September 23, 2009
"I am amazed at all the crap Padre Pio had to put up with. Not just cluelessness from superiors which often thinly disguised malice, but physical and spiritual ailments. But through it all, that is how he functioned. Because He believed that God would deliver him, any problem and strife was tolerable. It simply had to be offered up." - Fr. Shane
(Image found here.)
The Spirit, Corapi & the Infant of Prague
Stuck in surreal traffic, 670 closed. Turn on the radio and remember there's a reason they call it "commercial radio": there's a commercial every six seconds, which leads to an ever-decreasing attention span. This is true even for satellite radio stations carrying political talk so I turn on Fr. Corapi on AM and hear him speak for almost an hour without commercial interruption. And the more I hear him, the more I like him. Amazingly, he says he hates preaching, gets sick of words (perish the thought!), and that his dream is to be a hermit in the woods, but that God won't let him do that now. He even wrote a religious rule for hermits. Says all he wants is contemplative prayer and the Blessed Sacrament. He said, paraphrasing, that often what we dislike is what God will use to make us saints, and that reminded me of my recent pondering about why St. John was the only apostle not to be martyred and whether that was connected to the fact that he, unlike the others, was with Christ at His crucifixion. Did the other apostles pay for their sin of leaving their Master's side during his martyrdom with their own martyrdom? Or does that make God out to be a monster to even suggest it? Was John's martyrdom like Mary's, in the sense of living it vicariously through Jesus? It's almost like God wants to heal our Achilles heel and for John, his Achilles heel was not fear of martyrdom given that he risked his own life to be with Jesus as His death. But the funny thing about saints is this: I bet those apostles who were martyred were glad for it, glad to be able to give Christ the gift of their own lives. They didn't see it as "a price to be paid" for their earlier cowardice, much as those in Purgatory are said to be thrilled to be purified before seeing the King.
_______
Heard someone else make a true comment connecting Adam & Eve's disobedience with the suffering messiahship of Christ. God could've come to earth as King, but that was precisely what Adam & Eve suspected God of. God came into the world weak and suffering in response to our response (via Adam). Adam and Eve said, in effect, "you are not like us, you know more" so God came among us knowing less, as an infant. And then He left us something less than us to worship, a piece of bread. We have the same opportunity that Lucifer did in electing not to serve something less than us.
She also mentioned the value of "baptism in the Holy Spirit" from a local charismatic Catholic parish (something Mother Angelica had done). She said the gifts at Confirmation (piety, fear of the Lord, fortitude...) are different from the ones given in the Baptism in the Spirit, the latter towards the building of the Church. I did a search of Catholic blogs and found at least one mention of it.
The goosebump moment was when she offered me a small prayer pamphlet with a novena to the Infant of Prague. The statue on the front was instantly familiar - it was the crowned infant in the nave of a local downtown church. About two weeks ago, I began bowing to this unknown infant I'd so long ignored because it was a child and I bowed in recognition of my "ageism" bias and the fact that Jesus said, "unless ye become as little children...".
UPDATE: Turns out the Infant of Prague is Jesus Himself. Appropriate, huh? In bowing in humility I was actually bowing to Christ.
Heard someone else make a true comment connecting Adam & Eve's disobedience with the suffering messiahship of Christ. God could've come to earth as King, but that was precisely what Adam & Eve suspected God of. God came into the world weak and suffering in response to our response (via Adam). Adam and Eve said, in effect, "you are not like us, you know more" so God came among us knowing less, as an infant. And then He left us something less than us to worship, a piece of bread. We have the same opportunity that Lucifer did in electing not to serve something less than us.
She also mentioned the value of "baptism in the Holy Spirit" from a local charismatic Catholic parish (something Mother Angelica had done). She said the gifts at Confirmation (piety, fear of the Lord, fortitude...) are different from the ones given in the Baptism in the Spirit, the latter towards the building of the Church. I did a search of Catholic blogs and found at least one mention of it.
The goosebump moment was when she offered me a small prayer pamphlet with a novena to the Infant of Prague. The statue on the front was instantly familiar - it was the crowned infant in the nave of a local downtown church. About two weeks ago, I began bowing to this unknown infant I'd so long ignored because it was a child and I bowed in recognition of my "ageism" bias and the fact that Jesus said, "unless ye become as little children...".
UPDATE: Turns out the Infant of Prague is Jesus Himself. Appropriate, huh? In bowing in humility I was actually bowing to Christ.
September 22, 2009
Spanning the Globe to Bring You the Constant Variety of Posts
The "problem" with tutoring children is that one first has to become as simple and humble as they are. It's not easy to do at all. Jesus had the opposite issue: He was already as simple and humble as could be, but there were hardly any spiritual children He could reach. He must be facing the same situation when He comes to souls today. - Sancta Sanctis
I would add one other potential plus for earlier marriage that sociologists have yet to grapple with: treating marriage like the home version of Waiting for Godot also risks perpetuating a kind of human consumerism, a habit that cannot possibly be good for anyone. After all, once a sufficiently large number of relationships have all failed to lead to marriage for one reason or another, it becomes terribly tempting to view the whole enterprise as more like comparison shopping than spiritual discernment. For example, I once knew a man who had dated a great many women by his late twenties – so many that his friends privately rejoiced when one finally appeared who seemed perfect for him. They shared the same religion, political views, and other interests; she was smart, successful, and what today would be called a real babe, to boot. Yet the consumer’s diffident response upon meeting her rang far more of the Consumer Checkbook than of the swain. “I’m not sure,” he temporized. “Her complexion seems really sallow.” Needless to say, no walk down the aisle. This is what comes of people shopping, perhaps – the destructive habit of making comparative checklists about human beings. - Mary Eberstadt
“But I’m just going through the motions,” I had complained once about my prayer life to Fr. Aris, the wise Greek Orthodox priest who would later become my son’s godfather. “That’s all right,” he said to me. “The important thing is to keep on saying them. You can feel them later.” They would save me when I least expected it. - Caroline at Image Journal
Many commenters have pointed to the Land O'Lakes agreement and the false autonomy and idea of academic freedom that was championed by then-Notre Dame University President Fr. Hesburgh. Professor Rice agrees that this was a turning point and really a rejection of Cardinal Newman's thoughts in his classic "The Idea of a University." - Jeff of Curt Jester; review of "What Happened to Notre Dame?"
