Various & Sundry

It's pretty hard to make Michael Scott a sympathetic figure, but the writers at "The Office" have managed to do so: Scott, in the end, considered his company more trustworthy than his live-in girlfriend. Sad. And as he said, with an unintended double entendre: "You expect to get screwed by a company. You don't expect to get screwed by your girlfriend."
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Amy Welborn has an excellent post up on navigating between despair and the we're-all-good-Catholics-now sentiment.
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Review of Frank Schaeffer's new tell all book, which I just borrowed from the library. Pertinacious Papist mentions it here. Mark Shea writes: "There's definitely a 'Daddy Dearest' edge to what he writes as he labors to exorcise his demons, but he sure can turn pain into comedy."
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An Oirish poem from Google Books:
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Shakespeare's Seven Ages of Man in Stained Glass

Good Books for Kids



As regular readers know, I often find buying children's books a chore because the political correctness* gets tedious and it's hard to judge whether the book is a quality book or is just living off its PC bona fides. I'm also not too fond of the other extreme. Yet. (Although you can't help but smile at the title of "Help! Mom! The Ninth Circuit Nabbed the Nativity" by Katharine DeBrecht.)

A plentitude of research within St. Blog's suggest these are worthwhile Christmas or birthday gifts:

The Cottage at Bantry Bay - Hilda Van Stockum;

Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices - Paul Fleischman;

The King of Ireland's Son - Padraic Colum;

The Daring Book for Girls - Andrea J. Buchanan;

Swan Town: The Secret Journal of Susanna Shakespeare - Ortiz

Half Magic - Edward Eager

The Borrowers - Mary Norton

The Devil's Arithmetic - Jane Yolen

The Rescuers - Margery Sharp

Johnny Crow's Garden - L. Leslie Brooke

Millions of Cats - Wanda Gag

The Donkey & the Golden Light

A Little History of the World - Ernst Hans Gombrich (nonfiction)

The Miraculous Tale of Two Maries

Little House in the Highlands - Mellisa Wiley

American Born Chinese - a graphic novel by Gene Yang

The Railway Children - E. Nesbit

Outlaws of Ravenhurst - Sr. Imelda

The Jesus Garden - Antoinette Bosco

more gift ideas here

These also looked good to me though had no imprimaturs:

Black Potatoes: The Story of the Great Irish Famine - S. Bartoletti

Library Lion - Michelle Knudsen

Maximilian Kolbe: Saint of Auschwitz - Elaine Murray Stone

Fight for Life #1 (Vet Volunteers) - Laurie Halse Anderson

I probably could've saved time merely by polling Elena and Bill and Smock & Mama and Ham o' Bone, though the latter has all boys. (I did ask Steven.) It looks like the Catholic bookeater has something up too.

Much help was found here, a writer whose children's books look very good also. Her blog has the winsome banner shown at top of this post. Melissa Wiley's master list of good books is here.
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* - i.e....

Art credit here; hope I don't get sued

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UPDATE: Bill sent me a couple good book leads: Antoinette Bosco's "The Jesus Garden". For beginning readers (or almost-beginning) it's "Ducks in Muck" ("the first book read cover to cover by 2 of our kids so far" he says). Also sweet Mary Herboth recommends Outlaws of Ravenhurst by Sr. M. Imelda, S.L.. These books should help with Christmas buying.

Update II : "My Life As...." books by Bill Myers, recommended by bingo co-worker Kim.
http://128.121.136.95/

"Joe, rounded third and headed to heaven.''

Long-time Reds announcer and Cincinnati favorite Joe Nuxhall died yesterday.

     

Here's a previous post on this blog regarding his retirement, and a Reds tribute page here. I recall getting his autograph when I was kid at a local Oktoberfest while standing next to the stench of a limberger cheese stand.

He was active in charities, such as this farm for abused children:

The facility is one of five dreams for Nuxhall, and it will be paid for through contributions made to the Joe Nuxhall Hope Project. Its mission is "to inspire hope in the hearts of children and young people who've had it taken from them."

