Let's Play...Why's My Bookbag or E-Reader Equivalent So Heavy?

Joe Queenan's One for the Books:

The great books of the world are like a gigantic warning from the Office of the Surgeon General: Attention, readers: Even if you are a hugely successful, highly respected individual—a captain of industry, perhaps even a pillar of the community—this thing is going to end badly.

*

by refusing to expose themselves to the music of chance, they have purged all the authentic, nonelectronic magic and mystery from their lives. They have rolled over and surrendered to the machines. This may be convenient, but that’s all it is. All technology is corporate.

*

“No place affords a more striking conviction of the vanity of human hopes than a public library,” wrote Samuel Johnson; “for who can see the wall crowded on every side by mighty volumes, the works of laborious meditations and accurate inquiry, now scarcely known but by the catalogue.”

From Moby Dick:

Let it go. Look! see yonder Turkish cheeks of spotted tawn—living, breathing pictures painted by the sun. The Pagan leopards—the unrecking and unworshipping things, that live; and seek, and give no reasons for the torrid life they feel!

*

For with little external to constrain us, the innermost necessities in our being, these still drive us on.

*

"Drink and pass!" he cried, handing the heavy charged flagon to the nearest seaman. "The crew alone now drink. Round with it, round! Short draughts—long swallows, men; 'tis hot as Satan's hoof. So, so; it goes round excellently. It spiralizes in ye; forks out at the serpent-snapping eye. Well done; almost drained. That way it went, this way it comes. Hand it me—here's a hollow! Men, ye seem the years; so brimming life is gulped and gone. Steward, refill!

*

Yonder, by ever-brimming goblet's rim, the warm waves blush like wine. The gold brow plumbs the blue. The diver sun—slow dived from noon—goes down...

*

Oh! time was, when as the sunrise nobly spurred me, so the sunset soothed. No more. This lovely light, it lights not me; all loveliness is anguish to me, since I can ne'er enjoy. Gifted with the high perception, I lack the low.

*

We'll drink to-night with hearts as light, To love, as gay and fleeting As bubbles that swim, on the beaker's brim, And break on the lips while meeting.

*

Oh, boys, don't be sentimental; it's bad for the digestion!

From Chabon's Telegraph Avenue:

A change of state. Molecules in transition, liquid to vapor. A Chinatown dollar-store teacup flying a dragon kite of steam.

*

Archy found himself unexpectedly on the verge of tears. That verge was as close to tears as Archy usually allowed himself to come. Regret, hurt, bereavement, loss, to permit the flow of even one tear at the upwelling of such feelings was to imperil ancient root systems and retaining walls. Mudslide and black avalanche would result and drown him.

*

Shameless meant you suffered from a case of laziness so profound that you could not be bothered to hide your misbehavior; but it seemed to suggest also that you had nothing to hide, no need to feel any shame.

*

You could damn yourself with silence but never so effectively as by running your mouth.

*

One of the man’s balls there to question the testimony of the other, both of them doubting what his dick had to say.

*

Aviva liked him for his immobility, his effortless parsimony of movement.

So That's Why He's Retiring

It's occasionally interesting if trying to see what non-Catholics, like this Wesleyan University professor, have to say about things Catholic:

Quite a surprise that Pope Benedict is passing the baton this way. You wonder what's behind the scenes to break with a 600 year precedent. A beef Ratzinger's always had, that Pope's spent their last years on autopilot? Afraid of other people running it while he's frail? Wanting to have influence on who his successor is? [emphasis mine] If I had to pick one, the last one would be high on my list as a factor.

To see every office in terms of merely the exercise of power is the boringly typical ideology of our age. To quote the Holy Father himself:

"There is an ideology that fundamentally traces all existing institutions back to power politics. And this ideology corrupts humanity and also destroys the Church. Here is a concrete example: If I see the Church only under the aspect of power, then it follows that everyone who doesn't hold an office is oppressed. And then the question of, for example, women's ordination, as an issue of power, becomes imperative. I think this ideology produces a totally false point of view, as if power were the only category for explaining the world and the communion present in it. If belonging to the Church has any meaning at all, then the meaning can only be that it gives us eternal life. We are not in the Church in order to exercise power as if in some kind of association."

Benedict We Hardly Knew Ye

Hey, well, now that was surprising. Not every day do you read the Pope is retiring. Wow. I wonder how this jibes with that Malachian prediction that this is the last pope before the end of the world. Seems we may not have much time left.

I can see the Holy Father retiring in part because he has the freedom that Christians ought feel, that freedom not to follow conventions but to possess a spirit of liberty. Thus the fact no pope has retired since 1415 wouldn't be much of a deterrent to this holy pope. And he might well have considered that his predecessor, Pope John Paul II, already taught by his example of the dignity of old age and that the value of human life is apart from what can be “produced”.

Finally, the timing seems interesting given that this comes on the heels of producing the three volume work on the life of Christ. At the beginning of his papacy he wondered if he'd complete it before his death, and perhaps once it was done he felt he'd accomplished what he'd set out to do.