What follows will be so scattershot, it'll make a blunderbuss look like a laser. But I never promised you a precision garden! - eve tushnet
What you do is, you pull up to the truck, roll down your window, and yell, "I can see why your wife cut them off, but why'd she nail them to your truck?" Of course, this being Texas and all, you may need to be prepared to return fire. - Mrs. Darwin on what to do about Trucknutz
I am passionate about the opposite of whatever the loudest person in the room is arguing (hence I am frequently at odds with myself). - Betty Duffy
The average man’s objection to Christian civilization is not an objection to medieval culture, which incorporated every act of social life in a sacred order of sacramental symbols and liturgical observances – such a culture is too remote from our experience to stir our emotions one way or another: it is the dread of moral rigorism, of alcoholic prohibition or the censorship of books and films or of the fundamentalist banning of the teaching of biological evolution. But what the advocates of a Christian civilization wish is not the narrowing of the cultural horizons, but just the reverse: the recovery of that spiritual dimension of social life the lack of which has cramped and darkened the culture of the modern world - English historian Christopher Dawson during his brief stay in the United States, via "The Catholic Thing"
September 21, 2009
Various & Sundry
Am reading an anti-modern technology book on Kindle and transcribing quotes to my netbook. Ironic. I find myself agreeing with a lot of what he says. We go faster and faster with less purpose.
The author of Digital Barbarians, Mark Helprin, writes of the man on holiday near the turn of the 20th century:
Surely part of the reason non-fiction is more popular than fiction these days is that people want explicit direction, they want facts, they want you to get to the point. There's a lack of patience with nuance, but humans are nuanced creatures. "Necessitated by that, and by a life (my own) spent writing fiction, is an obliqueness uncommon in modern nonfiction, a trust that the reader can, according to Shakepeare's exhortation, 'by indirections find directions out.'" Helprin describes Flannery O'Connor's Convergence as "besting in a single short story the many erudite volumes of Teilhard de Chardin". Which would suggest that in all our desire for directness - for speed - we are actually taking the long cut.
____
Patrick Kurp sagely opines on the sport of would-be kings, i.e. blogging:____
The faint smell of leaf burnings tells us Fall is in the air. I've spent so much more time outdoors lately that I can scarcely remember a time when the thundering crickets weren't serenading us. Assuming we don't move to Florida, which I devoutly wish we would, I suppose we're going to have to move into a house and yard with a "Florida room". I think it's the law that any Ohioan over the age of 60 has to have a 3-season room, and I seem to be precociously fond of the idea.
I sit dry under the canopy as a steady but gentle rain falls. It's cool outside but very pleasant. I'm going to try holding off giving up on summer as long as possible although it's nice to know there's a comfy and private and quiet alternative: the book room. I should call it the "lost room" for how seldom I go in there these days. Mostly I just open the door and sniff and sigh.
____
Am pondering potential trip ideas this fall, sort of the "last chance before winter" vacation sale. Get out while the gettin's still good, weather-wise. So far I like the idea of riding a bike down the Shenandoah parkway in the Appalachian mountains. I hear it's hilly. Read about it in the Dispatch last week. Also keen to the idea of heading to Salt Lake City and doing genealogy research in their mammoth library.
____
An annoying thing about technology is that it incessantly requires battery rechargings (cell phone, Kindle, netbook anyway) and is constantly in danger of being outmoded. Pity the fool who built the world's largest library of 8-track tapes. Nothing is forever, but technology seems ever more transient and thus ever more expensive in terms of replacement costs, maintenance and hassle factors. But I've signed onto the technology gadget-goo's as long as I have a job. Then it's back to paper and frugality...or so I tell myself.
____
When I was a kid, the scariest movies were not of ghosts or goblins or threats you could avoid if you could run fast enough or preserve your virginity (all the teen slasher movies seem to target the ones messing around), but those involving the loss of one's mind, since it is the brain that gives us our sense of control and I tend to be a control freak. The scariest part of the movie Gone With the Wind, which I saw at a tender age, was not the limbless soldiers (one can be in control with only one arm) but the insanity of Mr. O'Hara. Similarly the film Ordinary People. I remind myself that with God one need not have fears.
____
Made a pleasing discovery of today by sheer happenstance photos of the pseudonymous blogger "Betty Duffy". A look-what-I-found-rebound and another for the "would've never guessed she looked like that" file. Pretty and younger than I'd imagined. (Same with Mrs. D btw.) It's always cool when you find a sort of "Easter egg", a loophole whereupon you found a secret blog that in this case includes photos. Naturally I won't link. Wild horses & all that wouldn't drag it out of me. Will protect anyone's pseudonymous identity to the death.
____
So what else is happenin'? Oh yeah, the Great Pee War. Part of the appeal of the fight over keeping my old chair (by the way, the hilarious thing is that the company is willing to pay hundreds upon hundreds for a new chair but not half that price for a laptop, the latter which would actually be of real use), is the sheer cussedness it brings out in me, the desire to 'fight the man". Well I'm starting to feel the same impulse with respect to our cat. The other day I caught him him on a chair hunched over my gym bag spraying his urinous pee (how's that for redundancy? I say, how's that for re-...) all over it. One washing and two coats of Nature's Miracle later, the bag was mostly scent-free. But I didn't learn my lesson, in not being 100% diligent in keeping said gym bag at least eight feet off the floor at all times. He did the same thing with my running shoes, the little bastid. I don't have to tell you that it's irritating to have to keep all shoes and gym bags eight feet off the ground at all times. Shoes were made to be on the ground. It's personal: I can outthink a cat, I hope. I suggested to my wife that we decoy him by placing old clothes at strategic intervals in the basement, hoping he'll use those for target practice. She didn't like that idea much, and I don't think our cat would fall for it anyway.