May he rest in peace.

Folger Shakespeare Library Photos

Some sharp images found here:

       

Fiction for a Thursday

It's been five months - five months! - since I last wrote anything tolerable fiction-wise. (I always find out if what I wrote was any good a couple weeks later: if I can read it without vomiting I know it wasn't too bad.) So I must try to exercise the muscle if only for my primary audience for fiction, Nigerian scammers. I figure that if they can send me fiction, I can return the flavor. My goal is to be the best bad fiction writer I can be. Use it or lose it!
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It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. It was the time I'd just gotten used to my office, it was the time I was losing my office. Mornings I would huddle over my black mother's milk and cry:

"Employer loves me,
this I know,
because this office
tells me so!"

An office meant one thing: a door, which implied a hinge, which implied closure, which implied privacy. It inspired me sometimes to the point of uttering corporate buzzwords: "Metrics" I ticced, saying it every third word like someone suffering from a corporate Tourette syndrome.

The privacy was visual, not audial, and I sat next to someone who made Eliza Doolittle sound like Ella Fitzgerald. Like a super action figure, her body-made-for-sin would stun men (think Wonderwoman with her magic belt) before she slayed them with words. The perfect obverse of a phone sex operator, even earplugs could not din the cries of this banshee when something went wrong.

I was losing my office and going back to a roofless cube clochán because the guy at the top of the hierarchy eschewed hierarchy and wanted a flatter, more democratic organization on the ground if not on the org chart. He'd also read in a management book that workers were more productive if there was more light, so all offices next to windows were torn down, as well as those which lacked a view, and I lived in hope that some day beer-drinking would be found a productivity aid.

My office functioned as a womb. Hot coffee attended me, her hot breath on my face just before I drank. I usually picked up a cinamon roll from the cafeteria, lacivious with frosting. On special days I'd buy Kellogg's Corn Pops, with its single-serving cylindrical package, and pour the milk in and eat it sans spoon. A picture of my wife and children sat to the left of the computer screen. Earphones were handy for symphonic inspiration while I "added value", as the term went, by creating print advertisements which would hopefully induce more people to buy more product.

Often I'd have to go to meetings at Jason's office where after fifteen minutes his screen-saver of family vacation photos kicked on. In other settings interest in that would quickly flag, but here it became very distracting. Jason's glasses were so crisp and new-fashioned that I'd alternate between eyeing the glasses holding in his bald dome and his children playing with the dog.

Once I was asked to give a presentation on the fall campaign, something I hadn't fleshed out yet, and while groping for words Stan said, "Don't stop."

I had the punchline ready.

"To quote Michael Scott, "That's what she said!"

A German Prayer

My aunt recently told me that she remembers her grandmother teaching her a little prayer in German. In English it goes: "I am small. My heart is pure. I don't want anyone in except Jesus alone." In German it rhymes: "Ich bin klein, mein Herz ist rein, soll niemand drin wohnen, als Jesus allein." (I couldn't find the origin of the prayer on the internet.) My father remembers the same grandmother having them kneel before bedtime and reciting the prayer "Now I lay me down to sleep".

It seems a German custom. A Google search reveals Robert A. Jonas's comments:

Grandma reaches forward to pull her homemade quilt to my chin. After she settles herself again, she begins to whisper, “Our Father, who art in heaven.” Taking my cue, I join her in prayer. After we reach “forever and ever, Amen,” we breathe together in the silence. Then Grandma begins the prayer that she learned from her German parents, Ich bin klein, mein Herz ist rein, soll niemand drin wohnen, als Jesus allein. I know what it means: “I am small, my heart is pure. No one lives in my heart, but Jesus alone.” Some nights, Grandma offers a different prayer: “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord my soul to take.”