Of course another reason for his leaving, besides simply that it's his discernment of God's will, is that he can't travel anymore and in this day and age travel seems almost a job requirement for that position.

Bush v. Obama

Am intrigued by how parallel the Bush and Obama presidencies feel. Both got two terms despite bitter, near fanatical opposition from Americans belonging to the other party. Both, without remorse, betrayed a huge part of their respective bases: Bush by spending wildly and engaging in nation building, Obama by continuing most of Bush's hated anti-terrorist policies like drones, Gitmo, civil liberties infringements.

Both Bush and Obama, though, did the One Thing Necessary to secure their own bases: Bush cut taxes and Obama remained a black person. (Kidding - Obama got health care passed.) And, of course, Obama was suitably bloodthirsty on abortion rights while Bush was pro-life. So that soothed both bases as well.

In the end, Obama found the Democrat playbook that worked: hawkish on foreign policy, dove-ish domestically - except for unborn children. Basically the platform comes down to “death to terrorists and unwanted children but love to every one else except the rich.”

Ye Trip Log of Four Days on a Cruise

“I had discovered the crowning error of the city, its Pandora's box. Full of vaunting pride the New Yorkers had climbed here and seen with dismay what he had never suspected, that the city was not the endless succession of canyons that he supposed but that it had limits - from the tallest structure he saw for the first time that it faded out into the country on all sides, into an expanse of green and blue that alone was limitless….” - F. Scott Fitzgerald, My Lost City, 1932.

*

"Walter always, lifelong, working that 51/49 smart-to-stupid ratio." - Michael Chabon, Telegraph Avenue

It never fails to amaze me just how big this country is. We had a layover in Atlanta, a city that feels deeply Southern to me and yet it was a longer journey from Atlanta to Fort Lauderdale than Ohio to Atlanta. Whole lot of real estate. Makes me wonder if the winters are really as genteel in Atlanta as I imagine.

On our approach to Atlanta there was a deeply fetching fog. We were struck by the sight of a tiny collection of skyscrapers visible above it - maybe ten or fifteen in all. It looked sort of like Stonehedge, these truncated 'scrapers.

Meantime I used the Liturgy of the Hours on iPad and wonder what the Orthodox Jews behind me on the plane think. Maybe that I was “stealing” their prayers, which is what one rabbi joked to Cardinal Dolan upon noting that his breviary was composed mostly of the Psalms.

And this just in: Orthodox Jews are very loud. Wow. Wasn't just us that noticed, we overheard the people in front of us talking about it too. Last trip we took we also had a guy and his family next to us talking extremely loudly. It's purely anecdotal, but I wonder if it's a coarsening of culture, an indifference to other passengers, or if it's just we're too used to quiet.

The odds finally caught up with us. After all the trips it was finally time for an airline to lose my luggage. Fortunately we arrived in Fort Lauderdale a day before the cruise and so have some wiggle room, although it wasn't particularly comforting that four hours after reporting the lost luggage there's still no update. If they don't find them I suppose we'll have to find a Walmart and buy clothes. Which kind of sucks. Won't have any contact lenses either for the trip.

So there's a sense of unease today despite how pleasant the hotel. Seventy-five degrees at 4pm! Nice weather if you can get it. A stunner of a day. The pool frocked with palms. Sun, yes. Wearing jeans because those large suitcases cannot be found. I was thinking yesterday about how odd it is we need a passport or driver's license to prove we are who we say we are. The importance of that one little piece of paper, or laminated card, is huge. And how easy to lose. And yet here it's apparently possible to lose two forty-pound suitcases. Fortunately I didn't pack the passport in the checked luggage. In the future I guess I'll have to be more sensitive to what I pack in carry-on. Like your house getting broken into, you're usually only wiser after it happens. Otherwise you play the odds.

Six pm, no bags. I plan a trip to ye olde neighborhood CVS (or “csv” I called it, obviously still in work mode) to buy a contact lens case and solution in order to try to extend the life of my one-day disposable to five days. But then, just before we walk out the door, they call and have our bags.

Rather than suffer the ignominy of drinking a $5 non-craft beer downstairs I head out to the local supermarket. Found a quick-mart and bought a six of Sierra Nevada Pales. A six is more than I'll drink and the cruise folks are Nazi's when it comes to smuggling in alcohol, so I have beers to spare. I happen across a homeless-looking man while walking back and figure he'd appreciate a beer. I walk towards him, nod to him, hoping he'll ask me for money at which point I'll present the free brew but he doesn't and I don't. So here I am sitting on this “gold mine” of three extra beers.

The all-you-can-drink alcohol package on the Royal Caribbean cruise is a rich $45-55 a day. Which was an easy "no" in my case. Kind of interesting to see what RC thinks is the over/under on drinking. I assume they're making a slim profit or at least breaking even on the $50 a day plan versus people just paying ala carte. Assuming drinks are $5-ish a pop, that's a healthy ten drinks per day. Of course you figure that people going for the alcohol package are going to skew towards the heavy drinkers but still that's a pretty generous amount of quaffing. (A quick Google shows mixed drinks on RC cruises are $7-9, but that's still five mixed drinks a day.)