The author of Digital Barbarians, Mark Helprin, writes of the man on holiday near the turn of the 20th century:
"During your holiday you will climb hills, visit chapels, attend half a dozen formal dinners, and read several books, more than a thousand pages all told. If upon reading a classical history you come across a Greek phrase with an unfamiliar word you will have to wait until the library opens, walk there by the lakeside, and consult a Greek lexicon: one and one-half hours."It sounds good, but I'm skeptical of our hindsight nostalgia. Maybe the best things about the "good old days" (besides the greater faith in God) include the fact that without electric lights and television you would sleep when it was dark. And the other thing was that people were so physically active (see Samuel Johnson quote on 'how much misery is escaped...').
Surely part of the reason non-fiction is more popular than fiction these days is that people want explicit direction, they want facts, they want you to get to the point. There's a lack of patience with nuance, but humans are nuanced creatures. "Necessitated by that, and by a life (my own) spent writing fiction, is an obliqueness uncommon in modern nonfiction, a trust that the reader can, according to Shakepeare's exhortation, 'by indirections find directions out.'" Helprin describes Flannery O'Connor's Convergence as "besting in a single short story the many erudite volumes of Teilhard de Chardin". Which would suggest that in all our desire for directness - for speed - we are actually taking the long cut.
Patrick Kurp sagely opines on the sport of would-be kings, i.e. blogging:
How do you respond to this statement?: Blogging is just another hobby, like stamp collecting or hockey.
It would be easy to get defensive about this question (I did, and I wrote it). Some of us take blogging seriously but must be reminded not to take ourselves seriously. David Ferry writes in his poem “Rereading Old Writing,” “writing / Is a way of being happy.” Remember too that “hobby,” meaning a small horse, entered the language in the 13th century. In less than three centuries it morphed into a child’s toy horse. By the 17th century it meant a pastime or avocation, the connection being that both signify activities going nowhere.
Some say the golden age of blogging has already passed, that blogging has failed to fulfill its early promise; and the evidence which is given is that no one becomes famous from blogging any longer. Do you agree?
There are no golden ages, only golden moments. I once worked with a newspaper editor who said something like this: “You pay your dollar and read the paper. If you find one story that amuses you or teaches you something new, you got your money’s worth.” To read a blog costs nothing. Peruse the blog roll at Anecdotal Evidence. If you can’t find something there that moves or enlightens you, or drives you pleasingly irate, go check your pulse.
The faint smell of leaf burnings tells us Fall is in the air. I've spent so much more time outdoors lately that I can scarcely remember a time when the thundering crickets weren't serenading us. Assuming we don't move to Florida, which I devoutly wish we would, I suppose we're going to have to move into a house and yard with a "Florida room". I think it's the law that any Ohioan over the age of 60 has to have a 3-season room, and I seem to be precociously fond of the idea.
I sit dry under the canopy as a steady but gentle rain falls. It's cool outside but very pleasant. I'm going to try holding off giving up on summer as long as possible although it's nice to know there's a comfy and private and quiet alternative: the book room. I should call it the "lost room" for how seldom I go in there these days. Mostly I just open the door and sniff and sigh.
Am pondering potential trip ideas this fall, sort of the "last chance before winter" vacation sale. Get out while the gettin's still good, weather-wise. So far I like the idea of riding a bike down the Shenandoah parkway in the Appalachian mountains. I hear it's hilly. Read about it in the Dispatch last week. Also keen to the idea of heading to Salt Lake City and doing genealogy research in their mammoth library.
An annoying thing about technology is that it incessantly requires battery rechargings (cell phone, Kindle, netbook anyway) and is constantly in danger of being outmoded. Pity the fool who built the world's largest library of 8-track tapes. Nothing is forever, but technology seems ever more transient and thus ever more expensive in terms of replacement costs, maintenance and hassle factors. But I've signed onto the technology gadget-goo's as long as I have a job. Then it's back to paper and frugality...or so I tell myself.
When I was a kid, the scariest movies were not of ghosts or goblins or threats you could avoid if you could run fast enough or preserve your virginity (all the teen slasher movies seem to target the ones messing around), but those involving the loss of one's mind, since it is the brain that gives us our sense of control and I tend to be a control freak. The scariest part of the movie Gone With the Wind, which I saw at a tender age, was not the limbless soldiers (one can be in control with only one arm) but the insanity of Mr. O'Hara. Similarly the film Ordinary People. I remind myself that with God one need not have fears.
Made a pleasing discovery of today by sheer happenstance photos of the pseudonymous blogger "Betty Duffy". A look-what-I-found-rebound and another for the "would've never guessed she looked like that" file. Pretty and younger than I'd imagined. (Same with Mrs. D btw.) It's always cool when you find a sort of "Easter egg", a loophole whereupon you found a secret blog that in this case includes photos. Naturally I won't link. Wild horses & all that wouldn't drag it out of me. Will protect anyone's pseudonymous identity to the death.
So what else is happenin'? Oh yeah, the Great Pee War. Part of the appeal of the fight over keeping my old chair (by the way, the hilarious thing is that the company is willing to pay hundreds upon hundreds for a new chair but not half that price for a laptop, the latter which would actually be of real use), is the sheer cussedness it brings out in me, the desire to 'fight the man". Well I'm starting to feel the same impulse with respect to our cat. The other day I caught him him on a chair hunched over my gym bag spraying his urinous pee (how's that for redundancy? I say, how's that for re-...) all over it. One washing and two coats of Nature's Miracle later, the bag was mostly scent-free. But I didn't learn my lesson, in not being 100% diligent in keeping said gym bag at least eight feet off the floor at all times. He did the same thing with my running shoes, the little bastid. I don't have to tell you that it's irritating to have to keep all shoes and gym bags eight feet off the ground at all times. Shoes were made to be on the ground. It's personal: I can outthink a cat, I hope. I suggested to my wife that we decoy him by placing old clothes at strategic intervals in the basement, hoping he'll use those for target practice. She didn't like that idea much, and I don't think our cat would fall for it anyway.