EAP

Tis the season for Poe I suppose – it being not long after Halloween and the middle of cold November. Ham o’ Bone’s interest in Edgar Allen Poe has stoked my own. (Ham wrote a screenplay of his life.)

While Poe was never a big influence on me, I read in bed & finished Allen Tate’s essay “My Cousin, Mr. Poe” then started his “Poe & the Angelic Imagination” while fighting with my eyelids for control. Sleep kept calling for which I've lately a grudging respect for sleep; occasional insomnia has chastened me against taking her for granted anymore.

Tate is pretty hard on Poe, harder than Chesterton, even though (because? - in the way Augustine was so strict against sexual impurity?) he knew a strain of Poe's tendencies was latent within him. Tate was a more somber fellow than the jolly Chesterton.

One theory mentioned by Tate is that the possibility that Poe was impotent, which would explain how Poe managed decadence without sexuality (unlike Oscar Wilde and other decadent writers of his time).

Poe was always an outsider to the literary establishment and so you it's easy to feel for the underdog, not the least one fighting inner demons as Poe did.

Mea Culpa

The Word Among Us has a good meditation that I wished I'd have read a week or two ago, back when I sent a ridiculously over-the-top letter to the editor over a matter of trivia and they had the poor sense to print it. My bingo co-worker saw it and shipped me an email teasing me, as well she should - I think I compared school teachers to Communists but I'm too embarrassed to re-read the letter. Seems I'm not immune to variants of "Bush Made Me Insane Syndrome" where Bush is some other figure.

Here's a reparative excerpt from Word Among Us:

This is why it is vital that we uphold our leaders in prayer. Most of us are ordinary citizens, yet we have more power over our leaders than we may realize. Our words, our judgments, our willingness or unwillingness to forgive and bless do have power in the spiritual realm (see Proverbs 18:21). With them, we commend our leaders to the Lord, or to the powers of evil. Does this sound far-fetched? Think of how a harsh and judgmental husband can sour the atmosphere at home with his wife and children...

We all contribute to creating a climate that affects our leaders. Surely, we want to sow blessings, mercy, and forgiveness rather than judgment, criticism, and condemnation. Every day, pray for school principals and church pastors, mayors and governors, presidents, the pope, and all world leaders. Foster compassion in your thoughts and words. Let it overflow to the men and women who hold power, for in the end, they will be judged strictly.

Status Anxiety & Online Relationships

From a recent juxtaposition of reads, compare the similarity of what Alain de Botton in his book Status Anxiety says concerning how bohemians inevitably conform by not conforming:

One acute insight that may be attributed to bohemia is that one's ability to maintain confidence in a way of life at odds with the mainstream culture will be greatly dependent on the operative value system of one's immediate environment, on the kinds of people one mixes with socially and on what one reads and listens to.

...to Christine Rosen's thoughts on the new online gathering places:

In this context it is worth considering an observation that Stanley Milgram made in 1974, regarding his experiments with obedience: “The social psychology of this century reveals a major lesson,” he wrote. “Often it is not so much the kind of person a man is as the kind of situation in which he finds himself that determines how he will act.”

(Which reminds me of the cynical Bill Mahrer who contends that men are only as faithful to their wives as circumstances allow.) Rosen continues:

These virtual networks greatly expand our opportunities to meet others, but they might also result in our valuing less the capacity for genuine connection. As the young woman writing in the Times admitted, “I consistently trade actual human contact for the more reliable high of smiles on MySpace, winks on Match.com, and pokes on Facebook.” That she finds these online relationships more reliable is telling: it shows a desire to avoid the vulnerability and uncertainty that true friendship entails.

... de Botton writes:

A mature solution to status anxiety may be said to begin with the recognition that status is available from, and awarded by, a variety of different audiences - industrialists, bohemians, families, philosophers - and that our choice among them may be free and willed.