THURSDAY

Oh but a hotel pales, even one in the warm, sunny climate of Flor-i-day, beside the frisson of a boat, including a cruise ship. Laying out next to a pool is not unlike what I was doing at the hotel pool but it feels different here. On the elevator we had two big black dudes, us, and the Amish. This cruise feels downright multicultural. Oh the youth surrounding me. “Banquets where beautiful and virtuous ladies walked half-naked, with their hair loose like brides,” to quote a Jack Gilbert poem.

We clung to the pool until the muster drill, or as I joked the “mustard” drill. (Hit fake applause sound effect here.) About a half-hour of time-wastage but at least we don't have to have life jackets now. A buzz-kill no doubt for the many semi-inebriated cruisers since alcohol sales stop a half-hour before the reveille call. They let you on the boat now pleasingly early providing an almost full day on the first day. Can't get in your cabin till 1pm but that hardly matters. Folks seemed slower to respond to the muster than a decade ago and of course I spy in that, as always, the Decline of Civilization. Or maybe just the Europeanization of American life, like how in Rome people take rules “under advisement”.

Fatigue was the order of the day, so I drank recuperative beers (they really seem to help with exhaustion) very slowly and then half-slept, half-read and half-watched the rippling pool waters. The pool was smartly designed with a very shallow beginning (2 inches of water) before the edge of a six foot drop. Then to the room - how splendid to see the ship depart from our private balcony! Idyllic. Oh it's been almost a decade since my last cruise. I remember the appeal now: from the kitschy plastic toucans of the pool area to the viscerally real ocean from the balcony. From Disney to raw nature in one fell swoop. The infrastructure of Fort Lauderdale behind us, we headed through a narrow passage into the wide sea, the ship's horns blasting while people fished from a dock and looked so small.

We'd set dinner for early, 5:30pm, and to my delight got seated at a table for two next to windows with incredible views of the sunset over Fort Lauderdale and then Miami. The food was excellent and the waiter chagrined we didn't take his recommendations (steak, carrot cake). He's from Turkey, late 20-something, maybe 30, and has a fiancee, an American, who decided to convert to Islam for him it would seem.

Opening show at the Platinum Theatre was very pleasing. A little bit of everything - orchestra, singers, an acrobat, a funny comedian, Bruce somebody. Enjoyed the music but it was too short-lived; Styx 'Come Sail Away' was the only song. These shows seem tailor-made for short attention spans with a mega number of entertainment options elsewhere on board.

FRIDAY

I believe I have my sea legs now. What a difference a great sleep makes. Slept 9:30-8 and it felt a tousand (as the Irish say) times better than the previous night's sleep for some reason.

One funny thing about a cruise is that you wouldn't know you're on one except for the room balcony. On the ship itself you can spend 99% of your time next to a pool or at dinner or at a show with no clue you're actually sailing on water. Few good ocean views in the lounge chairs of sunny areas. . But out on the balcony - which presently is surprisingly pacific with the lack of a strong wind - you get that full view of sea from six stories up. There's only one word for it: majestic. Majestic sea meets majestic ship - they seem to kiss in mutual respect. And the briney waves coming off the ship's hull are mesmerizing. Purblind bliss to be alive, and it makes me want to read something sea-worthy, something majestic, like Homer's Odyssey or Melville's Moby-Dick.

*

Closest thing to breakfast in bed is breakfast brought to the room on cruises. Perhaps my favorite part of the cruise! And all “free”, ha. I watch the slow parade of waves generated from the ship…lulling, calmer and more “organized” than the waves on a beach. The consolation of two seemingly immovable objects, sea and ship. Of course both impressions are illusory if the ship's much more. I want to dive off the balcony and dream into that azure sea! Just for the experience of it, the thrill of jumping off a cruise ship, for the momentary straying from limit and convention. Not a good idea at any point but especially when not next to land, and yet the ocean's bigness still seems something of a rumor to me. I tend to think, oh so falsely, that there's always another boat that'll come around despite the fact that ocean distances are heroic. Oh the water so true blue / I'd love to hole up in your hue.

*

So this morning was time for a leisurely enterprise we've never made time on a cruise before. We explored, methodically, every deck. From the wedding chapel on deck 15, to the cool jazz bar on 14, and all the nooks and crannies down below. Basketball court, rock-climbing wall, putt-putt and a wave pool where people tried, almost all unsuccessfully, to surf. Among the spectators was the Amish crew, still fully dressed under the Caribbean sun. Then came to an out-of-the-way deck area that included a topless woman bathing. The extremes of bodily modesty I guess.