I Like George
Watched George Stephanopoulos, an island of civility in a sea of chaos. Choosing between Russert & Stephanopoulos in the past was tough; choosing between Stephanopoulos and Gregory and the others is a no-brainer. I also appreciate the humilty and guts it takes for a beltway denizen like George to go on a show like O'Reilly. Not cool in the Georgetown set, though admittedly Washington doyen Sally Quinn has already broke that barrier. Cynically you can say that he's going where the numbers are, since O'Reilly leads the cable race, but I consider it a holy ambition for the former Clinton staffer to reach out to the conservatives and moderates who watch FOX News.
Sunday's panel was almost perfect, a murderer's row of great pundits: George Will, Peggy Noonan, Robert Reich and Donna Brazille. Doesn't get any better than that and I wasn't disappointed. Reich was a paragon of honesty, saying that if he were grading the Baucus Senate bill he would've given it "somewhere between a 'D' and an 'F'". It's a Sunday pleasure, and one of the last places to find only limited bias, at least small enough bias that I can normally watch it without irritation.
Stephanopoulos's interview with the President was not softball, he called him out on the ludicrous Clintonian-sounding debate about "it depends what you mean by tax", going so far as to read Obama Merriam-Webster's definition of the word "tax".
Methinks the President protests too much. If you have to explain it as not being a tax, for all intents and purposes that means it's a tax. I like his creative math though - Obama saying that you're premiums would go up 5-6% anyway so let's just make sure they go up by adding a new tax.
Peggy Noonan shot and scored by saying that most Americans are more worried about the economy and the wars than health care, but the thing Obama can't say but is true is that this is the only time in this term he'll be able to do health care since most Presidents lose Congressional seats in their first off-year election, and if he's gonna ram it on through he needs every Democrat vote he can get.
With Afghanistan, I've never quite understood why Al Qaeda needs that godforsaken country when it already has Pakistan and Sudan and Somalia in which to plan attacks against the U.S.. If there were no failed states in the world then maybe it would be risky for Afghanistan to become another one but.. For us to think we can pacify a country that broke the Russians and others strikes me as naked hubris.
Sunday's panel was almost perfect, a murderer's row of great pundits: George Will, Peggy Noonan, Robert Reich and Donna Brazille. Doesn't get any better than that and I wasn't disappointed. Reich was a paragon of honesty, saying that if he were grading the Baucus Senate bill he would've given it "somewhere between a 'D' and an 'F'". It's a Sunday pleasure, and one of the last places to find only limited bias, at least small enough bias that I can normally watch it without irritation.
Stephanopoulos's interview with the President was not softball, he called him out on the ludicrous Clintonian-sounding debate about "it depends what you mean by tax", going so far as to read Obama Merriam-Webster's definition of the word "tax".
Methinks the President protests too much. If you have to explain it as not being a tax, for all intents and purposes that means it's a tax. I like his creative math though - Obama saying that you're premiums would go up 5-6% anyway so let's just make sure they go up by adding a new tax.
Peggy Noonan shot and scored by saying that most Americans are more worried about the economy and the wars than health care, but the thing Obama can't say but is true is that this is the only time in this term he'll be able to do health care since most Presidents lose Congressional seats in their first off-year election, and if he's gonna ram it on through he needs every Democrat vote he can get.
With Afghanistan, I've never quite understood why Al Qaeda needs that godforsaken country when it already has Pakistan and Sudan and Somalia in which to plan attacks against the U.S.. If there were no failed states in the world then maybe it would be risky for Afghanistan to become another one but.. For us to think we can pacify a country that broke the Russians and others strikes me as naked hubris.
Bibliophilic Monday
For you '80s musicphiles/bibliophiles, sing this to tune of Poison's "Talk Dirty to Me":
You know I never
I never seen you look so smart
You never really act the the part
But I like it
And I know you like books too
The way that we want them
I gotta hold them too
Oh yes, I do...
Chorus:
Cause baby we'll be
At the library
In the old man's study
Behind the parlor
Till I'm screamin' for more
Down the basement
Lock the athenaeum door
And baby
Talk books to me
September 18, 2009
Tippecanoe and Tyler too!
I was on the cusp of whether to take a vacation day today, egged on by wife's one-two punch: "canoeing" and "breakfast". She had me at canoeing but the magic word "breakfast" made it official. And, like a movie script it worked out perfectly. A heaven-sent day heavenly spent, we started off with me reading my recent writings to her and she laughing at all the right places. Then a delicious breakfast at Bob Evans.
Full of the energy of vacation and breakfast, we skulled the canoe down from its perch and hippity-hopp'd it atop the truck cab and pronounced it and the truck hitched (with the help of orange suspenders) and then took off for parts unknown, specifically Beaver Lake just across the county line. We scouted the area for a place for Steph to exhaust our dog (she biking, he running) so that he'd keep still in the canoe and not tip it over (I'm dying to use a "Tip a canoe and Tyler too!" reference here somehow). It seemed unsuitable for that purpose, having only lanes of green grass that wended around the lake, and so it was back to the familiar dog-leg lakes at Prairie Oaks.
I started off in the canoe while she took Buddy to the dog beach. Clouds had the day off too so the sun was permanent but not hot, accompanied as it was by a breeze, and so I hunted off and sung the shoreline and smelled the tung of the earthy-earth and shared it all with sunning turtles and quirky shore birds. I soon found a little haven and felt encircled by all the beauty and breathed a sigh of relief not unlike that day long ago when hiking the parallelograms of Hocking Hills.
When I was a child, the ocean trumped lakes and natural lakes trumped man-made lakes in the hierarchy of goods. This was in the American tradition of "bigger is better" and the Ewell Gibbons tradition of "natural is better". But it seemed God exists even in man-made lakes and that I ought not be so snooty. Yellow and white wildflowers, garish as Solomon, felt no disdain toward this "man-made" lake, clinging as they did to her shores. Then too the fish that swam by and by seemed happy and content. And the cool waters shown like diamonds under the sun and proclaimed goodness, not artificiality, no less than the waters of the Jordan. Though these were once excavating pits for business, they've now been reclaimed by God and God can do all things.
