upper-lip post one might expect from an Englishmun after winning the big football game. I was oddly cheered by it.

Speaking of football, at least the American version rather than soccer, in the mid-70s we played a variant of football called, rather accurately, Kill the Man With the Ball. My favorite running back was always Earl Campbell, he who had the upright, thrilling brand of running back.

That brand of running exacts a toll, one that Earl currently pays for in spades, by scarcely being able to walk:

It's obvious to everyone but Campbell that his physical condition, on the decline for years, is the direct result of his bullish running style. Campbell repeatedly led with his helmet when taking on defenders, raising the question of concussions in addition to the toll taken on his neck and back.

Campbell, however, maintains his physical condition is genetic.

"It's not because of football," Campbell said angrily when a reporter inferred otherwise. "The most serious injury I got from football was a broken finger and broken ribs."

How common is that? The fanaticism and individuality that led him to his unique bull-headed running style was also that which keeps him from admitting that that was the cause of his current injuries.

Things Visible and Invisible

I've been lately interested in how much appreciating creation intersects appreciating the Creator. Here is a hodge-podge of quotes more or less related to the question:* * *

"What is so sad about this is that we considered this new joy an escape from God rather than an entrance into God's self-giving mystery. The deep sensuality occasioned by a place like the beach - the brief, rapturous loss of breath when one is smothered by a wave, the feel of sand under toes; the unquenchable grandeur of the plain of the ocean illuminated by the moonlight - all herald the closeness of the Maker. This was evident to Ignatius Loyola, about whom we had read nothing at Georgetown Prep. Loyola celebrated and encouraged the practice of "seeing God in all things" - even in the nautical world." - Mark Judge

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"O God Who wished Blessed Margaret be blind from birth so that the eyes of her soul, enlightened by your grace, might more clearly see the value of spiritual realities..."

-from the prayer for the canonization of Blessed Margaret of Costello

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"I suppose when I say that the moral basis of Poetry is the accurate naming of the things of God, I mean about the same thing that Conrad meant when he said that his aim as an artist was to render the highest possible justice to the visible universe. For me the visible universe is a reflection of the invisible universe." -- Flannery O'Connor, Habit of Being, p 128 , via Deep Furrows, who writes,

"Conrad had a great fidelity to the justice of the universe; Hawthorne had a great passion for concrete things infused with reason - even if this required the soft light of the moon to reveal itself."

Fiction for a Summer Day

The sky in Summer, Ohio is a pale blue, a crowning blue made so partly because it is the color of his childhood sky, the one that entered his bloodstream, copped a ride on a red cell and became a part of him. Surely that was the genesis of his gross prejudice against sister states, against Michigan and its Upper Pen blue or Wisconsin and its all-year autumnal feel. Points farther south seemed somehow artificial, "Hotlanta" and places hip with touristy hotels and schlock and schlift. Florida and SC's lower palm branches withered, as if planted just slightly too far north, as if evidence of a desire to force a dream, the Parrothead's dream symbolized by wavy palms. Some have front yards with artificially green grass or sad patchwork affairs half made of sand and half of blade. Tennessee and North Carolina have their bruiting mountains and are the rural equivalent of NYC: "nice place to visit but I wouldn't want...". Well, maybe he would want to live there.

In Ohio, all the plants seem like natives. Nothing forced. Time unwinds. There is no need for an adage, "What happens in Ohio stays in Ohio" for that is presumed. Queen Anne sends her lace and next month visits Herr Goldenrod. But even in Ohio not everything is natural. Young men and women tattoo themselves, some as a way to bruise themselves before life does so as to assert control. Others for romantic reasons for, as Chesterton said, "only the permanent is romantic" and there is precious little permanent these days. Not even tattoos?

Every year, in late May or early June a rich father endows Ohioans with a large room addition. He doubles their square footage, provides habitable back yards complemented by stunning displays of sun, leaf and sky. Temperatures party in the late 80s all day, accompanied by breezes with a knack for timely visits. The sky is unblemished by clouds or jet streaks and you can see the sun at high elevations, like on the necks of forty-foot tall Douglas firs.

Like the beachgoer who moves with the tide, he moves his chair every half-hour or so to catch the newly dappled sun under the red maple. He felt guilty leaving Ohio near the June equinox; it felt an insult. The sun here seems to hold memories, as if its rays were resin and slowly - so slowly! - memories of summer picnics where adults sat stoically and enjoyed such risible things as food and good company and good weather while the kids played tag and baseball games and looked under big rocks in creek beds for crawdads...

Live Blogging the Weekend     --excerpting my journal so you don't have to

That morning, bright back-lit by the sun, we hit the Frisch's buffet, and if the food was only average we made the day special by this signaturely unusual event. The day was sprung forward with possibility, with the knowledge that nothing but a July dutyless day lay ahead. I had pancakes and French toast and eggs and chocolate milk and bacon and sausage and the best biscuit you ever tasted. My wife thought the waitress an extra from StarTrek given that her eye liner left the orbit of her eye and traveled at a right angle up towards her eyebrow. I'd somehow not noticed, in my pre-meal low blood sugar, large earrings that looked exactly like earplugs.

We got back home with Day left as far as the eye could see. The sky was a jelly blue and we set about creating our own magical paradise. I spent the morn clipping the peach tree in order to widen the available ground for the new trees while my wife set about, with great dilligence, her project of defeating the forces of evil in the form of rainstorms that destroy the mulch between the driveway and the patio. She’d bought these reddish sandstone stones and planned to arrange them just so...

The bike path beckoned. The rhythm of comfort, the rhythm of the large thigh muscles making the same motion for over an hour. The song glaze donut’d down on me. The Japanese beetles blitzed the air like Japanese Zeroes during WWII. Fat groundhogs ate fearlessly, right there next to the path with noses that looked like as big and black as Deputy Dawg’s.

It was funny but the longer I biked the easier it was. I thought there might be a metaphor in there somewhere but I wasn’t in the mood for looking for metaphors. In the beginning I was annoyed by the squeak of the bike from it getting rained on too much lately and by the rub of the tire against the brake. It seemed hard to peddle, but soon it seemed easier.

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Woke up Wednesday in a state of mild ecstasy (an oxymoron?) at the prospect of the day. My mouth salivated; I imagined watching my college history lectures on VHS and then Ken Burns’ Civil War epic.

After Mass went to meet my wife at Anderson’s where we spent $380 on 14 new trees, a remarkably good price for trees of three to six feet in height. I’d had a burst of inspiration when last night I’d walked to that special part of the property behind the field, that little private place sandwiched between fifty small maples and a few large evergreens. My wife was okay with it because she loves trees and wanted to buy up the entire Anderson’s stock anyway so that’s the very definition of two people being on the same page.

Huge, huge rains came around 2pm. I’d planned to hit the local park but turned around and came home both because of the threat of rain and because I’d rather be home. Eager to read the novel “The Road” by Cormac McCarthy, I moved to the open garage, set up a spot with seat and footrest, and heard crashing thunder and lightning so loud that it defied description. Ear-splitting, one is reminded that nature doesn't fool around. It looked so miserable just five feet away, such a small distance to misery. The rains were coming down unbelievably as the thunder crashed like a bombing raid.