The days get behind you wickedly quick here. How could it be two in the afternoon already? With no reading, no drinking. Just cruising by the long, long island of Cuba. Didn't know I felt starved for the sea, the sparkling sea. How great is it that cruises and air travel have become affordable for the masses? This would be an unattainable luxury just a few decades ago.

*

We moved twice to avoid obnoxiously loud people. Ear plugs are a cruise necessity. The second move was a bit of a maneuver given my precarious balance of carrying beer mug, half beer can, full bottle already opened (I bought an extra beer to prevent premature bar-ulation), towel, shirt, and shoulder bag. The bridge too far was using my foot to try to move a lounge chair, resulting in a spectacular crash of beer, getting a poor man wet. I apologized profusely and he said it was okay. Embarrassing. I was one of the obnoxious people. My first beer so I wasn't alcohol-impaired. All because of my overestimating my athletic ability.

Of course the real downside of a 4-day cruise is that it's only four days long. That's what we call a killer flaw that all vacations share. Plus I'm mentally accustomed to week long beach-like vacationeering, so we're on the short stick of time. Drink ye well tonight for tomorrow we shall die. Friday already and tomorrow is Cozumel, leaving only Sunday as a cruise day and its consolations. In some ways this is the second to last day already! I figure it's time I get a mixed drink from an itinerant seller who happens to be in the area. His sales pitch is pitch-perfect: “It's medication time!” I'm skeptical of how much alcohol the mixed fruit drinks contain since the received wisdom of the millennium is that they don't contain enough to interest the drinker of the species, men. If whiskey was fruity and came with a drink umbrella men would still drink it out of respect for its potency.

SATURDAY

T-shirt sighted: “If you can't remember it, it didn't happen.” Which is, I suppose, a reason I keep trip logs. Today felt like a vacation tipping point since as long as Cozumel was still in the foreground we could always say, “We always have Cozumel.” And now we can't, for it sped by with greatest rapidity. Meantime I hear the tune “Love Boat” and “Dancing Queen” from the pool speakers reverberating even here to this suddenly mournful balcony. Meaningful kitsch - vacations attract sentimentality like a hull does barnacles.

*

It's always intense to wake up in the morning and see a different view from the night before. In this case Mexico's Yucatan peninsula, specifically Cozumel. We watched as ten uniformed men and women hurriedly set up a bridge to the dock and a dozen or more steel girders to lead the way. One female agent had a handsome German Shepherd there, presumably for drug or bomb-sniffing purposes, though none of those disembarking were checked by the dog.

We adventured our way off the gangplank and entered Mexico where I would get a proper sun-scalding. But first walked the gauntlet of sellers just past the dock and got a cab to Paradise Beach. A bit on the corny side, with big play-toys in the ocean for kids of all ages to climb and explore, such as a huge slide, which drew me in.

Very shortly a loud family from the East Coast arrived. The young teenage girl shouted that she hates beer, her dad making her drink it since it came as part of a bucket deal. She said she only drinks vodka straight from the bottle. The father also very vocal, hollering here and there and making a spectacle to the Mexican waiter over the fact that umbrellas aren't available in the first row of lounge chairs.

People: the cause and solution of all life's problems. If Paradise Beach can seem as crass and loud as its unimaginative name, the tackiness can't overcome the jewels of sun, water and piscine underwater kingdoms.

The incredible lightness of being
sun-clad, water-dappled
floating over flowery fish
cruising sandy-bottom past
camo'd flounder, single-winged
with one eye
floating on the waters
THIS is time travel
if only for a day or four.
Relax & dream of the witbits.

SUNDAY

It's the little things in life, like sitting on a bazillion-dollar ship's balcony in a foreign port of call drinking coffee. Er, that doesn't sound too little. But what a moment it creates, to see the sea in a different way. Riding six stories above the frolicking waves (and yet they somehow look close…maybe fifteen feet down). The grace with which the ship moves - it's like she's walking on the waters. You see the chop of waves but oddly she's rock steady. It's like magic. So definitely the balcony seems the reason for a cruise vacation. What an awesome way to start the day. Can easily see why our planet looks like a blue marble from space - all blue, as far as you can see.

And now the last day at sea. We're going in the wrong direction, away from the comfort waters of the southwest Caribbean towards the “noreastern” clime of Fort Lauderdale. Too late to jump off the ship since no land's in sight!

Joe Queenan in One for the Books writes of the wisdom of classic books, mentioning that if you're a man thinking of early retirement you should read King Lear first. I never thought of that work as having that practical an application. John Switzer, a favorite Dispatch columnist, hates winter but, paradoxically, wouldn't live in a place without dramatic seasonal change. Counter-intuitive, but perhaps you need winter in order to truly enjoy summer, just as you need work in order to truly enjoy one's free time.