Looking on the reclaimed beauty, I was reminded of Jim Curley's yard of sand and how I wondered how vegetables would ever grow there. But then he told me about the elixir of manure and how he'd plant a cover crop or let grass or other weeds grow and then till that and then - at last - it was a soil rich, a soil capable of sustaining life, a soil that could be used. It was inspiring, seeing that sand patch and knowing it was on its way to goodness. It seemed magical that sand just needed manure to start the cycle.
Full of the energy of vacation and breakfast, we skulled the canoe down from its perch and hippity-hopp'd it atop the truck cab and pronounced it and the truck hitched (with the help of orange suspenders) and then took off for parts unknown, specifically Beaver Lake just across the county line. We scouted the area for a place for Steph to exhaust our dog (she biking, he running) so that he'd keep still in the canoe and not tip it over (I'm dying to use a "Tip a canoe and Tyler too!" reference here somehow). It seemed unsuitable for that purpose, having only lanes of green grass that wended around the lake, and so it was back to the familiar dog-leg lakes at Prairie Oaks.
I started off in the canoe while she took Buddy to the dog beach. Clouds had the day off too so the sun was permanent but not hot, accompanied as it was by a breeze, and so I hunted off and sung the shoreline and smelled the tung of the earthy-earth and shared it all with sunning turtles and quirky shore birds. I soon found a little haven and felt encircled by all the beauty and breathed a sigh of relief not unlike that day long ago when hiking the parallelograms of Hocking Hills.
The smell of mackerel on my skin,
the taint of the water borne,
an elbow skims the surface hush
the oar brushing the brim.
I gleam-glomm'd the starry lake,
star'd by the sun's strong graces,
verisimilitudes tide the muddy shore,
the land grown green with envy.
When I was a child, the ocean trumped lakes and natural lakes trumped man-made lakes in the hierarchy of goods. This was in the American tradition of "bigger is better" and the Ewell Gibbons tradition of "natural is better". But it seemed God exists even in man-made lakes and that I ought not be so snooty. Yellow and white wildflowers, garish as Solomon, felt no disdain toward this "man-made" lake, clinging as they did to her shores. Then too the fish that swam by and by seemed happy and content. And the cool waters shown like diamonds under the sun and proclaimed goodness, not artificiality, no less than the waters of the Jordan. Though these were once excavating pits for business, they've now been reclaimed by God and God can do all things.
Looking on the reclaimed beauty, I was reminded of Jim Curley's yard of sand and how I wondered how vegetables would ever grow there. But then he told me about the elixir of manure and how he'd plant a cover crop or let grass or other weeds grow and then till that and then - at last - it was a soil rich, a soil capable of sustaining life, a soil that could be used. It was inspiring, seeing that sand patch and knowing it was on its way to goodness. It seemed magical that sand just needed manure to start the cycle.
September 17, 2009
It's in the Culture
In a comment on this post, Tom of Disputations disputes the Richard Rohr quote, saying:
Carl Anderson, author of Our Lady of Guadalupe, acknowledges this factor in our culture:
"...there is a Christian disappointment that isn't 'the human situation,' it's the divine situation when faced with human hard-heartedness.The "life is suffering" motif ingrained in our current culture has effects both good and bad; the good effect is that in some ways there is more desire to prevent and ameliorate human suffering than there was a hundred years ago (see the very low tolerance for casualties in war, greater health and safety precautions in the work place, child labor prohibited, a prevalence of handicap ramps, children wearing helmets while bicycling etc...). But the bad effect is the culture of death shown most explicitly by euthanasia and abortion. (A co-worker once shocked me when he said he favored abortion since most of the kids who are aborted would likely live lives of suffering and want.)
Is 'the central Christian logo' really 'a naked, bleeding, suffering man' because 'life is suffering'? Or is it because the central Christian teaching is that we are saved through the suffering of one particular man, whose sufferings were not those of the human condition but those of God's Anointed One?...to suggest 'life is suffering' is a doctrine shared by Christians and Buddhists is stuff and nonsense.
Carl Anderson, author of Our Lady of Guadalupe, acknowledges this factor in our culture:
A culture of life respects life for what it is, not for what hardship and suffering frame it to be. A culture of life does not deny the reality of death. A culture of life deals with death as a serious but not ultimate principle. In fact, one of the most strikingly human elements conveyed in the apparition account is Juan Diego's grasp of the reality of death...In his words to the Virgin, we glimpse how powerfully this impending death colored Juan Diego's view of life: 'because in reality for this [death] we were born, we who came to await the task of our death.' This statement, perhaps more than any other in Juan Diego's dialogue with the Virgin, resonates with contemporary views of the person; and the Virgin's response - 'Am I not here, I who have the honor to be your mother' - tests our understanding of the person and points us toward hope.Upon first reading I didn't find Juan Diego's view very unremarkable, seeing in it shades of the familiar Christian theme of memento mori. Richard J. Neuhaus begins one of his books with "We are born to die." A quick check of wikipedia regarding memento_mori was interesting:
In ancient Rome, the words are believed to have been used on the occasions when a Roman general was parading through the streets during a victory triumph...The thought came into its own with Christianity, whose strong emphasis on Divine Judgment, Heaven, Hell, and the salvation of the soul brought death to the forefront of consciousness. Most memento mori works are products of Christian art, although there are equivalents in Buddhist art. In the Christian context, the memento mori acquires a moralizing purpose quite opposed to the Nunc est bibendum theme of Classical antiquity... Colonial American art saw a large amount of 'memento mori' images in their art because of their puritan influence.
September 15, 2009
Dusk Thoughts
Drank in the last dulcet rays of sun while eating on the back patio; my wife went to her evangelical small group meeting and so I had visions of an open sun roof, blue grass music, and a writing pad. Not necessarily in that order. (I ought mention that I don't usually WWD, write while driving, but occasionally sit in the car in the driveway in order to take advantage of the satellite radio.)