However unpleasant anxieties over status may be, it is difficult to imagine a good life entirely free of them, for the fear of failing and disgracing oneself in the eyes of others is an inevitable consequence of harbouring ambitions, of favouring one set of outcomes over another and of having regard for individuals beyond oneself. Status anxiety is the price we pay for acknowledging that there is a public distinction between a successful and an unsuccessful life.

Thus one can easily understand the popularity of social networks given that it provides a partial relief from status anxiety without much risk.
UPDATE: (Well, there's always risk. HT: Rock)

From latest Bob Novak Column...

...on Fred Thompson's recent comments:

This leaves the GOP field without a real anti-abortion leader since the withdrawal of Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.). Some pro-lifers trust the conversion of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney (R), but many doubt it. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has a 100 percent pro-life record, but he has never been a leader on the issue, though he did pick up a Brownback endorsement this week. Rep. Ron Paul (R-Tex.), a doctor, has also consistently voted against abortion, but to date, he hasn't made it much of an issue. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) has assuaged the fears of some pro-life voters, but he will never win over the hard-core abortion foes who go to church parking lots on the Sunday before Election Day campaigning for Republicans in many races. The most pro-life candidate remaining may be former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R), possibly the least broadly conservative candidate in the field.

Eggsactly...

I've been saying what Theodore Dalrymple is saying here for years. This is why we call our form of gov't a democracy (speak slowly for the liberal scare-mongers):

It is true that the evangelicals exert a strong influence; but that is what democracy is about. There are, after all, a lot of them in the country and they cannot be disenfranchised. No doubt they have a moral vision that they wish to impose on the country, but so does everybody else. To argue that a woman has a right to an abortion because she is sovereign over her own body is no less a moral position than that to kill a conceptus is ethically equivalent to shooting a man in cold blood in the street...But evangelical Christian political influence in a democracy in which there are millions of evangelicals is perfectly normal, and implies no slide into theocracy; and it is worth remembering that the whirligig of time brings in his revenges.

(Hat tip: Bill of Summa Minutiae)

As either James Joyce of Philip Jose Farmer noted, "Discretion is the bitter part of valor." - Steven of "Flos Carmeli"

Let's play a game of guess the charism. Pick the religious order by using the following clues of what they offer.

Therapeutic Massage
La Stone Therapy
Craniosacral Therapy
Maya Abdominal Self-Care Workshops
Australian Bush Flower Essence Practitioner...

- Curt Jester; craniosacral therapy!? :-)

On another night, bioethicist Lee Silver from Princeton visited the show. [Stephen] Colbert told him he believed that science and spirituality could go hand in hand and that all people, embryos included, have souls. Silver begged to differ. He told Colbert that, in the shower, we scrub off thousands of skin cells every day, and that the cells on his arm are human life in the same way that embryos are. To which Colbert responded: “If I let my arm go for a while and didn’t wash it, you’re saying I’d have babies on my arm.” Thank goodness we have comedians to take such arguments to their natural conclusions. - Nathaniel Peters of "First Things"

The evangelicals of America are very important to the fights both against Islam and against liberalism. You may like them or dislike them. You may be one of them or not. But if you have eyes to see and any sociological sense at all, you can see that they provide a huge amount of the foot-soldiering for the various culture wars, and that if they can be mobilized to recognize the Islamic threat, they can provide foot-soldiering there, as well. They have given us the Christian schools and the homeschooling movement of the past forty years (Christian schools first, then home schools), which have had an enormous part in saving a generation from brainwashing and are going to save more generations still...in the words of that famous Jew of Tarsus, we are "all members one of another," part of the same Body. But whether you put a sociological or a spiritual significance onto it, we cannot ignore what is happening to the evangelicals. And the megachurch movement, and still more, the Emergent Church movement, are sapping that vitality. - Lydia of "What's Wrong with the World"