*

I'm really staying put on the balcony, really giving it a good ride today. Want to drink it in and savor if, even if the passing waves sort of physically represent an hourglass of sorts presaging the end of this vacation. But I need not be so grasping - there is a life beyond the physical beauty. There is a sun greater than this sun. From today's morning prayer: “Let us pray to Christ The Lord, the sun who enlightens all men, whose light will never fail us.” The difficulty with which the rich enter Heaven must be related to the sensation of fullness that trips like this foster. It's harder to remember God here. And yet there's also a sense of gratitude that one can consciously refer to God. "And still boyhood operated on their minds, retaining all its former power to confound wishes with plans." (Chabon)

So yes I bathe in this sunny deck, feeling like a less lonesome version of that soul in that Hopper work Morning Sun. I feel enlivened by the lack of noise, the sheer gratuitous joy of a day at sea, passing the island of Cuba. There but for an accident of birth go me. How incredibly fortunate and unmerited to be born in a first world country.

Certainly the timing of this cruise seems liturgically perfect: during Mardi Gras and right on the jaws of Lent. I'm grateful that modern technology has brought air travel and cruises, once unaffordable luxuries, to the middle class. It's kind of interesting that an atheist author wrote that it's the super-wealthy who, paradoxically, first recognize how we can't be satisfied with money or the things money supply. It's often the poor and middle class who seem to think there's some “Big Rock Candy Mountain” to be found in gold and affluence. The quicker you find that out, he said, the better. Not that some of his clients weren't awful despite that knowledge. “Trust fund babies” seem to have a straight uphill climb. Limits are as necessary and natural to humans as the Creator intended. And yet on this very vacation I try to satiate on sun and scenery, sitting on this balcony until the boredom of satiety occurs, a seemingly unreachable goal. The roiling royal blue carpet and ever replenishing waves, yore of yores, gold spilt sun.

MONDAY

We're docked in Fort Lauderdale and it's better than a sharp stick in the eye. You figure getaway mornings will have little to recommend them, but Steph retrieved coffee and so there's a few lingering moments. Actually not a bad length for a cruise. Felt surprisingly full.

Full bore reality sets in apace. Calm before ere storm. A long way from the wonderful live reggae music out on deck 11 by the pool, sipping a 25-ounce Fosters ale.

Sweet flight back. Almost too short. A great time to read, that's for sure. Read some of Chabon's Telegraph Avenue, said some morning prayer, received the shocking news of the pope's resignation via the Drudge Report…The time flew literally and figuratively.

On the plane a 30-something lady grew irate with her sister before the flight, screaming that she was an idiot and even slapping her. After the 2+ hour plane trip, she started hate speeching her again and while walking to baggage claim overheard on a security person's walkie/talkie that two people were having a verbal fight and were heading to baggage claim and it might be a good idea to keep an eye on them. Steph and I overheard, stopped in our tracks, and meanwhile who goes by us but the perpetrators themselves and one of the sisters said, “they're talking about us?” and I nodded my head.

Epilogue:
Can it be that I was really on that deathless main? Was it all a dream, those mornings starboard, that stellar weather on the sun-shot water? Now is when it really kicks in, at 7:15 morning with no view, no sun - with work on the immediate horizon. Now is when it kicks in. How it seemed no bind at all to pray last week, “Angel of God….to whom His love commits me here.” Commits me here! To that wonderful place?! Just can't remain there is all...

Whether St. Thomas Aquinas is Boring

Link. Pretty clever.

Various & Sundry

I think the message of the gospel has two primary obstacles: for some people the news is too good, and for others the news is too bad. The cross is famously an obstacle, especially the part about carrying our crosses. We want to be gods now. St. Ireaneus, seventeen hundred years ago, wrote: "For we cast blame upon Him, because we have not been made gods from the beginning, but at first merely men, then at length gods."

More surprising perhaps is that sometimes the good news is too good. A brother-in-law is skeptical about the Resurrection simply because it seems too good to be true and it's what we want to believe. A lot of people refuse, for whatever reason, to accept good fortune. That we get something for nothing which is the essence of life itself - we were all given physical life itself without purchasing it in any way. And on a spiritual level, grace deserved is an oxymoron and thus is not grace. And Holy Communion is rejected by some Protestants because it's too good to be believed.

*

This past Sunday reminded me of the difficult-to-believe truth of the one Body of Christ of which we are all members. I liked how St. Paul taught this “one Body” so strongly because in fact his initial encounter with Christ was on this very subject: “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?” Paul sure came by that teaching honestly and with great back-up authority.

*

Last night we watched an impressively good television show called Justified. Set in hardscrabble Harlan County, Kentucky, the acting is pitch-perfect, the dialogue keen and the storyline interesting. It's so rare when I see anything that well-done on television, and seeing someone so good at their work promotes a feeling of relaxation and inspiration in me. Excellence is charismatic and it's nice to fall into expert hands, even be they those of a television producer.