...
And so now I sit in the open-ish cab, the lovely and talented automatic windows - first time I've gotten that option and it is nice. I open the windows a lot more which goes to show that "if it's convenient, they will use it". Yes, unfortunately the mantra of the typical American consumer. For years I thought power windows an invention of the devil, inculcating laziness. But it's wondrous when you have a dog in the backseat who wants to hang out the window. And it's not bad for me to sidle an arm out the window and feel a carafe of sun caress it.
...
I think good writing most often comes in blog where the writer is in semi-desperate straits and is in obvious need of a beer. A lot of those uber-successful Mommy bloggers give off an air of non-quiet desperation tinged with humor, and well they might given that kids can make you crazy when they aren't charming your socks off. Mrs. Darwin & Betty Duffy display that quality sometimes and it's obviously part of the reason I like reading them.
...
My taste in classical music seems to be shifting somewhat...more towards Mozart and Hayden, away from Beethoven and later composers. Some Bach is okay. My taste in books has shifted decidedly away from novels, particularly literary novels, but then nowhere does it say I have to read Bernanos just because I'm a Catlick blogger.
Currently listening to some very pleasant music by Carl Weber, Ruler of the Spirits Overture, as the sun leaves pink and blue fragments behind as if it creating a room meant for boy or girl. There are jet trails that ski along either side of the neighbor's large sycamore. The telephone poll stands in stark relief against the sky and I imagine the attached cylinder near the top as a bell-tower, with Quasimodo hustling up and down for the Angelus. The garden lingers on, struggling but unbowed, still producing a tomato here and there despite the cool nights and shorter days. The brussel sprouts are loaded with studded tubers like poker chips along the sleeves of a rich man.
Buddy the dog got sent in the house for conduct unbecoming of a six-year old: his squirrel angst was causing him to jump like Michael Jordan into the spruces in innumerable futile attempts. Looked like he was even taking the occasional zap from the electric fence. The things we do for love, and he does for squirrels.
...
It occurred to me at Mass how important it is not to waste time worrying about my health but about the Body's health. Let me help the Body of Christ, through prayer and works. That's how to build treasure in Heaven. I like these motivational books like Purgatory and the Means to Avoid it. It says that Purgatory is not as bad as some say, title notwithstanding. But I like these objective scorecard things, like where you say a novena and get a year off Purgatory. I know that's all out of favor now and that the afterlife is outside of time but I like the idea of being able to track my progress in the next life from this one. I love & crave statistics - "you are 36.7% of the way towards Heaven". But that's all wrong, its focuses on me rather than loving Christ. St. Therese the Little Flower didn't smile at difficult sisters because she'd get $10 worth of Heavenly credit. She loved Christ. She wanted to show it, to please Him.
...
And so now I sit in the open-ish cab, the lovely and talented automatic windows - first time I've gotten that option and it is nice. I open the windows a lot more which goes to show that "if it's convenient, they will use it". Yes, unfortunately the mantra of the typical American consumer. For years I thought power windows an invention of the devil, inculcating laziness. But it's wondrous when you have a dog in the backseat who wants to hang out the window. And it's not bad for me to sidle an arm out the window and feel a carafe of sun caress it.
...
I think good writing most often comes in blog where the writer is in semi-desperate straits and is in obvious need of a beer. A lot of those uber-successful Mommy bloggers give off an air of non-quiet desperation tinged with humor, and well they might given that kids can make you crazy when they aren't charming your socks off. Mrs. Darwin & Betty Duffy display that quality sometimes and it's obviously part of the reason I like reading them.
...
My taste in classical music seems to be shifting somewhat...more towards Mozart and Hayden, away from Beethoven and later composers. Some Bach is okay. My taste in books has shifted decidedly away from novels, particularly literary novels, but then nowhere does it say I have to read Bernanos just because I'm a Catlick blogger.
Currently listening to some very pleasant music by Carl Weber, Ruler of the Spirits Overture, as the sun leaves pink and blue fragments behind as if it creating a room meant for boy or girl. There are jet trails that ski along either side of the neighbor's large sycamore. The telephone poll stands in stark relief against the sky and I imagine the attached cylinder near the top as a bell-tower, with Quasimodo hustling up and down for the Angelus. The garden lingers on, struggling but unbowed, still producing a tomato here and there despite the cool nights and shorter days. The brussel sprouts are loaded with studded tubers like poker chips along the sleeves of a rich man.
Buddy the dog got sent in the house for conduct unbecoming of a six-year old: his squirrel angst was causing him to jump like Michael Jordan into the spruces in innumerable futile attempts. Looked like he was even taking the occasional zap from the electric fence. The things we do for love, and he does for squirrels.
...
It occurred to me at Mass how important it is not to waste time worrying about my health but about the Body's health. Let me help the Body of Christ, through prayer and works. That's how to build treasure in Heaven. I like these motivational books like Purgatory and the Means to Avoid it. It says that Purgatory is not as bad as some say, title notwithstanding. But I like these objective scorecard things, like where you say a novena and get a year off Purgatory. I know that's all out of favor now and that the afterlife is outside of time but I like the idea of being able to track my progress in the next life from this one. I love & crave statistics - "you are 36.7% of the way towards Heaven". But that's all wrong, its focuses on me rather than loving Christ. St. Therese the Little Flower didn't smile at difficult sisters because she'd get $10 worth of Heavenly credit. She loved Christ. She wanted to show it, to please Him.