The future justice of the U.S. Supreme Court describes this harrowing scene: "I lay across the bed and curled up in a fetal position, tired beyond imagining." This is the central crisis of the book and of his life. According to "My Grandfather's Son," [Clarence] Thomas realized that the only way to survive humiliation was humility. "It had long since become clear to me that this battle was at bottom spiritual, not political," he writes, "and so my attention shifted from politics to the inward reality of spiritual life." He had been extraordinarily proud of his work at the EEOC and Department of Education, but now he wondered: "Might I have been too proud? It occurred to me for the first time that I had cherished my good name in the same way that a wealthy man cherishes his money. ... perhaps I would have to renounce my pride to endure this trial." - Charles Sykes of "American Thinker"

Is your generosity grown cold? Am I a second to you? You did not die for souls - that is why you don't care what happens to them - Your heart was never drowned in sorrow as was My Mother's. We both gave our all for souls - and you? You are afraid, that you will lose your vocation - you will become a secular - you will be wanting in perseverance. No - your vocation is to love and suffer and save souls and by taking the step you will fulfil My Heart's desire for you...Your present habit is holy because it is My symbol. Your sarie will become holy because it will be My symbol...Wilt thou refuse? When there was a question of thy soul I did not think of Myself but gave myself freely for thee on the Cross and now what about thee? - words of Jesus to Blessed Mother Teresa

There are two extremes to frugality. On one end, life is painfully meager and sparse with short, cold showers, freezing rooms, and scratchy toilet paper, all in the name of saving money. On the opposite end, the world is so fabulously full of freebies that little consideration is taken for other people and their livelihood. People become tools in an agenda and life becomes about gathering lots of stuff as cheaply as possible. While definitely not immune to either extreme--I've lived at both ends--my question is more about living in the center. Where is the line between being frugal and being unethical?... For those of you not into coupon gaming, CVS has a glucose monitoring machine on sale for $29.99, that when purchased, will generate $20 worth of Extra Care Bucks to be used on the next shopping trip...I'm not a diabetic and I don't need this machine, let alone five of them, but there are folks out there who do. If I go to CVS and work this very legal deal...I may very well be depriving others of something that is not just nice to have, but necessary for their well-being. - blogger at "The Place Beneath"

The Mass in something fundamentally other than a Bible study. It is a living commemoration and re-presentation of the Sacrifice of the New and eternal Covenant. Hence, the role of the Bible in the Mass must be understood to as entirely subordinate to the sacramental function of the liturgy. It is intended to provide a liturgical setting for the Sacrifice. As such, any lexical project aimed at "getting through" the Bible, as such, works at cross purposes with the liturgical intent and sacramental focus of the Mass. - Pertinacious Papist

Suffering is the precondition of profundity; we see here a glimpse of the romantic underpinning of the modern taste for self-destruction, which is now a mass phenomenon. For when suffering will not come to you, you must go to it, at least if you want to be considered profound. And by an error of logic that is so common as to be almost universal, people suppose that if persons of a profound nature need suffering to bring out their profundity, then the fact of suffering, however caused, is itself proof of profundity. - Theodore Dalrymple

One day the Little Red Hen found a Politician. It was a Pro-Abortion Politician, but the Little Red Hen was so accustomed to bugs and worms that she supposed that, if encouraged, it could be made into a Nominee and then into a President. So she called loudly: "Who will plant the Seed of this Politician’s electability in the minds of the Press and the Party?" But the Pig said, "Not I," and the Cat said, "Not I," and the Rat said, "Not I." "Well, then," said the Little Red Hen, "I will." And she did. Then one day the Little Red Hen chanced to notice how well the Politician was doing, so she ran about calling briskly: "Who will ask the other Candidates to cut their losses and join the Campaign?" The Pig said, "Not I," the Cat said, "Not I," and the Rat said, "Not I." "Well, then," said the Little Red Hen, "I will." al Election?"...At last the great moment arrived. The Politician – Oh, dear! The Politician lost the General Election. Then the Red Hen called: "Who will blame Somebody Else for this Debacle?" The Pig said, "I will," the Cat said, "I will," the Rat said, "I will." But the Little Red Hen said, "No, you won't. I will." And she did. - Tom of Disputations