*

Did a 30-minute run at the gym. Ran by many folks working out on the weight machines and treadmills so diligently. Ruthlessly youthful, they dotted the landscape like reminders of my past, of college, except with shorter, form-fitting lycra shorts. Made me miss my own youth and feelings of exuberance that attended it, feelings not disconnected from great physical fitness and physical strivings of a much more intense nature than I was currently engaged in. One girl looked like she was in the death throes of agony, sweating profusely but with a holy sort of look of striving on her face. Sweat like tears drenched her face, and her eyes and posture were like that of the Virgin on the Via Dolorosa. I wondered how far afield simple striving is from spirituality and whether they were in fact the very same thing. The palpable striving to please God is a very rare thing, witness how touched He was when a prostitute, no less, wept on his feet and dried them with her hair. Who was Mary Magdalen but all striving, all hunger? ("Stop clinging to me," Jesus had to say.) How much of spirituality consists of not feeling full?

*

New novel set in Cincinnati was reviewed in the paper today. From the Dispatch: “The author's Cincinnati - a place where residents 'make a virtue of grittiness, take pride in not living in some cleaner, wealthier, wussier city.'” Hmm, Cincy doesn't seem that unclean and there are wealthy areas. I would've thought the author would have the residents take pride in the absorbing the (relatively) hot summers and cold winters. I suppose I'll download the first chapter and see if it's any good. Reading a novel simply for the setting seems akin to watching a basketball game for the cheerleaders. It just doesn't figure in much.

*

Tragically, I had to put my Knox Bible out of reach because our dog Buddy was eating books next to it (a Downton Abbey book was a recent casualty). I don't think he's a particular fan of thin bible paper but I'd rather not find out. Sadness untold because I rather liked having such a fresh (to the point of wild) translation so close to my recliner. My druthers on Sunday is to read the readings of the day not only as presented in the missalette but in versions sundry, like the stiff upper crust Douay, the guilelessly transparent Jerusalem, and the quirkily robust Knox. Those seem to be the three renditions significantly interesting versus the New American text, the latter being pretty close to the lectionary readings.

*

Spent some time yesterday reading Ireaneus on Logos, specifically the full context of his case against those who wouldst be gods first:

Irrational, therefore, in every respect, are they who await not the time of increase, but ascribe to God the infirmity of their nature. Such persons know neither God nor themselves, being insatiable and ungrateful, unwilling to be at the outset what they have also been created—men subject to passions; but go beyond the law of the human race, and before that they become men, they wish to be even now like God their Creator, and they who are more destitute of reason than dumb animals [insist] that there is no distinction between the uncreated God and man, a creature of to-day. For these, [the dumb animals], bring no charge against God for not having made them men; but each one, just as he has been created, gives thanks that he has been created. For we cast blame upon Him, because we have not been made gods from the beginning, but at first merely men, then at length gods; although God has adopted this course out of His pure benevolence, that no one may impute to Him invidiousness or grudgingness. He declares, “I have said, Ye are gods; and ye are all sons of the Highest.”1 But since we could not sustain the power of divinity, He adds, “But ye shall die like men,” setting forth both truths—the kindness of His free gift, and our weakness, and also that we were possessed of power over ourselves.

St. Ireaneus makes the case that, to quote Jack Nicholson, “we couldn't handle the truth.”:

God had power at the beginning to grant perfection to man; but as the latter was only recently created, he could not possibly have received it, or even if he had received it, could he have contained it, or containing it, could he have retained it.

Of course it's a moot point given that it's ridiculous for the creature to complain that the Creator didn't make him perfect when the Creator himself came down to subject himself to our imperfections to the point of dying on a cross. Certainly makes the whole argument ludicrous since it's far more impressive for the Creator to come down and suffer than a created one to do likewise.

Four Dead in Benghazi

Tin ears and Clinton coming,
She's finally on her own.
This winter I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Benghazi.

Gotta face up to it
Media's biased as hell
Bush'd be hounded to the ground.
What if you knew Stevens
Found him dead on the ground
Media doesn't care though they know...

Tin ears and Clinton coming,
She's finally on her own.
This winter I hear the drumming,
Four dead in Benghazi.

MLK & Brandon Vogt

Catholic bloggers, a surprisingly bloodthirsty lot (I feel almost chastened by how naive I was in the beginning in thinking that the Catholic blogsophere would be different than the Internet at large), have piled on Brandon Vogt for a pro-Martin Luther King Jr. post. Msgr. Pope responded with alacrity.

Part of what makes King especially interesting to me is his inherent contradictions, but then he was playing by the book in one sense: as Anne Lamont recently tweeted: “Lance, Lance, Lance. Usually these guys are willing to destroy their children, wives, parents, friends, ONLY if they're going to get laid.”

But among the leaders of his day he was an absolute peach. LBJ, Nixon, Hoover, Wallace…a pretty sorry lot, no? But even that is pretty judgmental of me. “By the measure you measure..”.

I tend to want people, including myself, to conform to some sort of consistent, logical pattern. Good or evil. But people are complicated, duh.

Dignity and the Poor

I read a recent blog post that only up-to-date clothes in good condition should be given to the poor in order to be respectful of the dignity of the poor.