Spanning the Globe to Bring You the Constant Variety of Posts
When Cardinal Ratzinger became Pope, I was a little horrified. After reading [his encyclical] God is Love, I had an attitude correction. - Penny at "In Both Life and Death"I made a selection for my husband's second wife, and put her number on speed dial on his Blackberry. - Betty Duffy, before reports of her impending death turned out to be greatly exaggerated
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, who was elected Pope Benedict XVI, once said that Steppenwolf is among his favorite books because it "exposes the problem of modernity's isolated and self-isolating man". The protagonist, Harry Haller, goes through his mid-life crisis and must chose between life of action and contemplation. His initials perhaps are not accidentally like the author's. - Petri Liukkonen via Terrence Berres
There is this thing called love. The movement to give, to receive, to find the greatest joy in helping another find the greatest joy. There is also this thing called creativity. The movement to reach out with mind and spirt, whether it be with equations, words, paint, cupcakes, musical notes or a plow driving a furrow through fertile soil. It makes no sense to me that when the being who is capable of those things – loving and creating – stops breathing and his body grows cold and heavy – that all to which he has been moving – all the love, all the creativity, all the sacrifice and compassion – that it just ends there. “Living on in the hearts of those left behind” doesn’t cut it for me either. It would, to put it bluntly, seem to me to be an injustice – if that was it, there. I’m not talking about rewards. I’m talkng about life. It is too amazing to have come as the result of a process and too tragic and unjust if it just ends in decay. - Amy Welborn
Is your religion helping you to transform your pain? If it does not, it is junk religion. We all have pain—it’s the human situation, we all carry it in a big black bag behind us and it gets heavier as we get older: by betrayals, rejections, disappointments, and wounds that are inflicted along the way. If we do not find some way to transform our pain, I can tell you with 100% certitude we will transmit it to those around us. We will create tension, negativity, suspicion, and fear wherever we go. Both Jesus and Buddha made it very clear to their followers that “life is suffering.” You cannot avoid it. It is no surprise that the central Christian logo became a naked, bleeding, suffering man. At the end of life, and probably early in life, too, the question is, “What do I do with this disappointment, with this absurdity, with this sadness?” Whoever teaches you how to transform your own suffering into compassion is a true spiritual authority. Whoever teaches you to project your doubt and fear onto Jews, Muslims, your family, heretics, gays, sinners, and foreigners, or even to turn it against yourself (guilt and shame) has no spiritual authority. - Richard Rohr
Enlightened believers are not scandalized that misfortune and suffering happen in the world. They know that God is good, that He only permits evil; that He is capable of bringing good out of evil; that we are only here in passing, that we have been damaged by original sin. They do not know what more to say. They do not know how to answer the numerous and anguishing "whys" about the evil in the world. They can, however, answer one question, how to act in suffering. How...as Jesus Christ did. - Pope John Paul I, pg. 204 of "The Smiling Pope"
It is an outrage, a shame and a scandal and a sin, that the old and ill should feel that they are alone with their demons, that those demons render their lives worthless, and that the only sensible, charitable thing to do is to take themselves and the demons as far out of everyone else's way as possible. - Sally Thomas in First Things via Roz of Exultet
The headline from a recent Newsweek article by Kathleen Kennedy Townsend reads: "Why Barack Obama represents American Catholics better than the Pope does." An alternative does suggest itself. "Why Barack Obama represents Kathleen Kennedy Townsend better than the Pope does." - First Things, via Exultet
In the so-called cosmic scheme of things, the VMAs have all the significance of belly button lint--but Taylor Swift was a seventeen year old girl who had just been made the happiest she had ever been in her life. - Shredded Cheddar on the Video Music Awards
The most obvious critique against so much of contemporary art is the absence of the transcendent, of God. And its pretension. True dat. But do you see how the two are related? When we push God away, we get pretentious without even trying. By definition, without God, we are pretentious. But that doesn’t make the art any less interesting to me. Because if you are interested in people …as they are…rather than only in ideals, it seems to me that you just can’t wave things off. What is meaningful to you about the cupcakes? Why’d you bother to encase them in a box with motor oil? I want to know. Because it helps me know why I arrange and rearrange words and if there is any point in the apparently pointlessness of it. - Amy Welborn
The poet would tell us that, though one drop of our Lord's Blood was sufficient to redeem the world, (Cujus una stilla salvum facere / Totum mundum quit ab omni scelere, as St. Thomas says,) yet out of the greatness of His love to us He would shed all. As every one knows, the last dainings of life-blood are not crimson, but of a far paler hue: strictly speaking, roseate. Change the word, and you eliminate the whole idea. - John Mason Neale on his translation of a hymn, via Bill of "Summa Minutiae"
I believe it is also the vow of chastity that makes it so necessary for the religious to develop a deep life of prayer. As liberating as celibacy can be, it obviously also involves a sacrifice of intimacy, and there is no doubt that at times every religious is going to encounter a sense of loneliness. This is one of the primary reasons I felt called to religious life as opposed to diocesan priesthood, because the sense of community, especially as it is understood by the Augustinians, is a great aid in the fruitful living of this vow. But above all else, the vow of chastity requires contemplative prayer, whereby the religious experiences the intimacy of God in ways that flood the soul with grace. - Michael of Psalm 46:11
Adventures of Boss Man
My boss just got back from his Arizona vacation, staying on an Indian reservation for quick access to Indian-owned casinos.
His hotel room included, free of charge, a large buzzing sound that he initially mistook for crickets. Eventually he realized it was the sound of rattlesnakes, apparently just outside his patio door but so loud as to make him think they were under the bed. He lay, paralyzed, lest they come up and bite him during the night.
He was told they come out at night. Sounds like he'll stick to Vegas next time.
His hotel room included, free of charge, a large buzzing sound that he initially mistook for crickets. Eventually he realized it was the sound of rattlesnakes, apparently just outside his patio door but so loud as to make him think they were under the bed. He lay, paralyzed, lest they come up and bite him during the night.
He was told they come out at night. Sounds like he'll stick to Vegas next time.
A Place of Springs
I've been lately fascinated by the life of John Paul I, by how strong he seemed prior to the papacy and how he seems to have become so anxious during those 33 days. Anxious not on his own behalf but the Church; it was because he took the papacy so seriously that it had such an impact. I tend to think that Christianity is an antidote to fear and distress but it's more subtle. The saints have the most fear and distress because they are living, by faith, out on that dividing line where the natural no longer avails. They are, that is, flying without a net. And there is no courage without fear.