I once worked for a school principal who had such a fear of snakes that she taped pages in books with photos of snakes on them together, so she wouldn’t accidentally open to them. She was a science teacher, which made it all…difficult.) - Amy Welborn

Today's a good day to start memorizing the De Profundis, Psalm 130(129). Pray it daily for the souls in purgatory, then you'll have it on hand whenever you pass a cemetery. - Tom of Disputations

Nostalgic Images

Got out the ol' Peoples Mass Book, published in 1970:

Yup there's that iconic cover from the heady days of the late '60s and early '70s when "Peoples" was a good word because, after all, there was "The Peoples Republic of China" and "Peoples Republic of North Korea" and Communism was hot back then.

I remember like it was yeserday, holding that book before Mass while, curiously, never summoning sufficient curiosity to ask anybody: "Hey, why are there robots on this cover?"

But I tease the Peoples Mass Book. You can't judge a book by its cover and there were are many fine songs in there including this one:



"Didst" and "Thy" are, sadly, gone from today's Mass books. Reverence is out, casualness in, both in terms of what we wear to Mass and what we sing.

Perhaps part of my lack of curiosity about the cover was that the images inside were far stranger:



<- An abstract image, sort of Crayola-ish. A rorschach test? I see the head of a golf club in there. Probably a 3-wood. What do you see? How does it make you feel? Makes me feel like hitting the links!

I was glad to get the book for a quarter at the OSU book sale, because how else could I have gotten the words to Lord, Who At Your First Eucharist Didst Pray so inexpensively?

On Voting

Liked this Bill Luse muse:

I bumped into a colleague out at school...who asked me if I was prepared to vote for Rudy, apparently on the assumption that he will be the Republican nominee. I said no. He accused me of being a "purist" and further announced that I would be personally responsible for electing Hillary and the havoc she was sure to wreak on the Republic. I said that, no, Rudy would be responsible, and told him how I'd come to this conclusion. Some days ago Paul Cella sent me a link to a magazine article in another Leading Conservative Voice, the American Spectator, in which the author's thesis is that Roe v. Wade is still law today because, in Planned Parenthood vs. Casey, Anthony Kennedy was there to cast the deciding vote and Robert Bork was not; and that Bork was not there because of a 1986 election in which a number of Republican congressmen and senators did not get re-elected; and that they did not get re-elected because certain conservatives among us did not turn out in sufficient numbers, the relevance of it all being that if we behave similarly in this coming election - as James Dobson has threatened to do if someone like Giuliani is nominated - we will be responsible for cementing Roe into American law unto perpetuity. As the author puts it: "An amazing thought, no? Roe v. Wade: the conservative legacy."

So I wrote a letter to the editor:

It's interesting that Mr. Lord would require a certain brand of conservative voter to shoulder the blame for the persistence of Roe v. Wade in law. His counsel is that it is not wise to be too "pure". We must sacrifice a principle here and there for the greater good.

And then I wondered: why must it be this way? Why can't (just for example) Rudy Giuliani sacrifice his principles. Why can't he chuck his pro-choice stance and claim conversion to the pro-life cause? Others have done it before him and gotten away with it. Why can't he let go of his pro-gay marriage position and get behind the Federal Marriage Amendment? Well, because it would be too obviously opportunistic, and voters value honesty above all in their candidates. (But, apparently, not in themselves.) Better that the voter be a hypocrite, so that his candidate need not be.

Another implication of Mr. Lord's argument is that what we are really voting for when we enter the polling place is not a candidate, but a judge, someone who doesn't even hold elective office. If we must lie to our conscience to vote for a candidate who will then appoint a judge who will then rule over us as Mr. Lord sees fit, something's badly wrong. Constitutionally, you might say.
Sincerely, etc.