This is a very interesting to me because it touches on so many things. “Dignity”, in this case, is related to clothing relative to other folks’ clothing – i.e not seen in just a purely functional light. Assuming I have clothing that is out-of-date or otherwise not in great condition, it is to be thrown away -- but I wonder if that is good? Is it possible there is someone who might be willing to wear clothing out-of-date but because we have this standard of dignity then he/she won’t get it?

Similarly with low wage jobs. Are they beneath the dignity of people, or is it better they have something rather than nothing? Is the perfect the enemy of the good in these cases?

And the larger question is, for me, this: Is income inequality inherently evil? I tend to think that what matters is not income inequality (or, clothing inequality) but the measure of how well off the poor are. I would rather have a “prosperous poor” than a situation where the poor are more impoverished but incomes are more equal.

But there’s certainly a good number of holy and worthy people who would rather see incomes more equal even should it result in making the poor poorer because then the poor would not be able to SEE and FEEL the income inequality so prevalent in capitalistic societies. Which is to say, I suppose, that self-image is more important than materialistic concerns.

Word Among Us Meditation

On the anniversary of Roe v. Wade:

On this anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court decision that opened the doors to legalized abortion, the Church asks us to pray for legal protection of the unborn. If you’ve ever seen a fence around a pasture, you can understand the need to pray for a change in our laws. We all know that a pasture fence helps keep the animals together and provides protection from outside dangers. Could the sheep stay together without a fence? It’s possible, but not likely. Sheep aren’t very good at regulating themselves, after all.

Laws function in a similar way. They set limits for human behavior. While God created us to gravitate toward the good, sin has altered our attractions, and we now have trouble making the right choices. Where our natural impulses may take us down the wrong path, a good law can correct our trajectory. It holds us to a higher standard and helps us to live peacefully with each other...

So on this day of grim remembrance, let us take up the call to pray for just laws that protect the innocent. Such laws certainly would help stop the slaughter of unborn children. But even more important, laws protecting them could create some breathing room, an environment of safety until people’s hearts could come to a deeper and more lasting change. But let’s also pray for a transformation of minds and hearts, so that the protection of the unborn becomes a no-brainer. May we all work for both results: just laws and softened hearts!

Jolly Good Ale and Old

by William Stevenson

I cannot eat but little meat,
My stomach is not good;
But sure I think that I can drink
With him that wears a hood.
Though I go bare, take ye no care,
I nothing am a-cold;
I stuff my skin so full within
Of jolly good ale and old.

Back and side go bare, go bare,
Both foot and hand go cold;
But, belly, God send thee good ale enough,
Whether it be new or old.

I love no roast but a nut-brown toast,
And a crab laid in the fire;
A little bread shall do me stead;
Much bread I not desire.
No frost nor snow, no wind, I trow,
Can hurt me if it would,
I am so wrapped and throughly lapped
Of jolly good ale and old.

Back and side go bare, go bare,
Both foot and hand go cold;
But, belly, God send thee good ale enough,
Whether it be new or old.

And Tib, my wife, that as her life
Loveth well good ale to seek,
Full oft drinks she till ye may see
The tears run down her cheek.
Then doth she troll to me the bowl,
Even as a maltworm should,
And saith, "Sweetheart, I took my part
Of this jolly good ale and old."

Back and side go bare, go bare,
Both foot and hand go cold;
But, belly, God send thee good ale enough,
Whether it be new or old.

Now let them drink till they nod and wink,
Even as good fellows should do;
They shall not miss to have the bliss
Good ale doth bring men to.
And all poor souls that have scoured bowls
Or have them lustily trolled --
God save the lives of them and their wives,
Whether they be young or old.

Back and side go bare, go bare,
Both foot and hand go cold;
But, belly, God send thee good ale enough,
Whether it be new or old.

Quotable

From Joe Queenan's book about books:

“I am of Irish descent, and to the Irish, books are as natural and inevitable a feature of the landscape as sand is to Tuaregs. When the English stormed the Emerald Isle under Cromwell in the seventeeth century, they took everything that was worth taking and burned everything else. Thereafter, the Irish had no land, no money, no future. That left them with words, and words became books, and books, ingeniously coupled with music and alcohol, enabled the Irish to transcend reality.”

Also:

“No matter what they profess to believe, no matter what they may tell themselves, most book lovers do not read primarily to obtain information or to while away time or to better themselves or even, in the words of C.S. Lewis, to know that they are not alone. They read to escape to a more exciting, rewarding world…I am convinced that this desire to escape from reality - on a daily, even an hourly, basis - is the main reason people read books.”

Controversies and Devil Beatings

'Twas alarming to read of St. Antony, whose memorial we celebrated yesterday, getting beat up by the devil (just like St. Padre Pio). It reminds me so much of the homily the other day at St. Patrick's where the priest said that we should expect not simply to be on the offensive against the devil, driving him back and such, but also be able to take a punch, to absorb a blow. Just an amazing coincidence, or Godincidence it seems. What are the odds that I would read about the devil beating a saint up* and then hearing a homily, totally unrelated to the story of that saint, bring up the necessity of Christians to absorb the devil's blows?