The beautiful thing about the saints, about Pope John Paul I, was how they were able to serve God despite obstacles. I tend to see self-help books as something of a scam given their typical lack of effectiveness, but they are always encouraging and in that they are not to be scorned. We need encouragement and inspiration - that's what much of the Bible is.
"A new theme now inspires their praise of God; they belong to the Lamb." That's the set-up before Psalm 96 in the Liturgy of the Hours; my eyes soaked it in. That is an easy reason I can praise God although I sometimes think about the generations before Christ and how it doesn't seem fair that we have knowledge of Him and they don't. And yet the Psalms speak of Christ such that it's as if He's already with them: "As they go through the Bitter valley, they make it a place of springs..."
The beautiful thing about the saints, about Pope John Paul I, was how they were able to serve God despite obstacles. I tend to see self-help books as something of a scam given their typical lack of effectiveness, but they are always encouraging and in that they are not to be scorned. We need encouragement and inspiration - that's what much of the Bible is.
"A new theme now inspires their praise of God; they belong to the Lamb." That's the set-up before Psalm 96 in the Liturgy of the Hours; my eyes soaked it in. That is an easy reason I can praise God although I sometimes think about the generations before Christ and how it doesn't seem fair that we have knowledge of Him and they don't. And yet the Psalms speak of Christ such that it's as if He's already with them: "As they go through the Bitter valley, they make it a place of springs..."
September 14, 2009
Friday Night Hoist
On a ravishing sunlit eve sat out on the Gordon Biersch patio tipping a few cold ones with Ron aka "Hank". I ordered the Czeck pilsner because it looked good in Ron's glass but looks can be deceiving - it was not nearly as good as Sam Adams' Summer Ale, which I'd grown fond of if in small quantities. Perhaps too it was just because it was the first, but regardless the Marzen was better than I remembered it. Other than Barley's Pale Ale, it's the best that local Columbus brewing has to offer.
Ronald was his usual jovial and generous self, already on a first name basis with the waiter by the time I got there although chastizing him when he brought out a pint with a large head on it: "Do I look like a effin' priest!" he said in a mock brogue accent, "look at the collar on that!". Colorful. I heard that football star Kurt Warner quizzes his kids after being waited on in a restaurant as to the color of the waiter's eyes in order to teach them to see others, including those serving them. To his credit, that is one lesson Ron would never require.
We covered much the same ground initially, his complaints about a local Byzantine Church, the music, the liturgy, and the current priest. All of which are superior to most Roman Catholic churches but then we all get spoiled. He made some good points, especially in regard to a hermenuetic key to understanding Fr. T - that is, Fr. T looks at the church building the way Bob Villa looks at a house in need of a make-over. Indeed I was surprised that a relatively poor parish would install a new floor.
Ronald was his usual jovial and generous self, already on a first name basis with the waiter by the time I got there although chastizing him when he brought out a pint with a large head on it: "Do I look like a effin' priest!" he said in a mock brogue accent, "look at the collar on that!". Colorful. I heard that football star Kurt Warner quizzes his kids after being waited on in a restaurant as to the color of the waiter's eyes in order to teach them to see others, including those serving them. To his credit, that is one lesson Ron would never require.
We covered much the same ground initially, his complaints about a local Byzantine Church, the music, the liturgy, and the current priest. All of which are superior to most Roman Catholic churches but then we all get spoiled. He made some good points, especially in regard to a hermenuetic key to understanding Fr. T - that is, Fr. T looks at the church building the way Bob Villa looks at a house in need of a make-over. Indeed I was surprised that a relatively poor parish would install a new floor.
Thoughts on the Sunday Homily
The homilist yesterday mentioned how God gave us his Son, who gave of himself completely. "He bled every last drop..." and I had an image of Jesus on the cross with every single bit of blood and water draining from him and of how he multiplied it, like the bread when feeding the 5000, only this was multiplied through all generations to all generations, his body & blood in the Eucharist and his water in Baptism.
What's funny or ironic is that it's precisely this quality of God - his love without limits - that both terrifies me and consoles me. Terrifies me because he expects the same from us - our everything, as the homilist reminded us today. And yet it is consoling because it precisely this qualty that gives me hope of my salvation. It is only the knowledge that God is willing to do practically anything and go to extremes as vivid as becoming man and allowing twelve-inch nails piercing his skin, bone and tendons that offers consolation.
The other thing that occurs to me is this: how can God show Himself to be trustworthy to us without rescuing us from bad situations? Doesn't this mean that, de facto, one need be put in bad situations? And doesn't one have to doubt God and then have him come through in order for you to learn that doubt is inaccurate? Isn't that what the apostles went through time and again, when they doubted God as Thomas did after the Resurrection? If you're never surprised by God's mercy and love then doesn't that mean you never feel need of that mercy and love, which means you never feel estranged from him?
St. Francis de Sales said, "At times we are almost lucky to have committed a sin, almost lucky because then we are humble, then we understand what wretched creatures we are, then we no longer dare to look down on others because we are sinners."
What's funny or ironic is that it's precisely this quality of God - his love without limits - that both terrifies me and consoles me. Terrifies me because he expects the same from us - our everything, as the homilist reminded us today. And yet it is consoling because it precisely this qualty that gives me hope of my salvation. It is only the knowledge that God is willing to do practically anything and go to extremes as vivid as becoming man and allowing twelve-inch nails piercing his skin, bone and tendons that offers consolation.
The other thing that occurs to me is this: how can God show Himself to be trustworthy to us without rescuing us from bad situations? Doesn't this mean that, de facto, one need be put in bad situations? And doesn't one have to doubt God and then have him come through in order for you to learn that doubt is inaccurate? Isn't that what the apostles went through time and again, when they doubted God as Thomas did after the Resurrection? If you're never surprised by God's mercy and love then doesn't that mean you never feel need of that mercy and love, which means you never feel estranged from him?
St. Francis de Sales said, "At times we are almost lucky to have committed a sin, almost lucky because then we are humble, then we understand what wretched creatures we are, then we no longer dare to look down on others because we are sinners."
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