Steven Riddle has some good thoughts here. My voting weltanschauung (that's for Bill White) is thus far this:

In primary:

Scenerio 1: There is already a candidate with big lead in polls:
Vote "with purity", for the "Alan Keyes" candidate if you will, named in honor for that wonderfully Quixotic candidate.

Scenerio 2: There is a battle in the primary.
Vote for purest available among the viable in the general election.

In general election:

Scenerio 1: Difference between candidates not significant enough to matter or both candidates too deeply flawed
Write in your Alan Keyes candidate

Scenerio 1: Not a close election:
Write in your Alan Keyes candidate

Scenerio 2: Close election in which you can live with the flaws of lesser of two evils:
Vote for the purest of the two.

In practical terms:

Republican primary:

Assuming there is a battle, which it looks at this point there will be, I'll vote for the purest of the viable candidates, which at this point is either McCain or Romney or possibly Huckabee.

General election:

Will vote for the Republican candidate unless it's Giulliani.

The Ways of the Famine Irish

Read long of Thomas Gallagher's Paddy’s Lament, the story of the Irish famine and emigration. The deprivations and squalor those who made the trip in the late 1840s experienced on British ships reads like a novel, or rather you wouldn’t believe it if it was in a novel. As the book quotes one as saying: how hard can it be to get waste products into the endless ocean and not in the finite ship quarters? Very hard if prevented from doing so, and yet somehow they put up with it. The British sealed off deck access during stormy periods leaving no privies available and thus “ship fever” ran rapid, killing 20-25% of the travelers. The mind reels. It’s always seems a failure of imagination to imagine just how bad they had it. Worse than black slave ships even.

Those old Irish were so different in a million ways, but this latest read makes it clear in two areas especially: 1) the lack of squeamishness over bodily fluids and such given the American obsession with cleanliness, and relatedly 2) the integration of the material and physical. They simply had a different view of the material and physical that seems unrecreatable in our present culture:

All their lives they had linked the material and spiritual world in odd and delightful ways that made one as attractive as the other in what amounted to a mutually dependent relationship…[One] belief was that the dead of one parish graveyard competed with the dead of another parish graveyard in the old Irish game of hurling. Each parish team had a living man from its parish to keep the goal, and when the teams met, always under a full moon, at one or the other of the graveyards, the two live goalkeepers had to be, and always were, present…Sam Sweep’s burial at sea prevented the steerage passengers from putting these benign superstitions to any imaginative use. In the middle of the Atlantic, the idea of two graveyards competing with each other in the game of hurling became even in their eyes a meaningless museum piece.

I can’t even begin to get my head around how terrifying burial-at-sea was to these 1840-era Irish. It was perceived so horrible a fate that a great many of them died immediately upon reaching land – which is to say the only thing keeping them alive was the horror of being buried in water rather than land. They were so close to their God-given bodies! They didn’t live in our Gnostic age when sacraments are seen as superstitions and when we think only the spirit matters, despite the clear evidence of the Bible to the contrary. We’re now okay with cremation or our bones “floating on the ocean”, as so horrified those Irish.

But it's true the Irish were superstitious and that's foreign in our age of science and irreligion. The Catechism says: “Superstition in some sense represents a perverse excess of religion; irreligion is the vice contrary by defect to the virtue of religion.” Another way the Irish were different is they would fight like hell to win a bet only to share it when they received it:

The British sailors never ceased to be amazed by this harmlessly fierce competition among the famine Irish, who seemed as willing to gamble away their last farthing as they were baffled by what to do with their winnings. The sailors could not understand why the prize, once won, became so sharable. Nor could the Irish, whose attitude towards beggars was equally mysterious to the sailors, have explained. For them it was a mode of thinking never questioned or challenged, a folkway twined with their pagan past as with the oppression they’d suffered for so long. With good reason they believed that good luck carried with it dangers as well as responsibilities: when it paid you a visit, you had to share that visit with someone or risk never being visited again.