Jesus famously provided the example in taking the worst the devil has to offer in the form of suffering and death, and be able to come out the other side victorious. Death vanquished by death. The priest said it was like how in boxing it's not just how well you can punch but how well you can absorb punishment.

It got me thinking how odd it would be if Pope Benedict suddenly appeared all bruised up by the devil. Hard time explaining that to the media one would think.

Reading about St. Antony, we see him ask the Lord, after enduring torture from the Devil, “What took you so long?” (to bring relief). And God basically said “I was there the whole time and you will be rewarded for your endurance.” Kind of a non-satisfying answer - I was perhaps hoping for “you didn't ask for help!”. But St. Antony loved the response. Which is the way it seems to work - saints are very satisfied and edified by the responses of God. The prime example of this is Job in the Old Testament who receives the answer in a whirlwind, an answer very compelling to him. I take comfort in the fact that there IS a highly satisfying response, even if it's not particularly satisfying to me. Perhaps it's not important that I feel that relief until it's required or until this earthly trial is over.

*
Always fascinating to see a fight among the good Catholics on the 'net, in this case in a response to a column reputed to be a bit too relaxed on matters sexual. What really interested me was the guy's anti-Pelagian recognition that goodness and virtue comes from outside ourselves.

A padre disses the author but does touch on that mysterious realm of free will versus grace with this:

“Actually, Christian virtue is something “gotten directly,” by freely encountering the person of Christ through the means He Himself instituted in the Church. Virtue is something that Christ works in us without us. However, because it can only involve our freedom, as persons created in God’s image, it involves everything: knowledge, choice, love, affection, discipline, mortification, fear, desire—all of it. This is the mystery of grace and free will that has kept theologians and mystics busy for centuries.

Virtue is a habit that can only be formed by continuous pressure against the bad habit. That pressure is not simply negative energy. But neither is it mostly positive thinking. This being said, even the supernatural virtue of chastity is not of itself sufficient. That is why there are the Gifts of the Holy Spirit, whose effects are simply beyond anything that can be achieved by education, positive, nor negative, or by discipline.”

Pope Benedict also touched on this mystery in his recent book on Jesus, offering: "Grace and freedom are thoroughly interwoven, and we cannot unravel their interrelatedness into clear formulae."

*
And Eliz Duffy scores with a thought-provoking reflection on things:

“Maybe it’s something to do with the 2012 election, and Drudge-style media paranoia, but I’m just tired of skepticism, and conspiracies, and default positions that everyone in the world is trying to do me wrong. I wanted to go into labor trusting that I was in competent hands. I was in a new hospital with a new doctor, so it took a little leap of faith. Nothing about it was familiar. But I’ve been thinking a lot lately, in a lot of different situations, that ignorance can be a mercy.

I realize that’s not a popular position–no one wants to be taken by surprise, say, by the end of the world, by aggressive government policies, by cut-hungry OBs. But it was nice to go through Advent and the nativity right before delivery, thinking about how God entrusted himself in complete powerlessness to human caregivers. Why would God, who knows how wrong people can be, choose this kind of voluntary impotence?

My friend Pedge was telling me about a Fulton Sheen quote, in which people who have lost their fear of God tend to redirect their fears onto imaginary human assailants. There must always be an antagonist, whether it’s doctors or politicians or people who think or look differently. It’s so easy to consider oneself a potential victim, when what really motivates fear is an excess love of self....

To tell you the truth, I’m still trying to figure out what “Fear of God” is. But I think it has something to do with awe of Creation, and recognizing that everything that happens in it, including suffering, is God’s providence. 'Some people call pleasant things ‘providential.’ Mary and Joseph thought everything was. God is in everything and every place. Nothing is without God.”–Father Peyton's rosary book...

I’m trying to figure out if humility means entrusting oneself to the people and times with whom and in which I live...

'It is not life and its difficulties you have to conquer, only the self in you.' (From 365 One-Minute Meditations: God Calling edited by A.J. Russell.)"

* --

St. Antony, from a life of the saint:

"...in hideous shapes of the most frightful wild beasts, which they assumed to dismay and terrify him; till a ray of heavenly light breaking in upon him, chased them away, and caused him to cry out: “Where was thou, my Lord and my Master? Why wast thou not here, from the beginning of my conflict, to assuage my pains!” A voice answered: “Antony, I was here the whole time; I stood by thee, and beheld thy combat: and because thou hast manfully withstood thine enemies, I will always protect thee, and will render thy name famous throughout the earth.” At these words the saint arose, much cheered, and strengthened, to pray and return thanks to his deliverer."

Intriguing Quote

"Reason is always a kind of brute force; those who appeal to the head rather than the heart, however pallid and polite, are necessarily men of violence. We speak of 'touching' a man's heart, but we can do nothing to his head but hit it."
--G.K. Chesterton

Oh the sh*! Chesterton says!